An inspiring David-and-Goliath story with a strong Christian tone.
The first former gymnast to go public with accusations against convicted sexual predator Larry Nassar refracts her story through the lens of her Christian faith.
Attorney and advocate Denhollander kept hearing two questions after people learned she had been molested by a team doctor for USA Gymnastics and Michigan State University: “How could this happen?” and “Why didn’t you say something sooner?” She answers both in a debut that blends memoir with a true-crime story and blistering critique of how powerful institutions deny, cover up, or mishandle sexual abuse. After suffering an injury at age 15, the author sought help from Nassar, who—without gloves or consent—vaginally penetrated her with his fingers, hiding the assault from her mother (who was in the exam room) by reaching under her baggy shorts or positioning himself strategically between parent and child. Deeply religious, Denhollander knew that the clergy often counseled abuse victims to “forgive and forget.” As she saw it, however, seeking justice “would demonstrate the love of Christ much better.” So she grieved privately until, nearly 16 years later, the Indianapolis Star exposed rampant abuse by gymnastics coaches, which led her to email the paper about Nassar. The floodgates opened after a story on her molestation appeared: Other gymnasts spoke up, the police got involved, and investigators found evidence of years of coverups by USA Gymnastics and MSU. Denhollander’s tone can be overly saccharine—she refers frequently to the “precious” abuse victims—but this is a story of true moral courage that becomes as gripping as a legal thriller in a climactic courtroom scene that has 156 abuse victims testifying against Nassar at his sentencing hearing. Spectators wept as pictures of the witnesses as young gymnasts flashed on a screen; by the end of this book, even the most cynical readers may be reaching for their own tissues.
An inspiring David-and-Goliath story with a strong Christian tone.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4964-4133-1
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Tyndale Momentum
Review Posted Online: Nov. 25, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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