Book

Book Review: “Lost in Beirut: A True Story of Love, Loss and War” by Ashe and Magdalena Stevens

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Rating: 4 stars

Headline: This darkly beautiful memoir yanks you in by the collar and refuses to let go

Review:

‘The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there’” were the words of L.P. Hartley, a quote strikingly applicable to the Middle East experiences of Ashe Stevens during 2006, while working in the Lebanese capital city of Beirut.

Jointly written with Magdalena, Ashe Stevens’ memoir Lost in Beirut starts as two business partners trying to orchestrate a concert for the rapper 50 Cent. A first time traveller to the region, Ashe is thrown headfirst into a strikingly different culture to his American roots. A place where economies halt five times a day for prayers and family reputation is everything. Ashe quickly discovers the latter for himself when he starts dating Aleyna, a woman who hails from a high-profile family in the Hezbollah district of Beirut.

Unknown to the city’s bustling residents, while the stage is being prepared for a career-defining concert, a bigger threat is brewing across the boarder in nearby Israel. In the days that follow, society is flipped from prosperity and glamour into a landscape where money means nothing and an American accent is enough to have you killed on sight. With the airport bombed and all roads out the country destroyed, Ashe must fight a new battle of his own and find an escape from within the rubble of Beirut.

Lost in Beirut is a highly likeable book, packed with beautiful imagery of a thriving city both before and after the months of bombing attacks. Written in first person present, it does take a few chapters to adapt to the tone of voice and tense (memoirs generally being written in past tense which makes for a more reflective style, whereas this feels more reactive). Once you get past this though the story yanks you in by the collar and refuses to let go, really coming into its own in the final third of the book where you get a sense of society falling apart. The world-building is more apocalyptic in this section, you can feel the raw panic of the mega rich on discovering their money is worthless, their expansive villas levelled flat in minutes. You would believe it to be a work of pure fiction, if it were not for the sadness that these events are true and actually happened. People died in this conflict.

A touching and, at points, quite graphic memoir, I come back to Hartley’s quote. With well over a decade having transpired between the 2006 Lebanese war and now, can we still claim the past to be a wholly foreign country? Or maybe we have to move on, embracing acceptance with the scars that are left.

AEB Reviews

Links:

Reedsy Discovery Review: AEB Reviews – “Lost in Beirut…” by Ashe and Magdalena Stevens

Purchase Link: “Lost in Beirut: A True Story of Love, Loss and War” by Ashe and Magdalena Stevens (Amazon)

Author Website: https://lostinbeirut.com/

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Book Review: “Matleisure: Maternity Leave Survival Guide & The Art of Enjoying It” by Emily Malloy

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Rating: 5 stars

Headline: When it comes to navigating the world of maternity leave, this book does it all

Review:

As authors of self help guides go, Emily Malloy has pretty much everything you need to make a good book, great. A Canadian advertising professional with fifteen years of experience, bachelor in economics under her belt and a mother of two. Malloy uses her experience in the latter category to pen her recent publication, Matleisure: Maternity Leave Survival Guide & The Art of Enjoying It (hereafter Matleisure).

Matleisure covers a wide range of topics for expectant mothers, from monetary finances to the importance of building a community and nutrition nourishment. The book’s tone of voice is informal in approach yet informative, with Malloy providing plenty of hints and tips throughout from her own personal experiences of going through maternity leave. There are even some handy recommendations in a bonus section at the end, including several recipes that are both healthy and easy to make (recipes you do not need to be pregnant to enjoy!) The formatting of the book is also complimentary, with chapters kept to a reasonable length and the font adjusted to an appropriate size for easy reading.

Even if the arrival of a child is the bringer of ultimate highs and bottomless lows, Malloy’s guidance helps steer parents through the fog and out the other side. Matleisure demystifies many of the false expectations and ideals of parental life, encouraging parents to embrace and enjoy this time in their lives. For some topics where an intermediary may be required, Malloy helpfully provides contact information of third party charities and services (some of these are tailored toward American and Canadian audiences, however for the most part Matleisure has universal appeal).

Matleisure is a very easy-going read and one that is highly commendable. When it comes to navigating the world of maternity leave, this book does it all.

AEB Reviews

Links:

Reedsy Discovery Review: AEB Reviews – “Matleisure: Maternity Leave Survival Guide & The Art of Enjoying It” by Emily Malloy

Purchase Link: “Matleisure: Maternity Leave Survival Guide & The Art of Enjoying It” by Emily Malloy (Amazon)

Author’s Website: EMILY MALLOY

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Poetry Review: “Let’s meet through the four rhyming lines” by Aazmao Arn

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Rating: 3 stars

Headline: Aazmao Arn’s poetry style of four-line rhyming stanzas is homely but just a little bit repetitive

Review:

Aazmao Arn’s poetry release, Let’s meet through the four rhyming lines, speaks to some of the core elements of what it means to be human. Born and raised in the Middle Eastern country of Qatar, Arn’s collection of poems and personal reflections were inspired by her personal drive to give readers a deeper meaning to their feelings and thoughts. Within this humble collection of thirteen poems there is a range of events and worldly interactions, from those that dive down a microscopic lens, considering the ripple effect of perception and appearance, to poems that draw inspiration from nature and how it interacts with humanity. Preceding each poem is a motivational or thought-provoking statement (for example, “Patience”, which reads, “Once you conquer patience, life can get easier.”)

There are some likeable aspects of this collection. By being written consistently in a four line stanza format with rhyming couplets, there comes a methodical and reassuring beat to each page while reading through this short book. It makes for a somewhat comforting and homely style that perfectly matches the book’s title. By constructing her poetry in this manner, Arn’s has made her poetry anything but a drag.

That said, writing in this manner does result in the poetry feeling somewhat repetitive and lacking in imagination. There are occasions where the rhymes feel a bit forced and the stanzas drawn out or abruptly cut off to make them fit into the same cookie-cutter format as all the poems that come before and after. The one sentence statements that fill every other page is also something that, personally, I feel adds little and probably would have been better used to showcase more of Arn’s poetry.

What I would love to see more of in Arn’s creative talents is a broadened use of different poetic styles and types; more variation on the poetic structure and maybe some experimentation beyond the traditional confines of a four line stanza.

AEB Reviews

Links:

Reedsy Discovery Review: AEB Reviews – “Let’s meet through the four rhyming lines” by Aazmao Arn

Purchase Link: “Let’s meet through the four rhyming lines” by Aazmao Arn (Amazon)

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Book Review: “An Extraordinarily Enchanted Birthday” by Professor Stork

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Rating: 3 stars

Headline: A beautifully illustrated children’s book featuring a magical journey and educational farm animal facts

Review:

An Extraordinary Enchanted Birthday by the anonymous author “Professor Stork” (illustrated by Patricia Wilson and Len Peralta) is a children’s picture book. It follows the story of Evy Loe, a young child who wakes up on her birthday filled with the excitement of an upcoming visit to an art gallery with her father. On arriving at the gallery, Evy discovers a pair of magical glasses which will takes her on a magical journey to learn all about life on the farm and all the colourful characters that inhabit it.

This is a nice children’s book, carried massively by the quality of some of its illustrations. The general structure of the book follows a repeated pattern of Evy meeting a farmyard animal and then a full page portrait of the animal with a captioned fun fact for younger minds. The portraits are beautifully executed and carry all the marks of having been completed by a professional artist. The other imagery around it, particularly of the human characters, comes across as slightly more cartoonish. Both types of artwork support the other favourably.

There are place in the book where an overuse of copy might make the content a harder sell to younger children with limited attention spans. Some of the fun facts for each animal are also a little questionable, such as for the cow, with the quote, “cows are job creation machines. The milk they produce creates thousands of jobs in the milk and cheese industries”. While objectively this might be correct in America, where the book has been initially published, for an international audience facts like these might not always be true. In this instance, it also reads a little bit like the line is sponsored by a third party, although this could be a purely personal take on a throwaway line of copy.

An Extraordinary Enchanted Birthday is a fun book for younger readers and their parents, serving as good introduction to some of the colourful animal characters found within farmyard and agricultural settings.

AEB Reviews

Links:

Reedsy Discovery Review: AEB Reviews – “An Extraordinarily Enchanted Birthday” by Professor Stork

Purchase Link: “An Extraordinarily Enchanted Birthday” by Professor Stork (Amazon)

Author Website: Professor Stork

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Book Review: “Back Focus: My Life Behind the Reality Lens” by DJ Cash Bar

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Rating: 5 stars

Headline: An eye-opening memoir, unveiling the hidden backstories behind reality TV production in the 2000s

Review:

I have to admit, I am a bit of a reality television fiend. I used to be worse, but having sat through an entire series of Love Island in 2018 and realised my whole summer of nightly viewing could be condensed down to a eight minute “best of” reel, that was when I knew something had to change. Of course, nothing would really change until 2022, after my friend and I went on binge viewing of Netflix’s The Ultimatum. At 4am I was pumped full of iced tea and questions, mostly about myself.

It is because of my historic relationship with it that I have always remained fascinated by the history of reality television. Using their set nickname, “DJ Cash Bar” pens this no holds barred memoir, Back Focus: My Life Behind the Reality Lens. The camera operator, turned author, began their career in the early-mid noughties, during the often dubbed “Wild West” period of reality TV. Think There’s Something About Miriam and Kid Nation, but before I Wanna Marry “Harry“. It was around the dawn of reality television, where producers were still grappling with the genre and constantly pushing the boundaries (and budgets) to see what sticked with a growing viewership. Rules and safety were scarce and participant welfare was, in cases, non-existent.

Reading this memoir is both a fascinating and disturbing read, showcasing some of the challenging conditions placed on those working behind the scenes to churn out instant hits. The thirty hour working days and the ingrained abuse of drug and alcohol is to only but scratch the surface of the culture. As a memoir, it is well written and gives a lot of detail to the various productions the author-camera operator worked on. No colleagues or production titles are named directly, however the book contains enough crumbs to easily establish the full facts (alongside the production’s associated on-screen controversies).

While a lot of exposure has been given in recent years to the experience of participants and “cast” on reality television, it feels only fair that those behind the lens get their turn too. Within Back Focus: My Life Behind the Reality Lens, there is no glitz or glamour, replaced instead with cold, sober truths and, somewhat ironically, the harsh reality of television production during the noughties.

AEB Reviews

Links:

Reedsy Discovery Review: AEB Reviews – “Back Focus: My Life Behind the Reality Lens” by DJ Cashbar

Purchase Link: “Back Focus: My Life Behind the Reality Lens” by DJ Cashbar (Amazon)

Author Website: Back Focus by DJ Cash Bar (backfocusbook.com)

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This book cover: discuss

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One of the many “quirks” of sitting in a number of bookish related chats are the covers that authors bound around for feedback. Of all of them, this one seemed to raise more questions. I’ll let you decide why.

Bearing in mind little to no context was issued by the author, at the time he just wanted design feedback. Standard things, like, “does it grab your attention?”, “is the font legible?”, “is the design overall a good fit?”

From doing a quick search on Amazon, it would appear the book has yet to be published. So keep an eye out, because you never know with these things!

(Oh, and in case there was any doubt, I was very much in the “not a fan” club.)

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Book Review: “Ballad of Burnout” by Kerry Makin-Byrd

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Rating: 2 stars

Headline: Writing about such a challenging topic was never going to be easy and, for me, this book missed the mark

Review:

Ballard of Burnout by Kerry Makin-Byrd is both poetic in nature whilst also leaning towards prose. It details the narrator’s personal experiences (presumably Makin-Byrd’s) in a stressful work environment, causing symptoms many of us would recognise and identify as the mental health condition, burnout.

The book covers the events before, during and after with an optimistic look to the future of what life holds following the traumatic experiences detailed over twelve chapters/verses that run as one continuation. It is for this reason the use of the term “ballad” is used in the book’s title, a monologue of one person’s experiences. In this overarching ballad Makin-Byrd utilises a range of poetic devices, from traditional stanzas, to chunks of prose and ad-hoc use of centred text. On several occasions we also see bullet points of meaty text, possibly a humorous jab at working environments where bullet points are overly used to excess. This latter point could be my own reasoning though.

And this is where I struggle with Ballard of Burnout. Writing about such a challenging topic was never going to be easy, but here the writing style feels particularly detached, almost upsettingly so. I want so badly to resonate with the author’s words, to see something within the text and pull at a strand of relatability. After all, stress in the workplace hardly an uncommon sight. But that moment, it just never seems to come. There is no insight into the type of workplace and very limited attempts at worldbuilding; the location, the employment sector, even a flavour of the personal relationships held by the narrator, these are elements that felt lacking. Coupled with the sporadic layouts of text, it makes the content feel a little flat and disjointed.

The writing quality on a micro, line-by-line basis, is good but by incorporating a broader view of the narrator’s environment it can only make for a more colourful reading experience all ways round. Food for thought for the next publication Makin-Byrd puts her hand to.

AEB Reviews

Links:

Reedsy Discovery Review: AEB Reviews – “Ballad of Burnout” by Kerry Makin-Byrd

Purchase Link: https://www.balladofburnout.com

Author Website: https://drkerrymakinbyrd.com

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Writing motivation

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This one goes out for anyone needing writing inspiration, as something I stumbled across when procrastinating on YouTube.

And, for what it’s worth, the first clip felt relatable in the most hilarious way. (I certainly have had my head turned once or twice for a good muffin.)

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Book Review: “Lady Slippers: A Memoir” by Melissa Deetz

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Rating: 4 stars

Headline: Bernice Dietrich’s charming memoir showcases a life lived to the fullest

Review:

A good deal of memoirs are written in response to a triggering incident, covering only a fraction of someone’s lived experiences. There is, however, something quite homely about memoirs that paint a full picture of an individual, especially if it is reflective of a life well lived.

Lady Slippers very much falls into this second camp of memoir. Written by Bernice Dietrich (completed and published by Melissa Bini), the book covers the full 102 years of Bernice’s colourful life. Born and raised in 1920s Staten Island, America, Bernice’s life was bookended by two pandemics with a World War in between. Told through her own words, Bernice paints a colourful picture of the experiences she had growing up, falling in love and forging a family of her own. As she documents her experiences Bernice’s words draw in subtle cultural and political changes, including the changing American healthcare system that went through a rapid pace of evolution throughout the 20th century, from the advances in medical treatment to the erosion of local community services. Bernice’s tale takes the reader up until 2007, when she stopped her memoir. She would go on to live for almost 15 years more, sadly passing away in 2022.

The final third of the book picks up where Bernice left off in 2007, with family members from younger generations contributing their tales of growing up with Bernice as a family figurehead. There you see the charming flipside of outsider perspective, how the family viewed her as a proud and active individual with a passion for travel and sports.

Reading this book you feel as if Bernice is in the room with you, recounting her tales besides a roaring fire. It’s a comforting feeling that comes through on every page. And while Bernice’s tone of voice and writing style does make the pacing a tad slower, it does make for a more gentler, steady read.

A calm and methodical memoir, Lady Slippers is a charming memoir that will make you want to pick up a journal and start living your own adventures.

AEB Reviews

Links:

Reedsy Discovery Review: AEB Reviews – “Lady Slippers: A Memoir” by Melissa Deetz

Purchase Link: “Lady Slippers: A Memoir” by Melissa Deetz (Amazon)

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Poetry Review: “Lyrical Voices” by Lakella Taylor and Frankie L. Fipps

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Rating: 3 stars

Headline: Exploring themes of family, faith, and nature, “Lyrical Voices” is a good collection that needed a bit more variety to stand out

Review:

Lyrical Voices is the new poetry collection by joint collaboration Lakella Taylor and Frankie L. Fipps. Written in a distinctive first person style, poems within this book’s 140 pages include close study on a variety of key themes, including the role of family, faith and nature.

Taylor and Fipps’ poetic styles work well together within conventional approaches, with most poems written as non-rhyming, single stanzas lasting between a quarter to a full page. A highlight within the collection is “Favorite Tune”, which is written to give the impression of a fast tempo, high energy, environment where the speaker is recounting the joy of listening to their favourite song. All of the poems are well thought through and written in a meaningful way, with strong religious undertones feeding through onto the page. Doing so builds a strong sense of Taylor and Fipps’ backgrounds and creative inspirations.

Even though it represents a collaboration between two poets, Taylor’s work dominates the lion’s share of Lyrical Voices, with her poems featuring 123 times, versus Fipps, who includes only 16 of his own. With such a limited involvement, it is questionable as to whether Taylor should have published this book in her own right.

There is also the question of formatting. About halfway through the alignment of the poems switches, from left alignment to centred, with no clear reason as to why stylistically this decision has been made. As a result the change comes across as abrupt and as if two collections have been forced together at some point during the publishing process.

Given the collection spans over a hundred pages in length, the first person perspective becomes quite repetitive after a time. That is not to say the poems themselves are bad, but a differing third person viewpoint would have helped elevate the collection and allowed for expansion of character development and the events and landscapes they interact with.

Lyrical Voices is good, but there are areas where it could have been better. It needed more variety in its approach and better formatting to stand out in a crowded poetry market. Possible food for thought for the publication these two poets turn their attention to.

AEB Reviews

Links:

Reedsy Discovery Review: AEB Reviews – “Lyrical Voices” by Lakella Taylor and Frankie L. Fipps

Purchase Link: “Lyrical Voices” by Lakella Taylor and Frankie L. Fipps (Amazon)

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