A Christianity-infused work that begins as a moral argument but devolves into exhaustive proselytizing.
Devine, in his nonfiction debut, argues for the Judeo-Christian ideal of forgiveness over the “principle of self-interest.”
The author’s motivation for writing this book-length essay stems from the anger he “feels towards evil, and a desire to expose deception and the satanic agenda”—namely, the frivolous, earthly preoccupations that have eliminated humanity’s need for God. In eight chapters, using a “combination of economic theory and Socratic logic”—and a painstaking reading of the Old and New Testaments—Devine asserts a number of theories and points of debate. He writes that the world was created with an emphasis on symmetry and a universal duality; as a result, he understands good and evil as absolutes. God’s decisions, says Devine, “are black and white; therefore our choices are black and white”; gray areas and confusion are the work of fallible humans. Although the author is personally opposed to abortion, he acknowledges that a woman’s right to choose “remains available, legally or otherwise.” The logical course of action for vehement anti-abortion advocates, he concludes, “is to pray for the woman to know God’s will.” At one point, Devine presents a striking metaphor, asking the reader to imagine that God is a mother bird, human beings are nestlings and Satan is gravity. However, Devine’s arguments become muddled by odd tangents, such as a paragraph on a “global monolithic conspiracy” supposedly responsible for President John F. Kennedy’s assassination. Generalizations abound, and many purported facts are either accepted on faith or cited from sources such as “economic studies in mental institutions,” documentaries on the Discovery Channel or the author’s friend’s girlfriend who works in a children’s hospital. Some readers may also find it difficult to accept the author’s assertion that “every biblical prophecy will come to pass.”
A Christianity-infused work that begins as a moral argument but devolves into exhaustive proselytizing.Pub Date: Oct. 22, 2012
ISBN: 978-1477535035
Page Count: 100
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2012
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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