An ambitious, actionable guide to self-improvement that occasionally minimizes obstacles.
The author introduces the hero’s journey, highlighting the importance of conflict. In an example using the film Titanic, Emmrich notes that the movie would be nothing without the iceberg. He then demonstrates how to graph a life story using the STARR (Situation, Task, Action, Result, Reflection) framework to discover advantageous patterns and avoid mistakes. The guide contrasts natural laws (e.g., people must eat to survive) with “man-made rules” (a rigid work schedule set by a boss) to help readers differentiate between fixed and flexible goals. Emmrich explains how expectations shape what’s achievable (“Are you working on the correct tasks or are you working correctly, but on the wrong tasks?”). To counteract learned helplessness and causal attributions, the author advises identifying exceptions that have led to positive results. He also describes the role of “co-authors,” including loved ones, and how others’ agendas can hijack a life script. The guide details innate, assigned, and self-selected social roles and how to shift from role-taking to role-making. Emmrich promises that “before long, you’ll be crowning your own life script with your personal happy ending.” This thought-provoking book offers insight into failure by analyzing past decisions and suggests ways to course-correct through reframing. Concepts are cleverly named, such as “The Astronaut Method,” which involves viewing problems from a distant, emotionally detached perspective. The book’s four-level goals model (learning, behavioral, outcome, and role goals) demonstrates how consistent habits garner results. The modern, colorful graphic design translates abstract ideas into visuals that are easy to grasp and implement. However, some of the metaphors feel strained, like the suggestion that everyone carries a “diamond necklace” of life stories, in which adverse experiences can be polished into brilliant gems. The book also downplays the systemic barriers that influence outcomes.
An ambitious, actionable guide to self-improvement that occasionally minimizes obstacles.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2026
ISBN: 9798272944122
Page Count: 259
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Nov. 27, 2025
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 sweet final word from an actor who leaves a legacy of compassion and kindness.
The late actor offers a gentle guide for living with more purpose, love, and joy.
Mixing poetry, prescriptive challenges, and elements of memoir, Heche (1969-2022) delivers a narrative that is more encouraging workbook than life story. The author wants to share what she has discovered over the course of a life filled with abuse, advocacy, and uncanny turning points. Her greatest discovery? Love. “Open yourself up to love and transform kindness from a feeling you extend to those around you to actions that you perform for them,” she writes. “Only by caring can we open ourselves up to the universe, and only by opening up to the universe can we fully experience all the wonders that it holds, the greatest of which is love.” Throughout the occasionally overwrought text, Heche is heavy on the concept of care. She wants us to experience joy as she does, and she provides a road map for how to get there. Instead of slinking away from Hollywood and the ridicule that she endured there, Heche found the good and hung on, with Alec Baldwin and Harrison Ford starring as particularly shining knights in her story. Some readers may dismiss this material as vapid Hollywood stuff, but Heche’s perspective is an empathetic blend of Buddhism (minimize suffering), dialectical behavioral therapy (tolerating distress), Christianity (do unto others), and pre-Socratic philosophy (sufficient reason). “You’re not out to change the whole world, but to increase the levels of love and kindness in the world, drop by drop,” she writes. “Over time, these actions wear away the coldness, hate, and indifference around us as surely as water slowly wearing away stone.” Readers grieving her loss will take solace knowing that she lived her love-filled life on her own terms. Heche’s business and podcast partner, Heather Duffy, writes the epilogue, closing the book on a life well lived.
A sweet final word from an actor who leaves a legacy of compassion and kindness.Pub Date: Jan. 24, 2023
ISBN: 9781627783316
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Viva Editions
Review Posted Online: Feb. 6, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2023
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