An inspiring example of the power of determination.
Heartfelt memoir from the senator and Iraq War veteran.
Duckworth was born in Thailand in 1968, the biracial daughter of an enlisted American-born father and Thai-Chinese mother. As a child, she struggled with feeling “self-conscious about being different.” Her family also relocated frequently, which contributed to feelings of uncertainty about her future. In 1984, they moved to Hawaii. Due to her family’s financial situation, Duckworth held down numerous jobs while finishing high school. Although her life was stressful, she never gave up and was accepted to the University of Hawaii, where she got a bachelor’s degree in political science. “With all the moving around we’d done,” she writes, “and seeing up close the work my dad did with United Nations programs, I had developed a fascination with international affairs.” After earning her master’s degree in international affairs from George Washington University, she joined the Army ROTC and “fell for the Army like no one ever fell for the Army before.” Though she began a doctorate program, she interrupted her studies to serve (she later completed her Ph.D.). Defying the odds, she became one of the few female pilots to fly a Black Hawk helicopter. In 2004, while on a mission in Iraq, her “world exploded” when a rocket-propelled grenade hit her helicopter and “detonated in a violent fireball right in my lap.” She lost both legs and severely injured her right arm. During her long recovery, she met Sen. Dick Durbin and shared her thoughts about the desperate changes needed for women in the military, veterans, and their families. Durbin encouraged Duckworth to run for Congress. Feeling “a responsibility to be a voice for…young warriors,” she became an advocate for veterans and held numerous public offices before becoming a senator in 2016. Despite the scars of discrimination, poverty, and war, her commitment to the service of others has never wavered, and her moving story demonstrates that “healing is always possible, and that the low moments can lead to the greatest heights.”
An inspiring example of the power of determination.Pub Date: March 30, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5387-1850-6
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Twelve
Review Posted Online: Dec. 24, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2021
A charming and often poignant valediction from rock ’n’ roll’s Prince of Darkness.
The late heavy metal legend considers his mortality in this posthumous memoir.
“I ain’t ready to go anywhere,” writes Osbourne in the opening pages of his new memoir. “It’s good being alive. I like it. I want to be here with my family.” Given the context—Osbourne died on July 22, 2025, two weeks after the publisher announced the news of this book—it’s undeniably sad. But the rest of the text sees the Black Sabbath singer confronting the health struggles of his last years with dark humor and something approaching grace. The memoir begins in 2018; he wrote an earlier one, I Am Ozzy, in 2010. He tells of a staph infection he suffered that proved to be the start of a long, painful battle with various illnesses—soon after, he contracted a flu, which morphed into pneumonia. A spinal injury caused by a fall followed, causing him to undergo a series of surgeries and leaving him struggling with intense pain. And then there was his diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease, the treatment of which was complicated by his longtime struggle with alcohol and drug addiction. Osbourne peppers the chronicle of his final years with anecdotes from his past, growing up in Birmingham, England, and playing with—and then being fired from—Black Sabbath, and some of his most well-known antics (yes, he does address biting the heads off of a dove and a bat). He writes candidly and regretfully about the time he viciously attacked his wife, Sharon—the book is in many ways a love letter to her and his children. The memoir showcases Osbourne’s wit and charm; it’s rambling and disorganized, but so was he. It functions as both a farewell and a confession, and fans will likely find much to admire in this account. “Death’s been knocking at my door for the last six years, louder and louder,” he writes. “And at some point, I’m gonna have to let him in.”
A charming and often poignant valediction from rock ’n’ roll’s Prince of Darkness.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781538775417
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
