An honest, heartbreaking story of a child exposed to prolonged war and how the psychological effects of war can linger into...
A beautifully written memoir about the author’s horrific childhood experiences in Latvia during World War II.
Referring to herself as Lara in her memoir, author Leinvebers goes back and forth between her present, when she is a world-renowned pianist living in Canada, and her childhood, when she endured extreme measures of brutality and abuse. Lara was 6 years old when World War II exploded into her life and changed everything. As a little girl, Lara was happy. She and her mother, father and older brother, Lars, lived in a beautiful home, had their own farm and plenty of animals that Lara loved to dote upon, especially her cat Mikus. On Christmas Eve, her severely wounded brother came to the door. He was found by soldiers, dragged away and killed. Lara and her parents suffered through tireless bombs, gunshots and mass destruction as everything around them was blown to bits. Lara was so horrified by the cruelty inflicted upon herself and others that, at one point, she became mute. Leinvebers writes with a simplicity that captures the thought process of a child living in fear. She reports—through the eyes and ears of a child—the destruction and inhumane treatment at the hands of those whom Lara calls “assassins.” Though these assassins abused and tormented her nearly every day, she and her parents fought to stay alive, and she kept her forgiving, loving nature. The author candidly discusses how that experience affected her life as an adult—she attempts to distract herself with her love of music and continually works to the point of exhaustion in an attempt to avoid thinking about what happened. Though she may now be far removed from the war in both time and place, the past always manages to find her, and her emotional scars and wounds are from far gone.
An honest, heartbreaking story of a child exposed to prolonged war and how the psychological effects of war can linger into adulthood.Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2011
ISBN: 978-1462058457
Page Count: 236
Publisher: iUniverse
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.
A coffee-table book celebrates Michelle Obama’s sense of fashion.
Illustrated with hundreds of full-color photographs, Obama’s chatty latest book begins with some school portraits from the author’s childhood in Chicago and fond memories of back-to-school shopping at Sears, then jumps into the intricacies of clothing oneself as the spouse of a presidential candidate and as the first lady. “People looked forward to the outfits, and once I got their attention, they listened to what I had to say. This is the soft power of fashion,” she says. Obama is grateful and frank about all the help she got along the way, and the volume includes a long section written by her primary wardrobe stylist, Koop—28 years old when she first took the job—and shorter sections by makeup artists and several hair stylists, who worked with wigs and hair extensions as Obama transitioned back to her natural hair, and grew out her bangs, at the end of her husband’s second term. Many of the designers of the author’s gowns, notably Jason Wu, who designed several of her more striking outfits, also contribute appreciative memories. Besides candid and more formal photographs, the volume features many sketches of her gowns by their designers, closeups on details of those gowns, and magazine covers from Better Homes & Gardens to Vogue. The author writes that as a Black woman, “I was under a particularly white-hot glare, constantly appraised for whether my outfits were ‘acceptable’ and ‘appropriate,’ the color of my skin somehow inviting even more judgment than the color of my dresses.” Overall, though, this is generally a canny, upbeat volume, with little in the way of surprising revelations.
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9780593800706
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
SEEN & HEARD
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
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