An often compelling story of tribulation and recovery.
Maher finds faith and inner strength in her battle against mental and physical illness in this inspirational memoir.
The author’s father died when she was 3 years old, and she was raised by her bipolar mother. Later, she spent time in foster care, during which she says she was physically and sexually abused; she also started cutting herself at a young age. After she was kicked out of her house on her 18th birthday, she joined the Air Force, but had to be hospitalized after a suicide attempt. She was diagnosed with depression, bipolar disorder, and PTSD, and soon afterward, she writes, she was shot by a police officer, charged with attempted murder, and jailed for six months—all before she was 22. A later suicide attempt landed her in an intensive care unit, paralyzed due to lesions on her spinal cord. After weeks of assessment, she was given an American Spinal Injury Association Impairment Scale score: “an A, only on this test A meant total paralysis,” she writes. Without helpful family members, a place to live, or sufficient medical treatment, Maher fought to maintain as much mobility and independence as possible. She writes that she was aided in her struggle by a newfound faith in God and her tenacity to survive in a world (and body) that seemed to want her dead. Maher’s prose is simple and direct, though sometimes flecked with typos and awkward syntax. She also sometimes leaves out pieces of information, which confuses the timeline and obscures the causes of some events. Even so, her story is so engaging, and her attitude so absent of self-pity, that readers will quickly forgive the prose’s lack of polish. Maher’s faith in God is strong, but her discussions of it don’t occupy much space in the text. Overall, the book is less a call to religion than it is an ode to determination and the transformative power that it can have on a person’s life.
An often compelling story of tribulation and recovery.Pub Date: Nov. 19, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4787-5914-0
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Outskirts
Review Posted Online: March 11, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
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