A well-written and thoughtful exploration of spirituality from a distinctly female perspective.
A former Olympian explores the sacred feminine.
In this debut self-help book, Claire shares her story of competing as an elite athlete and finding fulfillment through developing a spirituality that encompasses psychic awareness and an engagement with the female divine. In this guide, “W.I.T.C.H.” is an acronym that stands for “woman in total conscious healing,” a term the author applies to herself and other women who have embraced a holistic spirituality and taken control of their lives. Claire combines her personal story—growing up in a Scottish Irish family in Germany, fencing in the Olympics, immigrating to the United States—with advice for readers on developing their spiritual sides and finding happiness. Themed chapters move seamlessly between the two threads as the author uses her experience as an example, then offers a series of questions designed to encourage readers to explore each topic as it relates to their own lives. The book looks at how femininity has been represented and rejected in spiritual traditions, how a solid spiritual practice can lead to a sense of purpose, and how readers can build authentic and honest relationships. Claire is an engaging narrator with a fascinating and unique background, which makes the book intriguing and often compelling. She makes it clear from the opening pages that the volume’s target audience is women and addresses them exclusively. But it is not a guide for skeptics; readers should be prepared for frequent references to energy, vibrations, karma, and astrology, which are fundamental to the author’s experience of the world. Readers who are on their own mystical paths, particularly outside the bounds of mainstream religions, will find the manual useful, particularly when it addresses some of the challenges of incorporating spirituality into everyday life and the hazards of using spiritual engagement as a way to avoid dealing with underlying problems. While it is not a work for all readers, those who are part of its defined audience are likely to find it fits well on their shelves next to books by Gabrielle Bernstein and Marianne Williamson.
A well-written and thoughtful exploration of spirituality from a distinctly female perspective.Pub Date: March 8, 2023
ISBN: 9798986394305
Page Count: 204
Publisher: Siobhan Claire Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 8, 2022
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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