Memoir Book Reviews | Self-Publishing Review

Review: Shattered by the Wars by Hi-Dong Chai ★★★★★

Shattered by the Wars, by Hi-Dong Chai, should be required reading. This powerful coming of age memoir is a story of love, faith, suffering, and sacrifice.

Hi-Dong Chai had to overcome many obstacles in such a short amount of time. During World War II, Korea was under Japan’s control. They imprisoned his father because he was a Christian minister who refused to bow down to the picture of the Japanese emperor. His brother volunteered for the Japanese military in hopes to save his father. During the Korean War, his father was taken away by two North Korean officers. He never […]

T B Markinson2017-03-24T11:09:00+02:00March 12th, 2015|Categories: Book Reviews, Lead Story|Tags: Memoir Book Reviews, World War II Book Reviews|

Review: Mom On The Road by Allyson Primack ★★★

Mom On The Road, by Allyson Primack, is a humorous look into the life of Maggie Stevens.

When Maggie Stevens turned forty, something unexpected happened. She went on the road as her son’s guardian, who was part of a Broadway show touring America. Maggie doesn’t know what to expect. What she finds is herself.

The most enjoyable aspect of this novel is Maggie. She’s neurotic, insecure, energetic, and entertaining. As she tells her story, she doesn’t hold back, including sharing her experience in a hotel bathroom with a vibrator. The reader is told everything that Maggie thinks and feels. […]

T B Markinson2017-03-24T11:08:41+02:00March 11th, 2015|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Memoir Book Reviews|

Review: Sex, Drugs & Islam by Dari Ghaznavi ★★★★

Sex, Drugs & Islam is the provocative and controversial memoir by Pakistani author, Dari Ghaznavi. In a conversational style, Ghaznavi tells tale of his time in the military, running drugs and other criminal activity, traveling the world, and, especially, chasing women. Despite its dark topics, the narration is breezy and spirited. Dari Ghaznavi really has lived a life like no other.

The title alone suggests that Ghaznavi is a man who takes chances and fears no one. Again and again, Ghaznavi puts himself in situations that would kill most people, or at least end up in an extended prison stay. […]

Lysa Grant2015-02-02T09:35:13+02:00January 20th, 2015|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Memoir Book Reviews, Non-Fiction Book Reviews|

Review: The House on Sunset by Sarafina Bianco

Contains brief scenes of rape and forced drug use.

Some books demand to be written. This is one. And it also demands to be read. Ignoring domestic abuse cannot go on. Authors like Sarafina Bianco are sounding the alarm and we should listen. Heeding the alarm isn’t always easy because it forces people out of their comfort zone. The House on Sunset does just that.

Sarafina was a high school English teacher. She had recently purchased a new home, which was an accomplishment she was proud of. Not everything was going well, though. Her boyfriend of a year and half […]

T B Markinson2015-02-02T08:59:57+02:00January 15th, 2015|Categories: Lead Story|Tags: Memoir Book Reviews|

Review: Forty Bibles and Forty Dictionaries by Hae-Lyun Kang

Forty Bibles and Forty Dictionaries is an autobiographical account of the lives of author Hae-Lyun Kang and her family: Korean, Catholic and middle-class, living in Sydney, from 1970 to the present. With an obsessive mother, a hard-pressing father, unusually-humored sisters, and a brother who fired two shots at Charles, Prince of Wales in January of 1994, Kang describes from her own perspective how she and her brother both grew into becoming who they are, and what may have lead her brother to the infamous circumstances in Sydney.

Advertised as the “memoir on the family of the man who committed affray […]

James Grimsby2019-01-22T15:52:17+02:00December 28th, 2014|Categories: Book Reviews, Lead Story|Tags: Memoir Book Reviews|

Mongolia Monologues: One Woman’s Quest to Experience, Learn and Grow… by Joanne Nussbaum

Mongolia Monologues Mongolia Monologues is Joanne Nussbaum’s travelogue memoir about her time as a Peace Corp volunteer in Mongolia at the age of 53, following the death of her daughter. She wanted to work in sub-Saharan Africa, but instead was sent to Mongolia to work in youth community development. The book is a comprehensive overview of the whole trip – from applying as a volunteer, to the ins and outs of Mongolian culture, to the Peace Corps process, and the wisdom learned along the way. The memoir is told with good humor and optimism, even when things get tough.

There’s a refreshing […]

Lysa Grant2014-11-26T03:14:03+02:00November 25th, 2014|Categories: New Releases|Tags: Memoir Book Reviews, Travel Book Reviews|

Review: Choices by Staffan R.B. Nordqvist

There is a trend in self-publishing for the “selfie” book, a written version of the frequently-seen Instagram snap that appears online so often. Choices: A Physician’s Journey On Two Continents by Staffan R.B. Nordqvist is such a book: a memoir of a Swedish doctor who emigrates to the USA.

Sometimes humorous, sometimes hard, Nordqvist makes the step to New York in this passage,

I arrived in New York in the early evening. It was raining, cold and dark. I took a taxi to Manhattan and MSKI, my new employer. I told the driver how happy I was to be back

[…]

Cate Baum2014-11-20T12:35:43+02:00November 20th, 2014|Categories: Book Reviews, Lead Story|Tags: Memoir Book Reviews|

Review: The Ituni Experience by Forbes Skinner

ituni Have you ever met someone who has almost accidentally cut off his leg with a chainsaw, set himself on fire trying to light a cigarette, who was thrown from a tractor, and lived to tell about it? Meet Forbes Skinner, author of The Ituni Experience: The Trials of a Chainsaw Logger. In his memoir, Skinner comes across as a very determined, stubborn, intelligent, naïve, and unlucky man. Many readers may be unfamiliar with Skinner’s country, Guyana, and about chainsaw loggers. They won’t be for long. One of the most fascinating aspects of The Ituni Experience is the inside look […]