An enthusiastic chronicle of how one woman’s religious passion almost swallowed her whole.
How an overly zealous religious imagination hampered the author’s life.
From a very early age, Rowe, a comedy writer and producer, knew she was a Christian. She had her own Bible complete with commentaries that she spent hours reading and quoting. She tried hard not to sin, and she made sure to be a silent and then direct witness. However, despite her best attempts to accept Jesus as her savior, she always had a nagging sense of doubt that her best efforts were not good enough. She felt that Jesus could “turn on me at any moment; that He is kind until He is not, that He is absolute love until He is absolute vengeance. I know He could effortlessly toss me into hell for all eternity before turning back to nuzzle his beloved sheep—all without messing up His Pantene hair.” Rowe’s obsessive worries about her faith plagued her as a young child, and she takes readers through the years leading up to and through a three-month stint in the evangelical psychiatric center she attended when she was 19. Full of the normal angst that most adolescents experience, Rowe’s stroll down Memory Lane contains the added layer of her religious fanaticism. Her worries about whether she had truly accepted Jesus grew progressively worse as time passed, especially when she reached college and began to date. Love, lust, and religion all comingled in the author’s mind, creating a mixture of stress and fear that made her sick. Rowe is candid throughout the book, giving plenty of details about her psychotic break and of how she began to find her way back to some semblance of balance, supported by her fellow group members in the rehab center. Devotees of Rowe’s comedy and those with a strong interest in born-again Christianity will enjoy learning about her strife and road to redemption.
An enthusiastic chronicle of how one woman’s religious passion almost swallowed her whole.Pub Date: Jan. 10, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-59376-659-7
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Soft Skull Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 5, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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