A thoughtfully constructed guide to leaving a legacy.
Writer/consultant Weijo was struck by “the power and importance of legacy” by three events: the birth of his granddaughter, learning he had cancer, and the discovery of old coins collected by himself, his wife and their parents. This led him to formulate his own process for creating a legacy “focused on helping future generations avoid missteps and guiding them with the knowledge and heritage of past generations.” In this brief yet informative guide, Weijo first talks about the meaning of legacy and then explores the effect one’s ancestors can have on future generations through a novel example: Barack Obama. “It was a very complex legacy provided from two different continents,” Weijo writes. “Such a rich legacy our president was given by those who came before him.” Weijo acknowledges that other factors also influenced Obama’s rise to the presidency, but the impact of his ancestry is nothing if not intriguing. Next, Weijo adeptly covers the benefits derived from creating a legacy, guiding the reader through the legacy creation process: how to decide on scope, determine themes and recipients, select gifts and create action plans, etc. The author makes a salient point along the way: “Legacy gifts do not have to be just money or property; remember to also share your values and wisdom.” In fact, Weijo describes how he used the coins he found as the basis for an ongoing collection that both represents his family’s timeline and gives him the opportunity to educate his granddaughter about such good ideas as investing for the long term. Included in the book, and on a companion website, are useful forms—input worksheets and legacy theme worksheets—to help facilitate the creation of a legacy plan. Weijo appends his own legacy plan as a detailed example for the reader. Interspersed throughout his book are quality black-and-white photos, captionless but presumably of some of Weijo’s family members.
Clear, concise, and well-written; a finely crafted manual offering instructive and valuable assistance to those who want to leave a lasting legacy.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5454-8595-8
Page Count: 154
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Categories: SELF-HELP
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Doyle offers another lucid, inspiring chronicle of female empowerment and the rewards of self-awareness and renewal.
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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
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
Categories: GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | SELF-HELP
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PROFILES
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
The creator and host of the titular podcast recounts his lifelong struggles with depression.
With the increasing success of his podcast, Moe, a longtime radio personality and author whose books include The Deleted E-Mails of Hillary Clinton: A Parody (2015), was encouraged to open up further about his own battles with depression and delve deeper into characteristics of the disease itself. Moe writes about how he has struggled with depression throughout his life, and he recounts similar experiences from the various people he has interviewed in the past, many of whom are high-profile entertainers and writers—e.g. Dick Cavett and Andy Richter, novelist John Green. The narrative unfolds in a fairly linear fashion, and the author relates his family’s long history with depression and substance abuse. His father was an alcoholic, and one of his brothers was a drug addict. Moe tracks how he came to recognize his own signs of depression while in middle school, as he experienced the travails of OCD and social anxiety. These early chapters alternate with brief thematic “According to THWoD” sections that expand on his experiences, providing relevant anecdotal stories from some of his podcast guests. In this early section of the book, the author sometimes rambles. Though his experiences as an adolescent are accessible, he provides too many long examples, overstating his message, and some of the humor feels forced. What may sound naturally breezy in his podcast interviews doesn’t always strike the same note on the written page. The narrative gains considerable momentum when Moe shifts into his adult years and the challenges of balancing family and career while also confronting the devastating loss of his brother from suicide. As he grieved, he writes, his depression caused him to experience “a salad of regret, anger, confusion, and horror.” Here, the author focuses more attention on the origins and evolution of his series, stories that prove compelling as well.
The book would have benefited from a tighter structure, but it’s inspiring and relatable for readers with depression.Pub Date: May 5, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-20928-3
Page Count: 304
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
Categories: PSYCHOLOGY | SELF-HELP
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