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BOYMOM

Name: BOYMOM
Author: Ruth Whippman
ISBN: 9780593577639

REIMAGINING BOYHOOD IN THE AGE OF IMPOSSIBLE MASCULINITY

by Ruth Whippman ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 4, 2024

A thoughtful, well-informed look at boys’ lives.

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Examining the challenges of bringing up boys.

Whippman, a British journalist, the author of America the Anxious, and the mother of “three adorable, irrepressible, anarchic, creative, rambunctious, aggressive, big-hearted boys,” brings her anxieties about parenting to an investigation into the biological, psychological, and cultural forces that shape boys’ identity and behavior. In the context of #MeToo and the swirling miasma of toxic masculinity, she finds parenting difficult and, at times, overwhelming. Hoping for insight and even guidance, she talked to psychologists, educators, academics, behavioral researchers, and therapists. She delves into scientific and sociological studies and chronicles her interviews with myriad boys and men—including “misogynistic incels” and residents at a teen therapy center—to help her understand what makes boys who they are. From birth, one researcher told her, boys are different from girls; their brains “are born more immature and vulnerable, and they mature more slowly throughout childhood.” Especially in their early years, they need more nurturing than girls, and yet the opposite often occurs: Girls are cuddled and protected; boys told to act like “big men.” Girls have constant role models of caretaking and emotional connection, while boys lack similar models “that could help them see themselves as connected, emotionally nuanced, relational beings, or even to see these kinds of social-emotional skills as something worth prioritizing and cultivating.” Teenage boys who open up to her about sex, friendship, porn, and depression say they struggle to relate to their friends with the same honesty. “American men are the loneliest they have ever been,” Whippman writes, “and the seeds of this loneliness and emotional disconnection take root during boyhood.” Isolation is also exacerbated by the increasing time boys spend on social media and playing video games. “Connection,” writes the author, “is at the heart of loosening the grip of masculinity.”

A thoughtful, well-informed look at boys’ lives.

Pub Date: June 4, 2024

ISBN: 9780593577639

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Harmony

Review Posted Online: April 5, 2024

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2024

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THINK YOU'LL BE HAPPY

MOVING THROUGH GRIEF WITH GRIT, GRACE, AND GRATITUDE

by Nicole Avant ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 17, 2023

Some of Avant’s mantras are overstated, but her book is magnanimous, inspiring, and relentlessly optimistic.

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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

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THINKING, FAST AND SLOW

by Daniel Kahneman ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 2011

Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...

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A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.

The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.

Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.