It’s a feel-good tale of triumph, but one that frequently gets distracted from its purpose.
A memoir of Falack’s movement from painfully obsessed victim to Kripalu-certified yoga instructor.
In her formative years of frizzy hair and grades low enough to class her with a student who had Down syndrome, Falack was all too acquainted with feeling abnormal. But she didn’t know to question the normality of escaping from bad situations by counting—counting ceiling tiles, freckles within each tile, the facial features of people she was talking to, the number of letters in a neon sign and more. While there are early allusions to grim memories regarding her nanny, Naomi, Falack reports it wasn’t until a hypnosis session with her first psychiatrist that she confronted the residual terror left by Naomi’s stomach-churning breed of abuse. This revelation is pivotal to the titular journey; much of what the author describes, at length, is not. A detailed depiction of the young romance that blossomed into marriage, for instance, might fit if it was woven together with Falack’s reflections and fears about what she didn’t yet know to call a condition. As is, this section and others like it only upstage her struggles. Falack continued slipping out of the present moment and into the safety enumeration offered through her pot-smoking, mouthy, boy-crazed high school years and on into marriage and motherhood. Not until she was a grown woman having braved turbulent childbirths and her husband’s battle with addiction did she go to the psychiatrist who would finally diagnose her. She turned to Dr. Levine shortly after beginning yoga class; she credits the meditative aura of yoga with helping her recognize just how aggressive her bouts of counting had grown. On the tail of learning that her problem had a name, she learned that OCD was treatable with medicine—a variety of medicines actually. She went through the medication turnstiles in an attempt to rid herself of side effects from cottonmouth to night sweats that left her soaked. With the thought in mind that there had to be a better solution, she became more involved with yogic practices and retreats, eventually making the ascension from student to teacher.
It’s a feel-good tale of triumph, but one that frequently gets distracted from its purpose.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2010
ISBN: 978-1452079189
Page Count: 189
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: Nov. 1, 2010
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
One of the NBA’s 50 greatest players scores another basket—a deeply personal one.
A basketball legend reflects on his life in the game and a life lived in the “nightmare of endlessly repetitive and constant pain, agony, and guilt.”
Walton (Nothing but Net, 1994, etc.) begins this memoir on the floor—literally: “I have been living on the floor for most of the last two and a half years, unable to move.” In 2008, he suffered a catastrophic spinal collapse. “My spine will no longer hold me,” he writes. Thirty-seven orthopedic injuries, stemming from the fact that he had malformed feet, led to an endless string of stress fractures. As he notes, Walton is “the most injured athlete in the history of sports.” Over the years, he had ground his lower extremities “down to dust.” Walton’s memoir is two interwoven stories. The first is about his lifelong love of basketball, the second, his lifelong battle with injuries and pain. He had his first operation when he was 14, for a knee hurt in a basketball game. As he chronicles his distinguished career in the game, from high school to college to the NBA, he punctuates that story with a parallel one that chronicles at each juncture the injuries he suffered and overcame until he could no longer play, eventually turning to a successful broadcasting career (which helped his stuttering problem). Thanks to successful experimental spinal fusion surgery, he’s now pain-free. And then there’s the music he loves, especially the Grateful Dead’s; it accompanies both stories like a soundtrack playing off in the distance. Walton tends to get long-winded at times, but that won’t be news to anyone who watches his broadcasts, and those who have been afflicted with lifelong injuries will find the book uplifting and inspirational. Basketball fans will relish Walton’s acumen and insights into the game as well as his stories about players, coaches (especially John Wooden), and games, all told in Walton’s fervent, witty style.
One of the NBA’s 50 greatest players scores another basket—a deeply personal one.Pub Date: March 8, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4767-1686-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
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