A smart, compassionate resource for anyone who’s ever wondered about polyamory.
Rickert and Zanin present a comprehensive guide to living and loving within a polyamorous relationship.
This thorough handbook covers all aspects of living polyamorously—from one’s initial decision to embrace the lifestyle and common communication mistakes to strategies to help tackle jealousy and set healthy boundaries. Some sections apply to readers in any kind of relationship, such as the need for a healthy sense of self-love. Other parts are specifically for those in polyamorous relationships, like a discussion about when and how often to begin new relationships. Each chapter begins with a relevant quote from sources including philosopher Hannah Arendt and performance poet Kai Cheng Thom. While there are some lists presented as bullet points, such as the imperative “Relationship Bill of Rights” (“You have the right, without shame, blame or guilt…to revoke consent to any form of intimacy at any time”), most chapters simply break down the material under headings and subheadings. While more visual learners might chafe at this, it does allow the authors to pack a substantial amount of essential information into the book’s hefty 400-plus pages. From the beginning, Rickert and Zanin allow that nonmonogamy isn’t for everyone. They never characterize the practice as being anything more than an alternative choice to what are current societal norms: “It is not the next wave in human evolution. Nor is it more enlightened, more spiritual, more progressive or more advanced than monogamy.” This nonjudgmental approach permeates the entire book, creating a safe and nurturing place for readers to explore their decision to partake (or not partake) in polyamory. Every facet of the subject is thoughtfully considered and handled with the utmost professionalism. With thorough research and a clear narrative style, Rickert and Zanin dole out facts and advice that readers can turn to again and again at any point throughout their polyamory journey.
A smart, compassionate resource for anyone who’s ever wondered about polyamory.Pub Date: Sept. 2, 2024
ISBN: 9781990869587
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Thornapple Press
Review Posted Online: July 12, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.
A charming bird journey with the bestselling author.
In his introduction to Tan’s “nature journal,” David Allen Sibley, the acclaimed ornithologist, nails the spirit of this book: a “collection of delightfully quirky, thoughtful, and personal observations of birds in sketches and words.” For years, Tan has looked out on her California backyard “paradise”—oaks, periwinkle vines, birch, Japanese maple, fuchsia shrubs—observing more than 60 species of birds, and she fashions her findings into delightful and approachable journal excerpts, accompanied by her gorgeous color sketches. As the entries—“a record of my life”—move along, the author becomes more adept at identifying and capturing them with words and pencils. Her first entry is September 16, 2017: Shortly after putting up hummingbird feeders, one of the tiny, delicate creatures landed on her hand and fed. “We have a relationship,” she writes. “I am in love.” By August 2018, her backyard “has become a menagerie of fledglings…all learning to fly.” Day by day, she has continued to learn more about the birds, their activities, and how she should relate to them; she also admits mistakes when they occur. In December 2018, she was excited to observe a Townsend’s Warbler—“Omigod! It’s looking at me. Displeased expression.” Battling pesky squirrels, Tan deployed Hot Pepper Suet to keep them away, and she deterred crows by hanging a fake one upside down. The author also declared war on outdoor cats when she learned they kill more than 1 billion birds per year. In May 2019, she notes that she spends $250 per month on beetle larvae. In June 2019, she confesses “spending more hours a day staring at birds than writing. How can I not?” Her last entry, on December 15, 2022, celebrates when an eating bird pauses, “looks and acknowledges I am there.”
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.Pub Date: April 23, 2024
ISBN: 9780593536131
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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
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