A quietly powerful debut that offers solace and possibility for people with Parkinson’s.
Whittingham, an Ohio-based medical doctor, offers a community-driven debut that views Parkinson’s disease as a long, navigable journey, shaped by goal-setting, a clear outlook, and even humor.
The author writes from the dual vantage point of physician and patient, pairing medical literacy with lived experience to help adults with Parkinson’s disease and the people who support them. The author, a U.S. Air Force veteran and endurance athlete, brings a disciplined, pragmatic sensibility to a project that functions as steady accompaniment through diagnosis, adaptation, and sustained engagement. The narrative opens with Whittingham’s diagnosis in 2020 at the age of 46, after she noticed what’s known as a unilateral resting tremor, and it follows the destabilizing first year of living with the disease. Fear, grief, depression, and acute episodes of panic and anxiety surfaced alongside medication challenges and a professional reckoning that forced her to reassess her identity and capacity. By beginning with uncertainty rather than mastery, Whittingham establishes readers’ trust early on, resisting heroic framing and acknowledging the emotional reality that many newly diagnosed readers will likely recognize but rarely see portrayed. Early reframing, including a shift from “patient” to “person with Parkinson’s,” signal an emphasis on agency without denying loss. On this personal foundation, Whittingham builds a structured, community-centered guide in eight parts that move from diagnosis and mindset through relationships, medical foundations, and whole-person care. The book is shaped by recurring narrative features, such as “Water Breaks,” “Lemonade Stands,” and ACE (“Adapt, Conquer, and Empower”) profiles, offering moments of reflection and lived examples that reinforce the central argument that Parkinson’s is an individual diagnosis but not an individual journey. These features function not as ornament but as reader support, and they make difficult material easier to grasp.
Over the course of this debut guide, the author offers scientific explanations when they matter most. She describes Parkinson’s biology, symptom patterns, and progression in accessible language, grounding the discussion in observation and current scientific understanding. Her refusal to promise cures or predict definitive trajectories adds credibility to the work, and it may comfort readers who, soon after diagnosis, feel overwhelmed by conflicting information. This feeling of restraint extends to discussions of care teams and medications, in which partnership, informed dialogue, and realistic expectations take precedence over prescriptive authority. The latter sections adopt a whole-person approach influenced by Whittingham’s athletic mindset. She positions exercise as foundational, supported by attention to sleep, nutrition, social connection, and other elements. Rather than advancing rigid protocols, the author encourages experimentation and close self-observation—an approach that respects the variability of Parkinson’s and avoids the moral pressure common in wellness discourse. Empowerment comes not from control, but from participation. Overall, Whittingham demonstrates confidence in her conversational tone and recurring devices, which work together to create continuity and reassurance. Her measured approach, which is grounded equally in medical knowledge and lived experience, offers readers permission to move forward, even if they feel uncertain about where their road will take them.
A quietly powerful debut that offers solace and possibility for people with Parkinson’s.Pub Date: Jan. 18, 2026
ISBN: 9781970468014
Page Count: 338
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.
A former New York City dancer reflects on her zesty heyday in the 1970s.
Discovered on a Manhattan street in 2020 and introduced on Stanton’s Humans of New York Instagram page, Johnson, then 76, shares her dynamic history as a “fiercely independent” Black burlesque dancer who used the stage name Tanqueray and became a celebrated fixture in midtown adult theaters. “I was the only black girl making white girl money,” she boasts, telling a vibrant story about sex and struggle in a bygone era. Frank and unapologetic, Johnson vividly captures aspects of her former life as a stage seductress shimmying to blues tracks during 18-minute sets or sewing lingerie for plus-sized dancers. Though her work was far from the Broadway shows she dreamed about, it eventually became all about the nightly hustle to simply survive. Her anecdotes are humorous, heartfelt, and supremely captivating, recounted with the passion of a true survivor and the acerbic wit of a weathered, street-wise New Yorker. She shares stories of growing up in an abusive household in Albany in the 1940s, a teenage pregnancy, and prison time for robbery as nonchalantly as she recalls selling rhinestone G-strings to prostitutes to make them sparkle in the headlights of passing cars. Complemented by an array of revealing personal photographs, the narrative alternates between heartfelt nostalgia about the seedier side of Manhattan’s go-go scene and funny quips about her unconventional stage performances. Encounters with a variety of hardworking dancers, drag queens, and pimps, plus an account of the complexities of a first love with a drug-addled hustler, fill out the memoir with personality and candor. With a narrative assist from Stanton, the result is a consistently titillating and often moving story of human struggle as well as an insider glimpse into the days when Times Square was considered the Big Apple’s gloriously unpolished underbelly. The book also includes Yee’s lush watercolor illustrations.
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.Pub Date: July 12, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-27827-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2022
A juicy story with some truly crazy moments, yet Anderson's good heart shines through.
The iconic model tells the story of her eventful life.
According to the acknowledgments, this memoir started as "a fifty-page poem and then grew into hundreds of pages of…more poetry." Readers will be glad that Anderson eventually turned to writing prose, since the well-told anecdotes and memorable character sketches are what make it a page-turner. The poetry (more accurately described as italicized notes-to-self with line breaks) remains strewn liberally through the pages, often summarizing the takeaway or the emotional impact of the events described: "I was / and still am / an exceptionally / easy target. / And, / I'm proud of that." This way of expressing herself is part of who she is, formed partly by her passion for Anaïs Nin and other writers; she is a serious maven of literature and the arts. The narrative gets off to a good start with Anderson’s nostalgic memories of her childhood in coastal Vancouver, raised by very young, very wild, and not very competent parents. Here and throughout the book, the author displays a remarkable lack of anger. She has faced abuse and mistreatment of many kinds over the decades, but she touches on the most appalling passages lightly—though not so lightly you don't feel the torment of the media attention on the events leading up to her divorce from Tommy Lee. Her trip to the pages of Playboy, which involved an escape from a violent fiance and sneaking across the border, is one of many jaw-dropping stories. In one interesting passage, Julian Assange's mother counsels Anderson to desexualize her image in order to be taken more seriously as an activist. She decided that “it was too late to turn back now”—that sexy is an inalienable part of who she is. Throughout her account of this kooky, messed-up, enviable, and often thrilling life, her humility (her sons "are true miracles, considering the gene pool") never fails her.
A juicy story with some truly crazy moments, yet Anderson's good heart shines through.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2023
ISBN: 9780063226562
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Dey Street/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
