A moving testimonial to the transformative power of human compassion and connection amid catastrophe.
A survivor of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing attacks reflects on the trio of fearless individuals who saved her life and rescued countless others.
Sdoia passionately recalls the events leading up to and immediately following the terrorist attack, a day that “went from being pure celebration to desperate survival.” She shares her history as a family girl drawn away to California for several years but always returning home to Massachusetts to friends and family, and she describes herself as having a “complicated relationship with running.” Yet standing on the sidelines of the Boston Marathon that day, the seasoned 5K runner became so energized and rejuvenated by the runners’ excitement and sheer determination, she promised herself to enter the race the following year. After her right foot was blown off by one of two pressure-cooker bombs planted near the finish line, she was immediately tended to by Northeastern University student Shores Salter, Boston police officer Shana Cottone, and a nearby physician, all who assisted in tying a makeshift tourniquet around her mutilated leg. She was raced to the hospital by firefighter Mike Materia, who stayed with her throughout the entire ordeal and beyond. With her leg medically amputated just above the knee, the author’s agonizing physical and psychological recovery began. She also established a significant connection with Materia, who stayed in constant contact as she was rehabilitated back to health, and they became swept into an enduring romantic relationship. Each of the three who participated in Sdoia’s valiant rescue is fondly profiled, showing his or her personality as an honest, hardworking, and unexpectedly heroic Bostonian. The author considers all three as “family,” and her book spins the events of that tragic afternoon into a tapestry of solidarity, unity, love, and selfless humanity. Aside from instances of repetitiveness, the book is heartfelt and honest. Though the bombers “took away that day,” she writes, “we’re taking it back.”
A moving testimonial to the transformative power of human compassion and connection amid catastrophe.Pub Date: March 28, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-61039-700-1
Page Count: 256
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Jan. 9, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2017
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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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