We should all be in such fine form in our 10th decade. Viorst is as charming, and smart, as ever.
The great humorist, poet, and observer of life passages turns her attention to the “Final Fifth” of life.
Readers just a bit younger than Viorst, who is now 94, may remember growing up with their parents’ copies of It’s Hard To Be Hip Over Thirty and People and Other Aggravations, early collections of Viorst’s light poetry. Along with 14 books for adults, Viorst has authored dozens of children’s books, among them Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. The new book completes the adult series and opens with the poem she meant to give her husband Milton for Valentine’s Day 2023; he died a matter of weeks before. This leads her into a discussion of dating and romance at her RC (retirement community) and a poem called “Grow Old Along With Me and My Home Health Aide,” and then a last poem for Milton: “Stop Being Dead.” Between the poems are mordant observations and anecdotes involving friends and associates from the RC, including their views on the possibility of an afterlife. She herself believes such beliefs are what the shrinks call “terror management.” She wasn’t here before, and she won’t be here after. “Do I mind? Do I mind? You bet your sweet ass I mind.” Readers well before the Final Fifth will find plenty to relate to here. You don’t have to be much past 60 to notice that as one grows older, it seems much easier to get one’s feelings hurt, to feel passed over or left out. The idea of marginalization is nothing new, but only Viorst phrases it directly enough to elicit sudden tears. And no one of any age should miss “A Jewish Widow’s Country-Western Love Song.” Always both gracious and culturally acute, she acknowledges the wisdom and saving grace of two favorite poets, Jack Gilbert and Adam Zagajewski.
We should all be in such fine form in our 10th decade. Viorst is as charming, and smart, as ever.Pub Date: April 1, 2025
ISBN: 9781668068014
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The heartbreaking story of an emotionally battered child delivered with captivating candor and grace.
The former iCarly star reflects on her difficult childhood.
In her debut memoir, titled after her 2020 one-woman show, singer and actor McCurdy (b. 1992) reveals the raw details of what she describes as years of emotional abuse at the hands of her demanding, emotionally unstable stage mom, Debra. Born in Los Angeles, the author, along with three older brothers, grew up in a home controlled by her mother. When McCurdy was 3, her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. Though she initially survived, the disease’s recurrence would ultimately take her life when the author was 21. McCurdy candidly reconstructs those in-between years, showing how “my mom emotionally, mentally, and physically abused me in ways that will forever impact me.” Insistent on molding her only daughter into “Mommy’s little actress,” Debra shuffled her to auditions beginning at age 6. As she matured and starting booking acting gigs, McCurdy remained “desperate to impress Mom,” while Debra became increasingly obsessive about her daughter’s physical appearance. She tinted her daughter’s eyelashes, whitened her teeth, enforced a tightly monitored regimen of “calorie restriction,” and performed regular genital exams on her as a teenager. Eventually, the author grew understandably resentful and tried to distance herself from her mother. As a young celebrity, however, McCurdy became vulnerable to eating disorders, alcohol addiction, self-loathing, and unstable relationships. Throughout the book, she honestly portrays Debra’s cruel perfectionist personality and abusive behavior patterns, showing a woman who could get enraged by everything from crooked eyeliner to spilled milk. At the same time, McCurdy exhibits compassion for her deeply flawed mother. Late in the book, she shares a crushing secret her father revealed to her as an adult. While McCurdy didn’t emerge from her childhood unscathed, she’s managed to spin her harrowing experience into a sold-out stage act and achieve a form of catharsis that puts her mind, body, and acting career at peace.
The heartbreaking story of an emotionally battered child delivered with captivating candor and grace.Pub Date: Aug. 9, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-982185-82-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2022
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
The Stoics did much better with the much shorter Enchiridion.
A follow-on to the author’s garbled but popular 48 Laws of Power, promising that readers will learn how to win friends and influence people, to say nothing of outfoxing all those “toxic types” out in the world.
Greene (Mastery, 2012, etc.) begins with a big sell, averring that his book “is designed to immerse you in all aspects of human behavior and illuminate its root causes.” To gauge by this fat compendium, human behavior is mostly rotten, a presumption that fits with the author’s neo-Machiavellian program of self-validation and eventual strategic supremacy. The author works to formula: First, state a “law,” such as “confront your dark side” or “know your limits,” the latter of which seems pale compared to the Delphic oracle’s “nothing in excess.” Next, elaborate on that law with what might seem to be as plain as day: “Losing contact with reality, we make irrational decisions. That is why our success often does not last.” One imagines there might be other reasons for the evanescence of glory, but there you go. Finally, spin out a long tutelary yarn, seemingly the longer the better, to shore up the truism—in this case, the cometary rise and fall of one-time Disney CEO Michael Eisner, with the warning, “his fate could easily be yours, albeit most likely on a smaller scale,” which ranks right up there with the fortuneteller’s “I sense that someone you know has died" in orders of probability. It’s enough to inspire a new law: Beware of those who spend too much time telling you what you already know, even when it’s dressed up in fresh-sounding terms. “Continually mix the visceral with the analytic” is the language of a consultant’s report, more important-sounding than “go with your gut but use your head, too.”
The Stoics did much better with the much shorter Enchiridion.Pub Date: Oct. 23, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-525-42814-5
Page Count: 580
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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