Tag: review (Page 27 of 27)

The ADHD Effect On Marriage by Melissa Orlov

September 15, 2014 / Kyle Wendy Skultety / 0 Comments

Subtitled “Understand and rebuild your relationship in six steps”, this book is mainly geared towards those who are experiencing trouble with their ADD/ADHD mate. Both people in the relationship will see themselves portrayed authentically, with explanations of WHY they are feeling those emotions. The first few chapters explain ADHD–what it is, how the brain is affected, how it is diagnosed, and the insidious ways it can creep into your relationship/marriage and cause trouble. Orlov quotes from, and suggests reading, The Dance of Anger by Harriet G Lerner as a supplement to this book. She also sprinkles the pages with lots of stories and examples from real life men and women working to save their relationship. It’s easy to sense the frustration these people have with ADHD serving as the third wheel in their marriage, and some of the stories are quite depressing.

The second part of the book is the rebuilding part, as Orlov outlines her six steps for fixing what has gone awry. She goes out of her way to explain that it’s not the ADHD causing the person to be “broken”, but a lack of understanding how it affects the brain and how ADHD’ers see the world differently.

The six steps are: cultivating empathy, addressing obstacle emotions, getting treatment for BOTH parties (as the non ADHD’er may experience depression, anger or frustration and become resentful and/or ill), improving communication, setting boundaries, and finally, reigniting romance and having fun. As someone who truly believed that ADHD was just a convenient diagnosis for little boys with ants in their pants, I can say I was literally blown away by this book. My whole way of thinking (these people just needed to focus more, be more organized, stop daydreaming, get discipline) could not have been more wrong. ADHD’ers have heard since they were young that they were “not good enough”, they were “underachieving”, they could be “so much more if you just focused better”, and they feel unloved, abandoned, and frustrated.

I am a very organized person by nature, and dealing with a man with ADHD would be a challenge, for sure. The first step is understanding that MY way is not always the RIGHT way, and ADHD’ers need to do what works best for them. Medication is a great help, but so is communication and coping strategies. Knowing your enemy is the first step to defeating him.

Included with the book are worksheets, tools and resources that can be further utilized. Both people will come away knowing their spouse better, and themselves a little better as well.

This was the first book I read about adult ADD/ADHD, and I learned a great deal. On Goodreads, this book got mixed reviews, and most reviewers suggested reading Is It You, Me, or Adult ADD? by Gina Pera as a better source of information and assistance. I’ll be reviewing that in a future post, as I’m currently working through that now. The ADD Effect On Marriage is a good, if simple, book to read to gain understanding of adult ADHD. The advice is pretty sound, and if nothing else, you will see yourself in the anecdotes of those who have experienced a rocky road in their relationship. You will know that you are not alone in this.

[easyazon_link asin=”1886941971″ locale=”US” new_window=”default” nofollow=”default” tag=”gimmethatbook-20″ add_to_cart=”default” cloaking=”default” localization=”yes” popups=”yes”]Know someone with adult ADD? Interested in learning more, even if there is no ADD in your life? Click here to get a copy.[/easyazon_link]

Guilt By Degrees by Marcia Clark

September 8, 2014 / Kyle Wendy Skultety / 0 Comments

In this second outing for Los Angeles DA Rachel Knight, she becomes the champion for a homeless man that is murdered in broad daylight. No one is interested in taking the case, so she steps up. The case quickly becomes a hotbed of intrigue, as Knight discovers that it shares aspects of another case–that of a murdered policeman. In between eating at every local restaurant, and drinking into the night, Rachel and trusty sidekick Bailey uncover layer after nasty layer. No one is who they appear to be, and there is a character that has potential for an appearance in another future book.

The plot is interesting. Less interesting is the constant dialogue between Rachel and Bailey about food, booze, and calories. I’m just skimming over those parts to get to the juicy stuff. Clark is a good writer, but spends too much time filling the book with descriptions of clothes and food. It’s not enough to turn me off, however, and I’ll be reading the next two books in the series.

Want to get a copy for yourself? You can pick it up here.

Nest by Esther Ehrlich

September 5, 2014 / Kyle Wendy Skultety / 0 Comments

I received this advance reader’s copy from NetGalley in exchange for this honest review.

Touching. Poignant. Real. Funny. Heartbreaking.
There are not enough superlatives to describe this treasure of a first novel by Esther Ehrlich, written for young readers. Don’t let the designation fool you. This story will resonate with everyone–those who have a family, those who have felt alone, those who have tried to be a “good girl”, those who have been 11 years old and forced to sit in a sweltering classroom while their heart is breaking.

Naomi “Chirp” Orenstein lives in Cape Cod, circa 1972, with her parents and older sister. She got her nickname from her love of birdwatching; I love how the author sprinkled avian facts throughout the book. Chirp’s world is turned upside down one summer when her mother is diagnosed with MS, and the dynamics of the house abruptly change. Her dad is less than comforting; Dr Orenstein, the psychiatrist, would rather open a dialogue about feelings and why they are there rather than just giving Chirp a hug. Her sister Rachel is becoming distant as she is discovering boys and spending more time with her friends, instead of playing “baby” games with Chirp. And next-door neighbor Joey comes from a family that finds it easier to be demeaning than understanding.

As Chirp’s mom encounters more difficulties (I can’t write any more details without avoiding spoilers) the 11-year-old turns inward, sneaking away to watch her beloved birds and ponder life. Ehrlich’s prose is right on the money, perfectly capturing the emotions and fears of a girl poised on the far edge of adulthood. At times Chirp is wise beyond her years, other times she just wants her mom. The relationships between all the characters is believable and true to life, even down to the authentic banter between Joey and Chirp.

One day Chirp gets sent to the principal’s office for opening a classroom window. Her classmates show their support on the bus ride home in a fabulous little scene that is written perfectly. Told from Chirp’s perspective:

When I sit in the bus seat next to Dawn, she says, “Want me to open the window?”, and then she pinches the locks and pushes the window down. She turns around and says to Sally, really excited, “Open your window for Chirp. Pass it on.” Sally passes it on to Tommy, who passes it on to Sean, et cetera, et cetera, and soon the whole bus is filled with the eeeeee of everyone shoving down their windows. Mr Bob, the bus driver, doesn’t say anything; he never does. He just reaches for his blue wool cap on the dashboard and puts it on while the wind whips everyone’s hair around.

“Heck no, we won’t go! Heck, no, we won’t go! Yay, Chirp!” Joey yells from the back of the bus.

I know I’m in big trouble, because I got sent to the principal’s office, but I feel happy with everyone’s windows open for me.

About 70% into the book, there is a twist that is exquisitely painful and delicate, and Ehrlich makes her writing sing like pure birdsong. There was not a page that went by that was out of place or awkward, from the first to the last. I dare anyone to read this book and not feel as if they are alongside young Chirp as she navigates through her life.

What a rare book Nest is. Read it and come up with some superlatives of your own to describe it.

Buy your copy here.

Mother, Mother by Koren Zailckas

September 1, 2014 / Kyle Wendy Skultety / 0 Comments

Wow. Double wow. Anyone who knows a narcissist will cringe and nod at matriarch Josephine’s behavior, as she manipulates her way through her family’s life. Who is crazy and who isn’t? Nobody really knows.

Rose Hurst is missing. Violet and Will have been left behind to deal with the rage their mother, Josephine, has due to Rose’s disappearance. Will loves his mother so much, and so is only mildly uncomfortable at her alternate turns of dotage and anger. Violet, on the other hand, wants to get far away from her family. One night, as she is high on “seeds”, she commits a violent act against Will, causing Josephine to commit her to a mental hospital. Violet then tries to figure out what really happened that night, and tries to track her missing sister down as well.

The chapters are laid out such that the narration is done by Will and Violet, alternating chapters. Unfortunately, both narrators are unreliable and the reader gets to see different sides of the same story.

Josephine is a true narcissist, lying and stealing the spotlight away from everyone, even if it means turning family member against family member. With devoted son Will at her side, there isn’t anything that she can’t do. Even if she has to put a giant bowl of Death By Chocolate ice cream in front of Will to “help” him remember the night his sister attacked him.

“I need to make sure you can synthesize your thoughts about what happened. That woman who came by is going to make you explain it to her. If she can’t keep up with you, or you can’t explain your thoughts well, there could be big consequences,” says Josephine. Will does his best, but still becomes teary eyed, and his mother admonishes him to “stop overreacting”.

One of my friends has a narcissistic mother, and a weak father. As I read passages out loud to her, she shuddered and commented how true it all was. No one in her house was allowed to question things except her mother. Once I asked her why she never spoke up, and she told me it was just easier to let things go, so as not to upset her mother. She didn’t want to “rock the boat”, as it were.

A particularly interesting passage mirrors my friend’s thoughts: Violet is trying to tell her dad that he needs to stand up to Josephine. He tells her “You and I are very different people. I don’t see how rocking the boat is going to help matters much.”

Violet replies, “It’s not rocking the boat, Dad. It’s called communication. You’re allowed to ask questions. Other people do it all the time. Other people don’t live in fear of someone else’s reactions. They don’t relentlessly stress out about getting into trouble.”

Did I say WOW?? I loved this book, and I loved to hate Josephine. The plot goes along well, with enough mystery amongst the stress to keep you wondering where Rose is. The ending will shock you, and you will feel wrung out by all the manipulation, by everyone, to everyone. People like this really do exist, and it’s scary. Kudos to Zailckas to creating authentic characters with real problems.

Stop reading this blog post immediately and go read this. It will leave you a changed person.

Want to read more about Mother, Mother? Go to the Random House website. Want your own copy? Of course you do. You can purchase it here.

I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.

The Fantastic Laboratory of Dr Weigl by Arthur Allen

August 26, 2014 / Kyle Wendy Skultety / 0 Comments

The subtitle of this book is “How two brave scientists battled typhus and sabotaged the Nazis”. Those scientists are Polish zoologist Rudolf Weigl, an unsung and mostly forgotten hero of WW2, and Ludwig Fleck, a Jewish immunologist. Both men were condemned to Buchenwald and commanded by the Nazis to concoct a vaccine against typhus, a disease equated with Jews and feared more than almost anything else.

Typhus is spread by lice, and to create this vaccine it had to be obtained from live lice, that were nourished by inmates of the concentration camp. Originally there were lice that didn’t carry typhus, and so they were given the disease, allowed to feed on human blood, and then they were sacrificed and their intestines removed and made into a kind of slurry. That’s the basic way, I suppose. However, it’s not that easy to do; but these brave men in the lab convinced the Nazis that they DID make a vaccine. And they did! Thousands of doses were sent up to Germans at the front. Those vaccines didn’t prevent anything. The small batches of protective vaccines were secretly distributed at the camps to prisoners. Gutsy!

This book has everything: stories of how Jews were abused, scientific theory, intrigue (will the lying scientists get caught?) and morality (some medical personnel felt that creating a fake vaccine went against their “do no harm” tenet and wanted to truly protect the Nazis against typhus).

Sprinkled throughout the book are tidbits of Nazi behavior, such as “The camp commander, Fritz Gebauer, was generally mild-mannered but occasionally needed to strangle a woman, an action that produced a state of red-faced passion.” That is a sentence that is hard to top. Any Holocaust deniers out there: read this book. There is NO WAY that all this was made up. Realize this now.

While I read this book, I kept thinking that the Nazis weren’t really all that gullible, were they? Apparently so. They were more interested in abusing the prisoners than checking on the scientific methods being used. The political intrigue and back stabbing gets convoluted as former enemies become friends, and vice versa.

I did learn a lot about typhus, which is always a plus for me. Give me plague and pestilence and I’m a happy camper. I also marveled at the resilience and strength of the prisoners and displaced Polish Jews of the story. Time after time I shook my head in amazement after finishing a gory paragraph or three.

This book explains an important and mostly unknown back story of WW2, and I feel better for having read it. The resilience of the human spirit is truly wonderful.

You can get a copy of your own here!

The Skin Collector by Jeffrey Deaver

August 19, 2014 / Kyle Wendy Skultety / 0 Comments

Lincoln Rhyme’s 11th outing is about the same as the previous ones; the forensic genius is irascible and impatient, Amelia Sachs is tortured by claustrophobia and is still driving on the sidewalks of New York City, and there is a sicko murdering innocent people. The plot suggests that there is a link between aforementioned sicko and the Bone Collector, except this guy murders his victims by tattooing them and then injecting them with poison during the finishing touches.

I did learn more about tattooing, and I also learned not to go into the basement, no matter what was happening. I also came to the realization that if I never read the phrase “walk the grid” again, it would be too soon.

Subplots are many here: undercover cops at a funeral, (the deceased is Rhyme’s nemesis The Watchman) Amelia struggling with the odd behavior of her “foster” daughter Pam, a view into the Skin Collector’s family. I felt that the book dragged a great deal in spots and at times I had to force myself to keep going. Honestly, I felt that Billy Haven was a boring character.

Yes, there are the obligatory Deaver twists and turns in the plot, and then it doubles back on itself….but after I read the last page I felt nothing. Well, maybe some excitement that the ordeal was finally over and I could read something else.

I’d recommend this for hardcore Deaver fans only.

Confessions of a Sociopath by M.E. Thomas

August 17, 2014 / Kyle Wendy Skultety / 1 Comment

Sociopaths are hot topics now, apparently, as this is the second book I’ve read recently with this subject matter. What makes this one different is that it’s written by an actual, authentic, self proclaimed and later-diagnosed, sociopath. She describes her life from childhood, as she grows up, interacts with others, and ponders (ad nauseum) her every move and why she is wonderful.

Goodreads has so many scathing reviews on this book, I laughed out loud. Unfortunately, here is another one to throw on the pile. I realize that she is a sociopath, and that she is expected to be a megalomaniac and self promoting. However, her stories seem full of detail, all contradictory. She will say she had an awful childhood and was beaten, then later on she will wax nostalgic about how her parents loved her and did nothing but the best for her. Most of her tales describe how she has no emotion, for a crying friend, for animals that need help, for no one and nothing. I found this to be tiresome after the first third of the book. By page 166 I loathed her, not for her alleged sociopathy, but for her boring writing style and major self absorption. I think this person, if she really does exist, has Borderline Personality Disorder. Her exploits at using and “ruining” (her words) people just made me roll my eyes and want to smack her. Actually, leaving her alone and not basking in the glow of her wonderfulness would probably hurt her more.

Oh, but that’s right–she has no emotion. Other than that, she is perfect in every way, and is making the world better by her cunning ways and ability to cut through to what is needed most.

I can’t even write this review without rolling my eyes and sneering. Sorry. And as a final note, one I’ve not seen mentioned in any other reviews, is that her use of a certain italic font, is disturbing and disconcerting. I’m not sure of the typeface, but it’s very hard to read, due to the unusual way the “s” is printed. This, most of all, made me want to throw this book across the room.

Don’t waste your time or money reading this. It was awful. If you do not heed my warning and wish to slog through it anyway; here is the Random House page on the book.

I received this book from Blogging for Books in exchange for this honest review.

If, for whatever reason, you decide that you want to own this tripe for yourself, you can get it here.