A deeply personal, trauma-informed self-help guide that promotes individual responsibility.
Hardy lays out strategies for self-improvement in this autobiographical self-help book.
The author’s approach centers around “Zero,” defined as a “place of sacred power and infinite possibilities – the place and the Source of all creation.” Hardy believes this balanced, serene, creative place is accessible to anyone via five access points. The first is “Find Awareness,” achievable through creating a trauma timeline, reflective journaling, and therapy. Next is “Secure Alignment,” establishing intentions for the future; spending time in nature, visualization, and mindfulness assist with this step. The third point of entry, “Take Ownership,” involves embracing one’s role in one’s circumstances and thereby spurring action. The fourth point encourages readers to “Release to Receive,” and the final entry point, “Engage Power,” requires ongoing efforts to return to Zero. Hardy expounds on his theories over 20 chapters, instructing readers to map out their traumas and rewrite their Human Story Code (an ingrained personal narrative that includes biology and genetic lineage). He differentiates between “Capital-T (T)ruth,” which is universal and irrefutable, and “Lowercase-t (t)ruths,” which are shaped by individual perspectives. Reframing adversity as a path to enlightenment, learning to love one’s imperfections, and managing negativity are just a few lessons Hardy imparts. Throughout the book, the author weaves in stories from his past, including experiences with abuse, bedwetting, and reconciling his identity as a gay man with his conservative Mormon upbringing. Hardy’s trauma-informed approach is a welcome and timely addition to the self-help genre. He bravely shares struggles from his own life, such as being excommunicated from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and uncovering suspected abuse by a family friend. However, the heavy emphasis on the author’s religious backstory limits the book’s utility for readers seeking broader, secular guidance, and Hardy occasionally comes off as tone-deaf; one of his Zero experiences happened during the pandemic while he was “on a pink inflatable raft in the middle of [his] swimming pool.”
A deeply personal, trauma-informed self-help guide that promotes individual responsibility.Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9798886452570
Page Count: 318
Publisher: Greenleaf Book Group Press
Review Posted Online: today
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
A sweet final word from an actor who leaves a legacy of compassion and kindness.
The late actor offers a gentle guide for living with more purpose, love, and joy.
Mixing poetry, prescriptive challenges, and elements of memoir, Heche (1969-2022) delivers a narrative that is more encouraging workbook than life story. The author wants to share what she has discovered over the course of a life filled with abuse, advocacy, and uncanny turning points. Her greatest discovery? Love. “Open yourself up to love and transform kindness from a feeling you extend to those around you to actions that you perform for them,” she writes. “Only by caring can we open ourselves up to the universe, and only by opening up to the universe can we fully experience all the wonders that it holds, the greatest of which is love.” Throughout the occasionally overwrought text, Heche is heavy on the concept of care. She wants us to experience joy as she does, and she provides a road map for how to get there. Instead of slinking away from Hollywood and the ridicule that she endured there, Heche found the good and hung on, with Alec Baldwin and Harrison Ford starring as particularly shining knights in her story. Some readers may dismiss this material as vapid Hollywood stuff, but Heche’s perspective is an empathetic blend of Buddhism (minimize suffering), dialectical behavioral therapy (tolerating distress), Christianity (do unto others), and pre-Socratic philosophy (sufficient reason). “You’re not out to change the whole world, but to increase the levels of love and kindness in the world, drop by drop,” she writes. “Over time, these actions wear away the coldness, hate, and indifference around us as surely as water slowly wearing away stone.” Readers grieving her loss will take solace knowing that she lived her love-filled life on her own terms. Heche’s business and podcast partner, Heather Duffy, writes the epilogue, closing the book on a life well lived.
A sweet final word from an actor who leaves a legacy of compassion and kindness.Pub Date: Jan. 24, 2023
ISBN: 9781627783316
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Viva Editions
Review Posted Online: Feb. 6, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2023
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