A passionate and personal self-help work that aims to help people become the best versions of themselves.
A Christian-oriented guide to living and working with a greater sense of authenticity.
“Success,” clinical psychologist Guerra writes in her slim nonfiction debut, “is being intentional in your actions, honoring your greatness, and being yourself!” The author is the youngest of four children who later became a single mother of two, and she spends the opening part of her book telling her readers about her upbringing and how it shaped her (“challenging the status quo became second nature to me”). She narrates her time in school and her choice of therapy as a career path, working hard and playing hard: “I was at the top of my game,” she writes. “I had figured out the rules of this game called life, and I was doing well.” She also movingly relates the collapse of her marriage and the doubts it engendered. Her chosen life’s work had been about “helping people be honest with themselves and move in the direction of living in their truths,” and yet she says that she’d found herself far removed from her own truth. Guerra returns to this concept repeatedly throughout her book, effectively sharpening it into six “key strategies,” designed to help readers home in on the task: “Always honor your truth and your experiences,” she writes. “But remember that your truth and perceptions can change and evolve as you do.” Over the course of this book, Guerra’s prose is consistently direct and highly personable, and she alludes to her Christian faith as a balancing force in her life and her truth journey. Even so, she seldom addresses how, when speaking one’s “personal truth,” one can avoid it becoming a simple expression of egotism, which readers might have found useful. However, her advocacy of honesty and intentionality will hopefully inspire her readers.
A passionate and personal self-help work that aims to help people become the best versions of themselves.Pub Date: June 15, 2022
ISBN: 9781667829227
Page Count: 96
Publisher: BookBaby
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Some of Avant’s mantras are overstated, but her book is magnanimous, inspiring, and relentlessly optimistic.
Memories and life lessons inspired by the author’s mother, who was murdered in 2021.
“Neither my mother nor I knew that her last text to me would be the words ‘Think you’ll be happy,’ ” Avant writes, "but it is fitting that she left me with a mantra for resiliency.” The author, a filmmaker and former U.S. Ambassador to the Bahamas, begins her first book on the night she learned her mother, Jacqueline Avant, had been fatally shot during a home invasion. “One of my first thoughts,” she writes, “was, ‘Oh God, please don’t let me hate this man. Give me the strength not to hate him.’ ” Daughter of Clarence Avant, known as the “Black Godfather” due to his work as a pioneering music executive, the author describes growing up “in a house that had a revolving door of famous people,” from Ella Fitzgerald to Muhammad Ali. “I don’t take for granted anything I have achieved in my life as a Black American woman,” writes Avant. “And I recognize my unique upbringing…..I was taught to honor our past and pay forward our fruits.” The book, which is occasionally repetitive, includes tributes to her mother from figures like Oprah Winfrey and Bill Clinton, but the narrative core is the author’s direct, faith-based, unwaveringly positive messages to readers—e.g., “I don’t want to carry the sadness and anger I have toward the man who did this to my mother…so I’m worshiping God amid the worst storm imaginable”; "Success and feeling good are contagious. I’m all about positive contagious vibrations!” Avant frequently quotes Bible verses, and the bulk of the text reflects the spirit of her daily prayer “that everything is in divine order.” Imploring readers to practice proactive behavior, she writes, “We have to always find the blessing, to be the blessing.”
Some of Avant’s mantras are overstated, but her book is magnanimous, inspiring, and relentlessly optimistic.Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2023
ISBN: 9780063304413
Page Count: 288
Publisher: HarperOne
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.
A compendium of charts, time lines, lists and illustrations to accompany study of the Bible.
This visually appealing resource provides a wide array of illustrative and textually concise references, beginning with three sets of charts covering the Bible as a whole, the Old Testament and the New Testament. These charts cover such topics as biblical weights and measures, feasts and holidays and the 12 disciples. Most of the charts use a variety of illustrative techniques to convey lessons and provide visual interest. A worthwhile example is “How We Got the Bible,” which provides a time line of translation history, comparisons of canons among faiths and portraits of important figures in biblical translation, such as Jerome and John Wycliffe. The book then presents a section of maps, followed by diagrams to conceptualize such structures as Noah’s Ark and Solomon’s Temple. Finally, a section on Christianity, cults and other religions describes key aspects of history and doctrine for certain Christian sects and other faith traditions. Overall, the authors take a traditionalist, conservative approach. For instance, they list Moses as the author of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) without making mention of claims to the contrary. When comparing various Christian sects and world religions, the emphasis is on doctrine and orthodox theology. Some chapters, however, may not completely align with the needs of Catholic and Orthodox churches. But the authors’ leanings are muted enough and do not detract from the work’s usefulness. As a resource, it’s well organized, inviting and visually stimulating. Even the most seasoned reader will learn something while browsing.
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2005
ISBN: 978-1-5963-6022-8
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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