An earnest, uplifting self-help work that concludes awkwardly.
In this debut self-help memoir, a lifelong asthmatic rediscovers his love of bicycling, which he connects to life lessons.
While attending elementary school in the 1970s, Guerra loved football, but he struggled with annual bouts of tonsillitis. Spurred on by his coach, he succeeded in tackling players much larger than he was until middle school, when his classmates finally outgrew him. He also suffered from then-undiagnosed exercise-induced asthma, which dealt a further blow to his confidence. As a result, he didn’t take up sports again until he was in his 30s; this time, it was cycling, because of his fond memories of riding as a young man. Overweight, saddled with a sedentary job that he hated, and feeling unattractive (“I looked like a doughboy,” he writes), Guerra not only decided to shed the pounds but also to leave his high-salaried job. Drawing on retirement funds, he reinvented himself as a trainer, speaker, and writer. He also embarked on harrowing cycling challenges that required him to push his limits. Despite all of the back story, however, this book isn’t intended solely as a memoir, but also a self-help guide. The author quotes Albert Einstein (in the title) and motivational authors Dr. Wayne Dyer and Jack Canfield, among others. He concludes each chapter with “René’s Rules for the Road” which reiterate points, offer self-reflection exercises, and suggest techniques for living in the moment (“Don’t allow your ego to keep you from moving forward in your journey”). Overall, Guerra is a highly engaging storyteller, and he successfully draws parallels between lessons he’s learned while cycling and his optimistic outlook on life. The account of his mother’s death in 2016 and of being surrounded by butterflies on an exhausting multiday ride are particularly touching. He often references God throughout the text, but in an expansive, undogmatic way. However, in Chapter 11, Guerra quotes several testimonials from friends that could have been more organically woven into previous chapters.
An earnest, uplifting self-help work that concludes awkwardly.Pub Date: July 12, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5043-8245-8
Page Count: 121
Publisher: BalboaPress
Review Posted Online: Feb. 7, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Doyle offers another lucid, inspiring chronicle of female empowerment and the rewards of self-awareness and renewal.
More life reflections from the bestselling author on themes of societal captivity and the catharsis of personal freedom.
In her third book, Doyle (Love Warrior, 2016, etc.) begins with a life-changing event. “Four years ago,” she writes, “married to the father of my three children, I fell in love with a woman.” That woman, Abby Wambach, would become her wife. Emblematically arranged into three sections—“Caged,” “Keys,” “Freedom”—the narrative offers, among other elements, vignettes about the soulful author’s girlhood, when she was bulimic and felt like a zoo animal, a “caged girl made for wide-open skies.” She followed the path that seemed right and appropriate based on her Catholic upbringing and adolescent conditioning. After a downward spiral into “drinking, drugging, and purging,” Doyle found sobriety and the authentic self she’d been suppressing. Still, there was trouble: Straining an already troubled marriage was her husband’s infidelity, which eventually led to life-altering choices and the discovery of a love she’d never experienced before. Throughout the book, Doyle remains open and candid, whether she’s admitting to rigging a high school homecoming court election or denouncing the doting perfectionism of “cream cheese parenting,” which is about “giving your children the best of everything.” The author’s fears and concerns are often mirrored by real-world issues: gender roles and bias, white privilege, racism, and religion-fueled homophobia and hypocrisy. Some stories merely skim the surface of larger issues, but Doyle revisits them in later sections and digs deeper, using friends and familial references to personify their impact on her life, both past and present. Shorter pieces, some only a page in length, manage to effectively translate an emotional gut punch, as when Doyle’s therapist called her blooming extramarital lesbian love a “dangerous distraction.” Ultimately, the narrative is an in-depth look at a courageous woman eager to share the wealth of her experiences by embracing vulnerability and reclaiming her inner strength and resiliency.
Doyle offers another lucid, inspiring chronicle of female empowerment and the rewards of self-awareness and renewal.Pub Date: March 10, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-0125-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
PROFILES
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
A vibrant, encouraging depiction of a sinister disorder.
A British novelist turns to autobiography to report the manifold symptoms and management of his debilitating disease, depression.
Clever author Haig (The Humans, 2013, etc.) writes brief, episodic vignettes, not of a tranquil life but of an existence of unbearable, unsustainable melancholy. Throughout his story, presented in bits frequently less than a page long (e.g., “Things you think during your 1,000th panic attack”), the author considers phases he describes in turn as Falling, Landing, Rising, Living, and, finally, simply Being with spells of depression. Haig lists markers of his unseen disease, including adolescent angst, pain, continual dread, inability to speak, hypochondria, and insomnia. He describes his frequent panic attacks and near-constant anhedonia, the inability to experience pleasure. Haig also assesses the efficacy of neuroscience, yoga, St. John’s wort, exercise, pharmaceuticals, silence, talking, walking, running, staying put, and working up the courage to do even the most seemingly mundane of tasks, like visiting the village store. Best for the author were reading, writing, and the frequent dispensing of kindnesses and love. He acknowledges particularly his debt to his then-girlfriend, now-wife. After nearly 15 years, Haig is doing better. He appreciates being alive and savors the miracle of existence. His writing is infectious though sometimes facile—and grammarians may be upset with the writer’s occasional confusion of the nominative and objective cases of personal pronouns. Less tidy and more eclectic than William Styron’s equally brief, iconic Darkness Visible, Haig’s book provides unobjectionable advice that will offer some help and succor to those who experience depression and other related illnesses. For families and friends of the afflicted, Haig’s book, like Styron’s, will provide understanding and support.
A vibrant, encouraging depiction of a sinister disorder.Pub Date: Feb. 23, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-14-312872-4
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Penguin
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2015
SEEN & HEARD
Readers Donate Depression Book After Star Suicide
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