A chatty guide to surviving the single life from a traditional, marriage-oriented perspective.
A debut motivational work encourages single women to love themselves first.
Olaniyan used to feel bad about being single. Part of this attitude came from other people. The author recounts one particular Thanksgiving when her aunt and uncle told her that there must be something wrong with her since she hadn’t found a husband yet. “My single life was miserable,” recalls Olaniyan. “When I got tired of this misery, I had to be deliberate about finding the root cause of my situation. You can bet I found it: perspective. Perspective was my miracle, not finding a man.” With this book, the author sheds light on achieving a healthy mindset during singledom. The most important tip for singletons is that they should get to know themselves rather than waiting for someone else to come around and provide them with an identity. She cautions women to think about what married life really entails—and whether they are even ready for it—while encouraging them not to settle for unworthy partners. The whole point is that, in order to find Mr. Right, you must first turn yourself into Ms. Right: be the woman whom you want to be and whom the man you want would be excited to meet. The author believes that it is God who ultimately connects people and that women must have faith that he will lead them to their perfect mates. She also discusses dating strategies and ultimately reveals the story of how she found her own Mr. Right. Olaniyan’s prose is cheerful and easygoing, if not always completely smooth: “Your life is like a house. How can you show people around a house you are not familiar with? When people come into your life, it is your responsibility to show them around, educate them on what the house really stands for, and keep them out of rooms where they shouldn’t be.” Her advice will likely strike some as overly traditional. It is rooted in Christianity and the Bible (the word “helpmeet” appears twice), and the goal is to eventually find a husband, not to stay single forever. But for those with a similar worldview and aim, the author’s positivity will likely assuage any doubts.
A chatty guide to surviving the single life from a traditional, marriage-oriented perspective.Pub Date: June 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-973662-79-2
Page Count: 142
Publisher: Westbow Press
Review Posted Online: April 8, 2020
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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