Up-and-down, humorous and/or serious essays that run through the gauntlet that comprises life.
The bestselling author of How to Be a Woman (2012) compiles columns on all aspects of life into one giant explosion of thoughts.
Quirky, funny, stupid, serious, compassionate, and thoughtful are just some of the adjectives necessary to describe Moran’s (How to Build a Girl, 2014, etc.) British-centric compilation of essays on just about anything that has happened to her. Want to know her thoughts on cystitis, printers, the 5:2 diet (“wherein the dieter eats perfectly normally for five days of the week—then spends the remaining two days on a very restrictive diet”), the song “Get Lucky,” seven things about fashion every woman should know, or Lena Dunham and Girls? Look no further. Interested in Moran’s take on Margaret Thatcher’s death, bus tour guides, how she learned about sex, or her love for David Bowie? That’s here as well. Fortunately, the author does delve into more than these fluff pieces, addressing tough issues like rape, female genital mutilation, what it means to be a feminist, the body issues women face, immigration, war, terrorism, and the problems with social media, including the ease with which people can harass others online. The tone is satirical, humorous, serious, or snarky, depending on the topic. Some of the commentaries include locker-room humor, which sits awkwardly next to the more significant discussions of important issues. In attempting to address everything and find a common theme, “the same old problems and the same old asshats,” Moran has created a mishmash that leaves readers laughing one minute and begging for more seriousness the next. Her observations on somber topics are the highlights, giving readers a better sense of the compassionate, intelligent woman behind the prose.
Up-and-down, humorous and/or serious essays that run through the gauntlet that comprises life.Pub Date: Nov. 29, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-243375-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Perennial/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 23, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2016
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
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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