Book Review: Resilience in Curls (Natalie Keshing)

Resilience in Cruls

Natalie Keshing

Genre: Memoir

We Begin... 

She waited for him. Not because she loved him but because she was scared of him and what she was contemplating. 

He walked in through the kitchen door wearing his black short sleeved turtleneck and his dark sunglasses. Olive skinned, handsome, slender and buff. Staggering a bit towards her, wanting to give her a kiss. 

The smell of his breath was nauseating. Mr. Playboy full of charm and not much more than that. She turned her face away from him. She rejected him and he felt that deep inside. His succorance for affection rejected. Now asking about the baby. 

Disenchanted 
Was He 
Strung With 
An Easy Burden 
Of His Infuriated Wife 
A Cold Weight 
In His Heart 
Enigmatic and Blasting 
The Fool He was ~ Nat 

"Where's My Lorie?" 

"She's sleeping don't wake her up." 

He staggered back taking his sunglasses off placing them on the kitchen table. Reminding her of his enormous charm when they met asking her to dance. All eyes were on them, turning her rhythmically to the beat in a pirouette like a ballerina grabbing her waist while throwing his head back and smiling. He had center stage with Josephine. It was obvious she was not from the city. Inexperienced with just the charms of a fallacy ready to snatch her. Giving rise to his gilded specious charismatic charm. She was completely pure and very impressionable. 

Walked With Swagger 
Intoxicating Desire 
Among Shadows Dancing 
A Piquant Glance 
Eyes Locked Awakening 
Lascivious Thoughts 
Desire The Craving ~ Nat

I feel like the only way to describe Resilience In Curls would be to say it was jumbled. While reading, I couldn't even find who the main character was.

I kept wondering what Natalie was trying to say to us. Was she randomly throwing sentences together , or was she trying to tell us a story? Where was the story going? I never found answers to these questions.

I honestly think that this book is just pointless. Books are supposed to take you on a journey. You're supposed to hop on this magical adventure with the characters and GO somewhere...This book didn't take me anywhere, and honestly, I don't see any point to you guys picking up a book full of random words and sentences that are just thrown together. This book was one that reminds me why I shy away from memoirs. 

As always, you can make that decision for yourselves. The links will be below.

I'm sorry this review is a little late. I've been sick, so I had to make myself sit down to write this haha. 

Keep your noses in the pages, and I'll blog you lovelies later!  <3

How old are you guys? We'd like to get an idea of the age-range of people we bring in /\./\

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Book Review: American Female (Emily Carpenter)

American Female

by: Emily Carpenter

Genre: Adventure, Memoir

Middle-class, mid-career, and Midwestern, twenty-something Emily Carpenter walks into a new job that isn't middle anything. In only slightly more time than it takes to get a passport, this brave adventuress finds herself thrust into a world of lavish luxury, corporate hijinks, and personal scandal. Jet-setting around the globe with her sociopathic boss, she discovers the line between right and wrong is generally negotiable, and almost always in a language other than English. Forced to her breaking point, Emily has to decide what is more important: her old self-respect or her new career. But first - she'll have to survive.

**WE RECEIVED A FREE COPY OF THIS BOOK IN EXCHANGE FOR THE FOLLOWING HONEST REVIEW**

Gosh, I'm really having a hard time here, and that has everything to do with the main character, Emily Carpenter....who is also the author.  This book is a memoir, which means that the author didn't have to luxury of using past experiences..better judgement....creative writing, to turn this story as anything other than her personal experience.  In the back of my mind I know that, and I shouldn't hold that against her, but unfortunately judging others is what we do, and Emily (the character) got on my very last nerve!  

 The best way for me to review this one is to classify it as: good, bad, and ugly.  Let me tell you what I enjoyed about it before venturing to the dark side.  The story flowed nicely, making this book easy to follow.  The characters were, for the most part, well-developed and evolved as the story progressed.  

 Now for the bad/ugly.  I have a hard time relating to/empathizing with women who play the victim......and Emily Carpenter definitely plays the victim.  Her boss is a narcissistic egotistical douche that she should have cut ties with as soon as she realized his true nature.  BUT instead she let him abuse and manipulate her, simply because he could offer her experiences/things that she might otherwise never experience.  WHY?!?!?!?!?!?  See, this is where I have a problem.  Instead of leaving and finding another way to make a name for herself, Emily bitched and complained throughout the majority of the book about the way she was being treated.  Lovely.....

 As always, the links are below.

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Book Review: Determined Weeds (Samuel Jaye Tanner)

Determined Weeds

by: Samuel Jaye Tanner

Genre: Memoir

My mother lost her first three babies. The first was never named. The second, Jayson, was stillborn. Christa was four months premature. She lived one week before passing away in Mom’s arms. My sister Christie was born next. She was also four months premature. Despite assurances that she would not live, Christie left the hospital after an extended stay in an incubator. Christie was diagnosed with cerebral palsy, but she survived. Doctors told my mother that she should not try and have any more children. Despite their objections, Mom gave birth to me four years later. 

I was healthy. My father, a Jew for Jesus freak, named me Samuel. My Hebrew name was Sh’muel—this means “God Listens.” I was the answer to my parent’s prayers. 

Mom started drinking after I turned four. She was an alcoholic by the time I was seven. This was when my parents got a divorce. My father was awarded custody of my sister and me because Mom was destroying herself. 

Over twenty years after Mom left me, her second husband—my stepfather Jim—shot himself in the head. I tried to insert myself back into my mother’s life. I wanted to help this woman who had lived through so much trauma. Mom refused my help, choosing alcohol and pain pills instead of a relationship with her son. 

A mother’s love is a powerful force. Despite Mom’s determination, I loved her. In fact, Mom’s obstinacy was responsible for my birth. She was determined to have her own way. This was true when it came to creating life as well as destroying it. 

This book is a eulogy for my mother. It is the story of how I learned to take the good that was in her, separate it from the bad, and cope with her absence. This is a story of moving forward in an enormous, complicated universe.

**WE WERE GIVEN A FREE COPY OF THIS BOOK, IN EXCHANGE FOR THE FOLLOWING HONEST REVIEW**

I'm not going to lie to you guys....I had a really hard time accepting this request. My hesitation had absolutely nothing to do with the material, and everything to do with the blurb hinting that Samuel's story would be very similar to my own. Did I really want to read something that I'd already pretty much lived?!?!? I wasn't sure. Even after I began reading Determined Weeds, I still couldn't help but feel that reading it would end up being a mistake. It wasn't...it wasn't.....IT WASN'T!

Samuel Jaye Tanner wrote a beautiful story about his less than ideal life. He figured out a way to accept his mother for who she was, to not expect more of her than she was willing to give, and to use the situations that he endured as an innocent child to mold himself into a far better parent. He reminds us that, although we don't get to pick our parents, we get to choose how we let them affect our lives.

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Book Review: I'm Not Your Baby (Joy Jennings)

I'm Not Your Baby

By:  Joy Jennings

Genre: Memoir

 In this suspenseful and riveting memoir about a blonde-haired, blue-eyed Australian beach girl, Joy faces the battle of her life against the not-so-friendly bronzed Aussie bloke. 
Through her raw, dark stories of frightening sexual assaults, shocking rapes, non-stop abuse, violation and street harassment, Joy Jennings shares of how she tried to make her way in her coastal home town, while being hounded, followed and tormented at every turn. 
Her powerfully moving story throws you into a world of tradies, hoons and bogans, who behave in the world’s most vile, vulgar and sexist of ways. With her candid and compelling recollections of being choked to within an inch of her life, having her car window smashed into her face, being stalked and having men rip the very clothes from her body, this memoir will not only keep you captivated, but also astonish you with every page. 
Readers will be taken on an unrelenting ride as they share Joy’s emotional journey. I’m Not Your “Baby” will have you fighting for our author who, with a determined heart, never gives up hope of finding love, peace and ultimate happiness. 
This is not a story about demonizing the Australian male, but one that humanizes the victims.

**WE WERE GIVEN A FREE COPY OF THIS BOOK IN EXCHANGE FOR THE FOLLOWING HONEST REVIEW**

I need to start this review by saying how courageous the author is for sharing her story. 

So many women become victims of stalking, rape, and/or abuse and feel like they are alone. Being able to read about the experiences of others, shows them that they're not alone in this harsh world.

From very early in her childhood, well into becoming an adult, Joy found herself being victimized by men.  The very first instance talked about a neighbor peeping in her bedroom window when she was a small child.  She did what any child placed in that situation should do...she told her dad.  He "dealt" with the perpetrator, and the issue was never addressed.  This continues.  Horrible, violating things would occur, she told her father/parents, they dealt with it their way, and the issue was never to be spoken of again.  

ARE THESE PEOPLE FOR REAL?!?!?!?!? 

This book made me angry!  In fact, I put it down several times and started reading something new because I needed a break from the sadness and frustration I felt every time I picked it up.  I'm fully aware that we are shaped and molded by our childhood.  I have no doubt that Joy adopted her parents completely fucked up "if we don't talk about it, it didn't really happen" outlook, but come on.  The behavior of the men described in I'm Not Your Baby is unacceptable and appalling, but I'm having a hard time understanding how one person finds them self on the receiving end of so many unwanted sexual advances.  Joy developed anxiety and began having panic attacks, as a result of dealing with the same things over many years.  Did she seek professional help.....report her attackers? Nope. She continued to internalize everything she experienced, continued finding herself in less than ideal situations, and later decided to write a memoir that does little to describe what she should have done differently.  I feel like she missed an opportunity.  She could have helped so many if she used her story to tell other women how important it is for us to value ourselves and not let past experiences dictate our worth.  

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