by Daniel Farber Huang ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 6, 2023
A wise and easy-to-read manual for thriving in Ivy League admissions and beyond.
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Huang presents a how-to guide for college-bound students applying to Ivy League schools.
From the introduction, the author makes it clear that his book is aimed at prospective university students who wish to “present themselves in their best, most brilliant light without coming across as egotistical, entitled, or just unpleasant to be around.” In a separate letter to parents, he notes that the Ivy League schools aren’t a good fit for everyone, and that he won’t be providing the typical recommendations for extracurriculars and AP classes that other guides do. What Huang offers instead is the perspective of an admission reader—the “tired, overworked, bleary-eyed” person speed-reading through the digital records of thousands of students. Given the nature of modern-day admissions, he advises teens to start early by developing their “personal brand,” ensuring that their actions and choices reflect the persona they wish to convey in essays, resumes, and recommendation letters. In the book’s second section, Huang breaks down his advice into easily applicable “tactics, techniques, and procedures.” Throughout, his tone is honest, sometimes hard-nosed, and intended for the student (or parent) who wants to understand how the process really works. Huang offers personal anecdotes about former clients he’s helped, including a student who applied to the top 17 schools in the United States and had to create a spreadsheet to keep track of the 57 supplemental essays that had to be written as a result: “We identified 13 major themes, and then sorted the 57 essays into their respective themes….In several cases we were able to reduce, reuse, and recycle.” This focus on direct, practical advice, taken from experience, effectively extends beyond the college application process. Reflecting on the benefits of having a job as a teenager, he advises, “If you are working at a retail store, pay attention to how it runs so you could be qualified to manage the store, don’t just clock in and clock out.” In the end, the book not only prepares one for acceptance into top colleges, but also provides tools for succeeding in the larger world.
A wise and easy-to-read manual for thriving in Ivy League admissions and beyond.Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2023
ISBN: 9798863606675
Page Count: 152
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Matthew McConaughey ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 20, 2020
A conversational, pleasurable look into McConaughey’s life and thought.
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New York Times Bestseller
IndieBound Bestseller
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
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by Matthew McConaughey illustrated by Renée Kurilla
by Robert Greene ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 23, 2018
The Stoics did much better with the much shorter Enchiridion.
A follow-on to the author’s garbled but popular 48 Laws of Power, promising that readers will learn how to win friends and influence people, to say nothing of outfoxing all those “toxic types” out in the world.
Greene (Mastery, 2012, etc.) begins with a big sell, averring that his book “is designed to immerse you in all aspects of human behavior and illuminate its root causes.” To gauge by this fat compendium, human behavior is mostly rotten, a presumption that fits with the author’s neo-Machiavellian program of self-validation and eventual strategic supremacy. The author works to formula: First, state a “law,” such as “confront your dark side” or “know your limits,” the latter of which seems pale compared to the Delphic oracle’s “nothing in excess.” Next, elaborate on that law with what might seem to be as plain as day: “Losing contact with reality, we make irrational decisions. That is why our success often does not last.” One imagines there might be other reasons for the evanescence of glory, but there you go. Finally, spin out a long tutelary yarn, seemingly the longer the better, to shore up the truism—in this case, the cometary rise and fall of one-time Disney CEO Michael Eisner, with the warning, “his fate could easily be yours, albeit most likely on a smaller scale,” which ranks right up there with the fortuneteller’s “I sense that someone you know has died" in orders of probability. It’s enough to inspire a new law: Beware of those who spend too much time telling you what you already know, even when it’s dressed up in fresh-sounding terms. “Continually mix the visceral with the analytic” is the language of a consultant’s report, more important-sounding than “go with your gut but use your head, too.”
The Stoics did much better with the much shorter Enchiridion.Pub Date: Oct. 23, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-525-42814-5
Page Count: 580
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
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