A disappointingly superficial approach to a potentially rewarding topic.
Schaefer’s breezy survey examines the dilemmas facing Americans in their 30s.
The author of Text Me When You Get Home, now in her 40s, discusses her own experiences and those of seven other men and women, "all part of today's sprawling middle class,” as they face five life transitions that in earlier times often occurred significantly earlier in one’s life span. These include completing school, leaving home, marrying, becoming financially independent, and having a child. Schaefer, who began this book before the pandemic, touches briefly on its role in slowing these achievements down, but she focuses primarily on pre-pandemic life. The author occasionally refers to other books, generally pop sociology like Gaily Sheehy’s Passages or Jill Filipovic’s The H Spot, and quotes celebrities like Jennifer Aniston, but she pays most attention to documenting the lives of herself and her subjects. While these anecdotes are entertaining, in occasionally uncomfortable ways, the individuals that Schaefer profiles are hardly representative of the range of 30-something experience. Two are stand-up comedians attempting to find success in Los Angeles, sometimes relying on money from their parents; another quit a stable job to pursue entrepreneurship; one is a stay-at-home father writing a novel. Alongside their stories, Schaefer chronicles her own familiar struggles within the 21st-century journalism landscape. Most of her subjects are impetuous—e.g., using a $10,000 loan to go on a spending spree or saying things like, "Let's be irresponsible with it. Let's go to Italy”—which means little reader sympathy for their plights even as they attempt to take risks and follow their dreams. While a book about delayed adulthood in the U.S. could be useful, this one covers such a narrow spectrum of individuals that it's difficult to extrapolate any meaningful conclusions from their experiences. By contrast, Sheehy’s book included interviews with 115 people.
A disappointingly superficial approach to a potentially rewarding topic.Pub Date: March 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5247-4483-0
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
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
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change.
Artist and activist Vaid-Menon demonstrates how the normativity of the gender binary represses creativity and inflicts physical and emotional violence.
The author, whose parents emigrated from India, writes about how enforcement of the gender binary begins before birth and affects people in all stages of life, with people of color being especially vulnerable due to Western conceptions of gender as binary. Gender assignments create a narrative for how a person should behave, what they are allowed to like or wear, and how they express themself. Punishment of nonconformity leads to an inseparable link between gender and shame. Vaid-Menon challenges familiar arguments against gender nonconformity, breaking them down into four categories—dismissal, inconvenience, biology, and the slippery slope (fear of the consequences of acceptance). Headers in bold font create an accessible navigation experience from one analysis to the next. The prose maintains a conversational tone that feels as intimate and vulnerable as talking with a best friend. At the same time, the author's turns of phrase in moments of deep insight ring with precision and poetry. In one reflection, they write, “the most lethal part of the human body is not the fist; it is the eye. What people see and how people see it has everything to do with power.” While this short essay speaks honestly of pain and injustice, it concludes with encouragement and an invitation into a future that celebrates transformation.
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change. (writing prompt) (Nonfiction. 14-adult)Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-09465-5
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
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