Difficult to read but ultimately hopeful and inspiring.
Shams’ memoir details her immigration journey and her survival of sexual abuse.
The author, a blogger, storyteller, podcast host, and nonprofit professional, presents a harrowing story of childhood in Bangladesh, discussing the sexual abuse she suffered there. Per Shams, her mother, while under the influence of local religious leaders (one of whom she lived with for two years), allowed her daughter to be repeatedly raped as a child. (“I paid no attention to my small hands and fragile body lying lifeless waiting for it to end. Golam said nothing to me, as he didn’t even notice me. Although he would say, ‘You whore,’ as he left the room.”) Shams’ memoir addresses the effects of lingering shame and enforced silence and explores how the eventual breaking of that silence made healing possible. The memoir’s other major narrative thread chronicles her immigration to America and her efforts to assimilate, learn English, and try to fit in when attending American schools, all the while dealing with the lingering effects of the abuse she’d survived. The latter part of the book covers the author’s struggle to create her own life by breaking free of her family’s traditions and expectations, most notably by going to college and rejecting an arranged marriage to someone selected for her by her parents. Shams also writes in detail about the role of therapy and therapists in her healing, particularly following a suicide attempt. (“No one had courage to throw me away. I had to do it. My hand scooped fist full after fist full of pills as I swallowed them down with wine.”) The book should include a content warning for readers, but unfortunately doesn’t; the early sections of the memoir make for very disturbing reading in their descriptions of the trauma the author endured as a child. Still, the book is valuable as a record of sexual abuse survival that demonstrates the real possibility of healing.
Difficult to read but ultimately hopeful and inspiring.Pub Date: March 25, 2024
ISBN: 9781957366203
Page Count: 226
Publisher: Editor-911 Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 28, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.
A coffee-table book celebrates Michelle Obama’s sense of fashion.
Illustrated with hundreds of full-color photographs, Obama’s chatty latest book begins with some school portraits from the author’s childhood in Chicago and fond memories of back-to-school shopping at Sears, then jumps into the intricacies of clothing oneself as the spouse of a presidential candidate and as the first lady. “People looked forward to the outfits, and once I got their attention, they listened to what I had to say. This is the soft power of fashion,” she says. Obama is grateful and frank about all the help she got along the way, and the volume includes a long section written by her primary wardrobe stylist, Koop—28 years old when she first took the job—and shorter sections by makeup artists and several hair stylists, who worked with wigs and hair extensions as Obama transitioned back to her natural hair, and grew out her bangs, at the end of her husband’s second term. Many of the designers of the author’s gowns, notably Jason Wu, who designed several of her more striking outfits, also contribute appreciative memories. Besides candid and more formal photographs, the volume features many sketches of her gowns by their designers, closeups on details of those gowns, and magazine covers from Better Homes & Gardens to Vogue. The author writes that as a Black woman, “I was under a particularly white-hot glare, constantly appraised for whether my outfits were ‘acceptable’ and ‘appropriate,’ the color of my skin somehow inviting even more judgment than the color of my dresses.” Overall, though, this is generally a canny, upbeat volume, with little in the way of surprising revelations.
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9780593800706
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
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
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