An informative, empathetic guide to making painful choices.
Lee’s primer coaches people with serious ailments (and their families) to be their own medical advocates.
The author, a palliative care physician, addresses patients with severe health problems, advising them on dealing with doctors who may not always be forthcoming with information or cognizant of a patient’s individual needs, urging them to take the lead in making decisions and plans about their health care. She gives readers advice on determining treatment goals, including extending life and staying active versus alleviating suffering; talking about care and end-of-life issues with family members; setting up advanced directives and medical power of attorney; and handling symptoms like the constipation caused by opioid pain relievers (try laxatives) or debilitating fatigue (plan tasks with intermittent breaks). Lee also weighs in on the pros and cons of cardiopulmonary resuscitation when life may no longer be worth enduring the bruising measures necessary to preserve it for a little while longer; coping with burnout among caregivers; and crafting a deathbed legacy, such as a scrapbook or a recorded testament. The book is laid out in lucid, easy-to-read chapters and bullet-pointed sections and presents wide-ranging discussions of every aspect of illness, from the most basic—how debilitated patients “find the bathroom and pull up and down pants and wipe appropriately”—to more philosophical issues, such as how we define a good life. An appendix includes scripted questions for patients and families to ask doctors, covering both nuts-and-bolts questions (“Who can help me obtain handicap accessible modifications?”) and devastating conundrums (“My family cannot agree on what to do next with my loved one. Who can help us?”). Lee’s prose is straightforward, concrete, and easily accessible to laypeople, and she writes with sensitivity about emotional trauma, drawing on her own experiences with the gravely ill (“Without dialysis, she wouldn’t suffer anymore,” agonizes a husband contemplating ending treatment for his pain-ridden wife. “It’s just…we’ve been together fifty-four years, and she’s the love of my life”). Readers will find this a useful, reassuring resource when confronting a sometimes-baffling and intimidating medical establishment.
An informative, empathetic guide to making painful choices.Pub Date: April 4, 2023
ISBN: 9798987389300
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Real Palliative Care
Review Posted Online: Jan. 8, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A conversational, pleasurable look into McConaughey’s life and thought.
All right, all right, all right: The affable, laconic actor delivers a combination of memoir and self-help book.
“This is an approach book,” writes McConaughey, adding that it contains “philosophies that can be objectively understood, and if you choose, subjectively adopted, by either changing your reality, or changing how you see it. This is a playbook, based on adventures in my life.” Some of those philosophies come in the form of apothegms: “When you can design your own weather, blow in the breeze”; “Simplify, focus, conserve to liberate.” Others come in the form of sometimes rambling stories that never take the shortest route from point A to point B, as when he recounts a dream-spurred, challenging visit to the Malian musician Ali Farka Touré, who offered a significant lesson in how disagreement can be expressed politely and without rancor. Fans of McConaughey will enjoy his memories—which line up squarely with other accounts in Melissa Maerz’s recent oral history, Alright, Alright, Alright—of his debut in Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused, to which he contributed not just that signature phrase, but also a kind of too-cool-for-school hipness that dissolves a bit upon realizing that he’s an older guy on the prowl for teenage girls. McConaughey’s prep to settle into the role of Wooderson involved inhabiting the mind of a dude who digs cars, rock ’n’ roll, and “chicks,” and he ran with it, reminding readers that the film originally had only three scripted scenes for his character. The lesson: “Do one thing well, then another. Once, then once more.” It’s clear that the author is a thoughtful man, even an intellectual of sorts, though without the earnestness of Ethan Hawke or James Franco. Though some of the sentiments are greeting card–ish, this book is entertaining and full of good lessons.
A conversational, pleasurable look into McConaughey’s life and thought.Pub Date: Oct. 20, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-13913-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
The lessons to draw are obvious: Smoke more dope, eat less meat. Like-minded readers will dig it.
The chef, rapper, and TV host serves up a blustery memoir with lashings of self-help.
“I’ve always had a sick confidence,” writes Bronson, ne Ariyan Arslani. The confidence, he adds, comes from numerous sources: being a New Yorker, and more specifically a New Yorker from Queens; being “short and fucking husky” and still game for a standoff on the basketball court; having strength, stamina, and seemingly no fear. All these things serve him well in the rough-and-tumble youth he describes, all stickball and steroids. Yet another confidence-builder: In the big city, you’ve got to sink or swim. “No one is just accepted—you have to fucking show that you’re able to roll,” he writes. In a narrative steeped in language that would make Lenny Bruce blush, Bronson recounts his sentimental education, schooled by immigrant Italian and Albanian family members and the mean streets, building habits good and bad. The virtue of those habits will depend on your take on modern mores. Bronson writes, for example, of “getting my dick pierced” down in the West Village, then grabbing a pizza and smoking weed. “I always smoke weed freely, always have and always will,” he writes. “I’ll just light a blunt anywhere.” Though he’s gone through the classic experiences of the latter-day stoner, flunking out and getting arrested numerous times, Bronson is a hard charger who’s not afraid to face nearly any challenge—especially, given his physique and genes, the necessity of losing weight: “If you’re husky, you’re always dieting in your mind,” he writes. Though vulgar and boastful, Bronson serves up a model that has plenty of good points, including his growing interest in nature, creativity, and the desire to “leave a legacy for everybody.”
The lessons to draw are obvious: Smoke more dope, eat less meat. Like-minded readers will dig it.Pub Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-4197-4478-5
Page Count: 184
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2021
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
