Often-heard, occasionally useful advice on how to be a successful mom and partner.
Practical advice on mothering and being a wife.
When beach-volleyball star and fashion model Reece (Big Girl in the Middle, 1998) became a mother, she tackled it just like she did everything else in her life: head-on and with no baloney. With the assistance of Karbo (How Georgia Became O'Keeffe, 2011, etc.), Reece blends simple wisdom on being a mom, wife and friend with personal anecdotes. The end result is mostly a series of platitudes on life—"exercise is the key to everything," "spending time with couples who are making their marriages work ups the odds that you'll make yours work, too," "eating well is not complicated," "if you want your partnership to last, you better plan on being naked and smiling”—with humorous comments on being a new mom and wife. Reece covers birthing, exercise, diet, sex, commitment and the need for community service, but most of the information is similar to what can be found in many women’s magazines. Reece advocates for less computer and electronic-gadget time—get outdoors and enjoy the scenery, she writes—stresses the importance of children knowing who's in charge while allowing them time to become their own independent selves, and encourages women to take time for themselves, even for an hour. The end result is not that women have it all, but that they are the queens of their domains; if they have the kindness, generosity and work ethic to reach for that goal, then they “will live interestingly ever after."
Often-heard, occasionally useful advice on how to be a successful mom and partner.Pub Date: April 16, 2013
ISBN: 978-1451692662
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Jan. 15, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
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
This autobiography might almost be said to supply the roots to Wright's famous novel, Native Son.
It is a grim record, disturbing, the story of how — in one boy's life — the seeds of hate and distrust and race riots were planted. Wright was born to poverty and hardship in the deep south; his father deserted his mother, and circumstances and illness drove the little family from place to place, from degradation to degradation. And always, there was the thread of fear and hate and suspicion and discrimination — of white set against black — of black set against Jew — of intolerance. Driven to deceit, to dishonesty, ambition thwarted, motives impugned, Wright struggled against the tide, put by a tiny sum to move on, finally got to Chicago, and there — still against odds — pulled himself up, acquired some education through reading, allied himself with the Communists — only to be thrust out for non-conformity — and wrote continually. The whole tragedy of a race seems dramatized in this record; it is virtually unrelieved by any vestige of human tenderness, or humor; there are no bright spots. And yet it rings true. It is an unfinished story of a problem that has still to be met.
Perhaps this will force home unpalatable facts of a submerged minority, a problem far from being faced.
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 1945
ISBN: 0061130249
Page Count: 450
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1945
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