Hill (Forgiving Them, 2013, etc.) details her journey from a childhood of poverty to an adulthood of success.
Growing up with a difficult mother, a sexually abusive acquaintance and an awful diet—“A typical meal might be spaghetti with butter, salt, and pepper on it or potatoes with butter, salt, and pepper….No fruit, no vegetables, no nutrients, in my mind”—Hill had a childhood that was far from simple. Born in 1949 in an America still in the thralls of racial discrimination, Hill, who is black, found that race was always an issue. And whether in the form of institutional segregation, the views espoused by her mother or in the opinions of other people, race is a frequent issue throughout the book. In response to her outgoing personality as a child, Hill says, “I was singled out as an ‘Oreo,’ people saying that I was ‘trying to be white.’ ” Despite racial animosity, a teenage pregnancy, and a variety of other trials ranging from learning to drive to learning to forgive, the author nonetheless relates a success story founded on hard work and an unfaltering belief in God. After developing a desire to become an electroencephalogram technician, she overcame adversity through perseverance, a faith in the Almighty, and a general belief that everything happens for a reason. “Through tenacity, I know that what happened to me was not accidental—was not coincidental, but providential,” she says. Alive with details and inner reflections, the book makes the author’s journey a truly personal one, with the different stages of her life made real and understandable for readers. Why did she become so entranced with becoming an EEG technician? Why was it so important for her to learn how to drive? The answers here are fleshed out with the thought processes that surrounded them. Occasional portions (such as early struggles with her mother) can prove repetitive, yet the overall result is an authentic, ultimately triumphant story.
An inspirational memoir born from the fruits of hard work and faith.
Pub Date: May 21, 2014
ISBN: 978-0615948584
Page Count: 302
Publisher: Rosie M. Hill
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
IN THE NEWS
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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