A rambling and confusing attempt to reconstruct a past life.
Frazier’s (Battle of Beginnings: Let there be Light!, 2016, etc.) presents a memoir of a previous existence in ancient Egypt.
The author is a believer in the idea that one’s soul is reincarnated in a new body after death. Although he says that’s he’s lived before in several times and places, this memoir focuses specifically on his life during the 18th and 19th Egyptian dynasties. At this time, Frazier says, he was known as Amenhotep and was a member of the royal family—the half brother of Tutankhamen—and served as both a servant and lover to the pharaoh, Seti I. As the author describes it, he was close to his family, especially his sisters, and he recalls moments of anger, laughter, dancing, and even death. One of the more intriguing aspects of Frazier’s memoir is how he says that his relationships in his previous life manifest in the present. For example, he says that he believes that three of his Egyptian sisters are now reincarnated as his co-workers at Dollar General and that another is a frequent customer. Seti I’s wife, “Tuya-reincarnate,” now works at a grocery store, he writes. Even Seti I’s reincarnation shows up in one of Frazier’s classes, he says, although their romance does not reignite. He devotes pages to his past relationship with Seti I, including several explicit sex scenes; however, Amenhotep ultimately met his demise at Seti’s hands during a battle, he writes. Throughout this memoir, the author offers numerous, disjointed memories and stories but little in the way of historical context or fact despite his claim that he “underwent some super intense massive research.” The disorganized narrative meanders through the past and present, veering off on tangents involving R&B music and actresses Angelina Jolie and Angela Bassett, the latter of whom, Frazier writes, was Seti I’s mother in a past life. Misspellings, improper punctuation, awkward sentence structure, and incorrect grammar are rampant: “I still have a bad habit of losing something, I wouldn’t be surprise if Egyptologists finds anything that belonged to me, because I’m good for losing anything.(Chuckling).”
A rambling and confusing attempt to reconstruct a past life.Pub Date: Aug. 21, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4910-9401-3
Page Count: 122
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Dec. 7, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Honest messages from one of America's best known women.
A compilation of advice from the Queen of All Media.
After writing a column for 14 years titled “What I Know For Sure” for O, The Oprah Winfrey Magazine, Winfrey brings together the highlights into one gift-ready collection. Grouped into themes like Joy, Resilience, Connection, Gratitude, Possibility, Awe, Clarity and Power, each short essay is the distilled thought of a woman who has taken the time to contemplate her life’s journey thus far. Whether she is discussing traveling across the country with her good friend, Gayle, the life she shares with her dogs or building a fire in the fireplace, Winfrey takes each moment and finds the good in it, takes pride in having lived it and embraces the message she’s received from that particular time. Through her actions and her words, she shows readers how she's turned potentially negative moments into life-enhancing experiences, how she's found bliss in simple pleasures like a perfectly ripe peach, and how she's overcome social anxiety to become part of a bigger community. She discusses the yo-yo dieting, exercise and calorie counting she endured for almost two decades as she tried to modify her physical body into something it was not meant to be, and how one day she decided she needed to be grateful for each and every body part: "This is the body you've been given—love what you've got." Since all of the sections are brief and many of the essays are only a couple paragraphs long—and many members of the target audience will have already read them in the magazine—they are best digested in short segments in order to absorb Winfrey's positive and joyful but repetitive message. The book also features a new introduction by the author.
Honest messages from one of America's best known women.Pub Date: Sept. 2, 2014
ISBN: 978-1250054050
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Flatiron View Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 22, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An eye-opening glimpse into the attempted self-unmaking of one of Hollywood’s most recognizable talents.
The debut memoir from the pop and fashion star.
Early on, Simpson describes the book she didn’t write: “a motivational manual telling you how to live your best life.” Though having committed to the lucrative deal years before, she “walked away,” fearing any sort of self-help advice she might give would be hypocritical. Outwardly, Simpson was at the peak of her success, with her fashion line generating “one billion dollars in annual sales.” However, anxiety was getting the better of her, and she admits she’d become a “feelings addict,” just needing “enough noise to distract me from the pain I’d been avoiding since childhood. The demons of traumatic abuse that refused to let me sleep at night—Tylenol PM at age twelve, red wine and Ambien as a grown, scared woman. Those same demons who perched on my shoulder, and when they saw a man as dark as them, leaned in to my ear to whisper, ‘Just give him your light. See if it saves him…’ ” On Halloween 2017, Simpson hit rock bottom, and, with the intervention of her devoted friends and husband, began to address her addictions and underlying fears. In this readable but overlong narrative, the author traces her childhood as a Baptist preacher’s daughter moving 18 times before she “hit fifth grade,” and follows her remarkable rise to fame as a singer. She reveals the psychological trauma resulting from years of sexual abuse by a family friend, experiences that drew her repeatedly into bad relationships with men, most publicly with ex-husband Nick Lachey. Admitting that she was attracted to the validating power of an audience, Simpson analyzes how her failings and triumphs have enabled her to take control of her life, even as she was hounded by the press and various music and movie executives about her weight. Simpson’s memoir contains plenty of personal and professional moments for fans to savor. One of Kirkus and Rolling Stone’s Best Music Books of 2020.
An eye-opening glimpse into the attempted self-unmaking of one of Hollywood’s most recognizable talents.Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-289996-5
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Dey Street/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
© Copyright 2024 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.
bookshelf
