A supermodel-thin volume of upbeat, can-do mantras that would prosper with a higher page count.
In her debut self-help guide, Chastain, a successful businesswoman, encourages readers with examples of good fortune, serendipity and intuition from her own life.
Anything is possible if you just believe, Chastain says in the Horatio Alger–esque story of her own life. The narrative leapfrogs over much of the expected autobiographical material straight ahead to several life-altering incidents that attempt to prove her point. Showing a bent toward the mystical, the author recounts how a heavily metaphorical dream steered her away from a duplicitous college boyfriend who might have financially destroyed her—or worse. During a relatively thankless retail job, Chastain’s attention to customer service leads to her proverbial “big break.” Later, grappling over whether to remain at the sexist workplace that paid her relocation fee or accept a competing, tempting counteroffer, Chastain makes a tough choice based more on ethics than comfort; the positive outcome is surprising. Chastain’s willingness to take on new challenges even leads to a temporary but satisfying brush with Hollywood glamour, though no celebrity identities or project titles are given. In fact, the author’s coy refusal to name names or go into much detail in these true-life parables is often a drawback. Even though this book keeps the focus on life lessons in a refreshing change from tell-all exhibitionism, the author’s bare-bones approach leaves this slim volume a bit too slender. The author went from a small town, South Carolina upbringing to her present residence in Switzerland, and readers will be left hungry for a fuller description of how that happened. As it stands, this volume is a collection of widely scattered milestones. The book’s brevity is all the more frustrating because Chastain exhibits a knack for easy storytelling; reading her prose is like listening to an old friend.
A supermodel-thin volume of upbeat, can-do mantras that would prosper with a higher page count.Pub Date: Jan. 5, 2012
ISBN: 978-1467001045
Page Count: 60
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: April 18, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
A wonderful page-turner written with humility, immediacy, and great style. Nothing came cheap and easy to McCandless, nor...
The excruciating story of a young man on a quest for knowledge and experience, a search that eventually cooked his goose, told with the flair of a seasoned investigative reporter by Outside magazine contributing editor Krakauer (Eiger Dreams, 1990).
Chris McCandless loved the road, the unadorned life, the Tolstoyan call to asceticism. After graduating college, he took off on another of his long destinationless journeys, this time cutting all contact with his family and changing his name to Alex Supertramp. He was a gent of strong opinions, and he shared them with those he met: "You must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life''; "be nomadic.'' Ultimately, in 1992, his terms got him into mortal trouble when he ran up against something—the Alaskan wild—that didn't give a hoot about Supertramp's worldview; his decomposed corpse was found 16 weeks after he entered the bush. Many people felt McCandless was just a hubris-laden jerk with a death wish (he had discarded his map before going into the wild and brought no food but a bag of rice). Krakauer thought not. Admitting an interest that bordered on obsession, he dug deep into McCandless's life. He found a willful, reckless, moody boyhood; an ugly little secret that sundered the relationship between father and son; a moral absolutism that agitated the young man's soul and drove him to extremes; but he was no more a nutcase than other pilgrims. Writing in supple, electric prose, Krakauer tries to make sense of McCandless (while scrupulously avoiding off-the-rack psychoanalysis): his risky behavior and the rites associated with it, his asceticism, his love of wide open spaces, the flights of his soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-42850-X
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Villard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1995
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