A deeply personal story of ayahuasca’s transformative role in one woman’s life.
A debut author shares her revelatory experiences with ayahuasca in this memoir.
When Nering went on her first ayahuasca retreat, she felt uneasy as a 50-year-old woman partaking in a therapeutic ritual alongside those with “real trauma.” A former TV host for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and producer of internationally syndicated reality TV shows, the author seemingly led a charmed existence. She and her husband, Josh, had a solid marriage, were in good health, and lived comfortably with two kids and a dog. Yet, beneath the surface of her “supposedly perfect life” (which Nering details in a nonchronological narrative that jumps across multiple timelines), not all was well. The author focuses on ayahuasca’s role in awakening her to her newfound freedom and spirituality as well as a mystical connection to herself and nature. She also offers poignant reflections on the social expectations of women as mothers and wives; she offers candid observations about her sex life with Josh as well as the constant juggling of kids’ schedules and family routines that inevitably falls on mothers. The author’s quest for freedom and a lifestyle that would transcend Western materialism led her to try ayahuasca and relocate her family to the Hawaiian island of Kauai. There, she reconnected with swimming, the passion of her childhood, and she offers readers an intriguing glimpse into the subculture of Pacific surfing. Writing in a conversational style, Nering recounts autobiographical episodes and offers dreamlike explorations of her ayahuasca-fueled visions. She describes her revelations in detailed recollections that are rich in metaphor. “When used properly,” she asserts, ayahuasca “is not escapism—it is revelation.” A profoundly honest storyteller, Nering is careful not to mythologize her midlife “grand adventure” as she describes the logistical challenges of living on a remote island. The intimate text is supplemented by multiple pages of questions for group discussion and personal reflection, as well as a preview of Nering’s sequel to this memoir, which ends in 2021.
A deeply personal story of ayahuasca’s transformative role in one woman’s life.Pub Date: April 21, 2026
ISBN: 9798896361244
Page Count: 352
Publisher: She Writes Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.
A noted actor turns to verse: “Poems are a Saturday in the middle of the week.”
McConaughey, author of the gracefully written memoir Greenlights, has been writing poems since his teens, closing with one “written in an Australian bathtub” that reads just as a poem by an 18-year-old (Rimbaud excepted) should read: “Ignorant minds of the fortunate man / Blind of the fate shaping every land.” McConaughey is fearless in his commitment to the rhyme, no matter how slight the result (“Oops, took a quick peek at the sky before I got my glasses, / now I can’t see shit, sure hope this passes”). And, sad to say, the slight is what is most on display throughout, punctuated by some odd koanlike aperçus: “Eating all we can / at the all-we-can-eat buffet, / gives us a 3.8 education / and a 4.2 GPA.” “Never give up your right to do the next right thing. This is how we find our way home.” “Memory never forgets. Even though we do.” The prayer portion of the program is deeply felt, but it’s just as sentimental; only when he writes of life-changing events—a court appearance to file a restraining order against a stalker, his decision to quit smoking weed—do we catch a glimpse of the effortlessly fluent, effortlessly charming McConaughey as exemplified by the David Wooderson (“alright, alright, alright”) of Dazed and Confused. The rest is mostly a soufflé in verse. McConaughey’s heart is very clearly in the right place, but on the whole the book suggests an old saw: Don’t give up your day job.
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781984862105
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
A conversational, pleasurable look into McConaughey’s life and thought.
All right, all right, all right: The affable, laconic actor delivers a combination of memoir and self-help book.
“This is an approach book,” writes McConaughey, adding that it contains “philosophies that can be objectively understood, and if you choose, subjectively adopted, by either changing your reality, or changing how you see it. This is a playbook, based on adventures in my life.” Some of those philosophies come in the form of apothegms: “When you can design your own weather, blow in the breeze”; “Simplify, focus, conserve to liberate.” Others come in the form of sometimes rambling stories that never take the shortest route from point A to point B, as when he recounts a dream-spurred, challenging visit to the Malian musician Ali Farka Touré, who offered a significant lesson in how disagreement can be expressed politely and without rancor. Fans of McConaughey will enjoy his memories—which line up squarely with other accounts in Melissa Maerz’s recent oral history, Alright, Alright, Alright—of his debut in Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused, to which he contributed not just that signature phrase, but also a kind of too-cool-for-school hipness that dissolves a bit upon realizing that he’s an older guy on the prowl for teenage girls. McConaughey’s prep to settle into the role of Wooderson involved inhabiting the mind of a dude who digs cars, rock ’n’ roll, and “chicks,” and he ran with it, reminding readers that the film originally had only three scripted scenes for his character. The lesson: “Do one thing well, then another. Once, then once more.” It’s clear that the author is a thoughtful man, even an intellectual of sorts, though without the earnestness of Ethan Hawke or James Franco. Though some of the sentiments are greeting card–ish, this book is entertaining and full of good lessons.
A conversational, pleasurable look into McConaughey’s life and thought.Pub Date: Oct. 20, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-13913-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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