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MIRROR MIRROR

Name: MIRROR MIRROR
Author: Stephanie Hart
ISBN: 978-0615498089

A COLLECTION OF MEMOIRS AND SHORT STORIES

by Stephanie Hart ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 16, 2012

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Hart’s memoir charts her psychological process of overcoming a painful childhood.

This bittersweet collage of memories is categorized into five sections. In Part I, “Childhood by the Sea,” Hart establishes the unsettling relationship she had with her parents, both of whom belittled and terrorized her in a household mired in conditional love. The chapter “Good Mother Bad Mother” shows her father’s frightening volatility when he discovers that she’s drawn on her bedroom wall. Her mother lovingly comforts her while condemning the father’s behavior. Soon after, the mother calls her stupid and ugly, illustrating the disjointed, inconsistent parenting her mother and father practiced. In Part II, Hart recalls her boarding-school years, when she made friends and her parents divorced. Part III covers high school and beyond: Kennedy’s assassination, literary enlightenment, the importance her mother placed on appearances, her father’s continued emotional cruelty. The author explores her Jewish roots in Part IV, revealing the origins of her parents’ psychological hang-ups. In Part V, she reconciles with her parents, their faults and the person she is today. Hart’s lyrical, well-paced prose saves her story from falling into the “poor me” category of memoirs. Her smooth writing style, sharp insights and eye for detail make her family problems compelling. But while interesting separately, the somewhat fragmented vignettes are more significant because Hart has rendered them into a complete picture. Indeed, this collection illustrates Socrates’ philosophy that “the unexamined life is not worth living.” As the author begins her story at childhood, moves forward in her history, jumps back two generations and returns to her present, she shows how she internalized the external factors that were beyond her control. Each section reads as though she intuitively regressed to capture the emotional mindset of whatever age she was recalling. She also reveals how she rose above the negativity and eventually realized her authentic self. The stories culled from her memory, as well as the way in which they’re analyzed and organized, map a process of overcoming childhood adversity. A hopeful, finely rendered portrait of a dysfunctional family and its effects on the author.

Pub Date: March 16, 2012

ISBN: 978-0615498089

Page Count: 224

Publisher: And Then Press

Review Posted Online: Jan. 3, 2012

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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CARRIE

by Stephen King ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 8, 1974

King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these...

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Figuratively and literally shattering moments of hoRRRRRipilication in Chamberlain, Maine where stones fly from the sky rather than from the hands of the villagers (as they did in "The Lottery," although the latter are equal to other forms of persecution).

All beginning when Carrie White discovers a gift with telekinetic powers (later established as a genetic fact), after she menstruates in full ignorance of the process and thinks she is bleeding to death while the other monsters in the high school locker room bait and bully her mercilessly. Carrie is the only child of a fundamentalist freak mother who has brought her up with a concept of sin which no blood of the Lamb can wash clean. In addition to a sympathetic principal and gym teacher, there's one girl who wishes to atone and turns her date for the spring ball over to Carrie who for the first time is happy, beautiful and acknowledged as such. But there will be hell to pay for this success—not only her mother but two youngsters who douse her in buckets of fresh-killed pig blood so that Carrie once again uses her "wild talent," flexes her mind and a complete catastrophe (explosion and an uncontrolled fire) virtually destroys the town.

King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these youngsters who once ate peanut butter now scrawl "Carrie White eats shit." But as they still say around here, "Sit a spell and collect yourself."

Pub Date: April 8, 1974

ISBN: 0385086954

Page Count: 216

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1974

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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OTHER WORLDS THAN THESE
by Stephen King & Peter Straub

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NEVER FLINCH
by Stephen King

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YOU LIKE IT DARKER
by Stephen King

- PERSPECTIVES
Appreciations: Carrie Turns 40

- SEEN & HEARD
Stephen King Used ‘Carrie’ Advance To Support Mom

- BOOK TO SCREEN
New ‘Carrie’ Series in the Works at Amazon

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

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A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.