Am I Bad?: Recovering from Abuse
Heyward Bruce Ewart III
Loving Healing Press (2007)
ISBN 9781932690354
Nonfiction, Abuse Recovery, Self Help, Inspiration, Lifestyle
Reviewed by Lori Plach for Reader Views (6/07)

Synopsis: Am I Bad? focuses on recovery from five different types of abuse: physical, sexual, verbal, emotional and neglect. The book was written to function as both a therapy resource for professionals and as a self-help book for abuse victims, to be used in conjunction with therapy.

Am I Bad? is based on Father Heyward Ewart's theory that everyone grows into adulthood with a distorted sense of self, based on second-hand opinions and experimentation. Ewart argues that adult survivors have a grossly distorted self-image because of the life-long impact of abuse. This lifelong impact includes blaming oneself for the abuse suffered and continually, unconsciously attracting more abusers throughout one's life.

"I think all people should ask themselves how they got their ideas about who they are," Ewart says. "For example, when we look in the mirror and do not like what we see, we should question whose opinion that really is. Where did we derive the ideas we have about ourselves?"

In Am I Bad? readers will learn how asking these introspective questions opens the door to understanding the effects of abuse and freeing oneself from them. Preliminary reviews of Am I Bad? from both therapists and abuse victims have been overwhelmingly positive: Am I Bad? is a tour de force of the tortured landscape of child abuse and its pernicious long-term outcomes. This book is an important contribution towards the edification of victims and institutions alike" says Dr. Sam Vaknin, author of Malignant Self-Love: Narcissism Revisited.
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Visit author's website http://child-to-adult-victim.com/

Animalkind
Sean P. Griffin
PublishAmerica (2008)
ISBN 9781604745535
Fiction, Fantasy, Teen, Young Adult
Reviewed by Ian McCurley (age 14) for Reader Views (3/08)

Synopsis: When Thane, son of the Vegan King, experiences debilitating headaches, he soon finds himself undergoing a metamorphosis that ultimately culminates in his undertaking a tremendous adventure. With newfound abilities, Thane finds himself leading the people of Arvyndale in an assertion of their freedom against the Carnivores of their planet. Author Sean P. Griffin creates a fascinating and socially-relevant world filled with intrigue and moral dilemma in his new fantasy novel Animalkind.

Young Vegan Prince Thane embodies many of the traditional mythological hero's qualities, although he is initially devoid of supernatural powers-even his ability to shapeshift is normal in his world. Griffin creates a very human (Vegan) hero readers can relate to. Despite his role as prince of Arvyndale, Thane is not born a hero, but has greatness thrust upon him after an assassination attempt spurs him to action and he must quickly learn from his mistakes and become the hero his people desperately need.

Griffin has created a diverse and unusual fantasy world, and his background in biology and zoology lends his depiction of Aegea a stunning realism. The Aegean people are divided into five races, the Vegan, Carnic, Avian, Aquan and Reptilian. While on earth, humans eat animals, on Aegea, each creature is human but also shapeshifts into an animal. Interesting questions are posed regarding what is permissible as a form of food. To the creature about to be eaten, they are not just interesting questions but a matter of life and death! And the Carnivores appear to want to eat everything. Will the other races on the planet be able to come together to stop the Carnivores?
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The Four Little Children: A Likely Story
Larry Michalove
iUniverse (2005)
ISBN 9780595347995
Fiction, Adventure, Fantasy, Early Reader
Reviewed by Mathew Feliciano (age 8) for Reader Views (3/08)

Synopsis: When Larry Michalove was asked to serve his country as a navigator in Vietnam in 1970, he left behind his wife and four small children. To remain a part of his children's lives, he started to write stories in his letters home about Lisa, David, Stacy, and Karen, his own children. Now after nearly forty years, he has collected and published those stories in his entertaining collection The Four Little Children-A Likely Story.

When Lisa, David, Stacy, and Karen Michalove meet the magical, kind elf, Ramor, they suddenly find themselves having the adventures of a lifetime. Ramor takes them on many exciting journeys while using his magical powers to ensure the children are always safe and sound. What began as wonderful adventures for the children became lessons to help them grow and learn.

The children's adventures include a story, Ants Can Be Friends, in which they learn disputes can be resolved without violence or fighting through the use of good communications. A second adventure centers on a mysterious haunted house while in another story, the children encounter green moon people and flee with them while being pursued by Martians. Other episodes include a visit to the North Pole, a farm with talking animals, and flying with a hive of bees.

The Four Little Children-A Likely Story provides the entertaining adventures children crave while it teaches lessons and values teachers and parents will appreciate. Michalove often visits classrooms to read his stories aloud to elementary school students. The positive responses he received when reading his stories encouraged him to publish The Four Little Children-A Likely Story.
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Island Life (Five Star First Edition Mystery)
Michael W. Sherer
Five Star Publishing (2008)
ISBN 9781594146336
Fiction, Mystery, Thriller, Parenting, Families
Reviewed by Danielle Feliciano for Reader Views (4/08)

Synopsis: When Jack Holm's wife doesn't come home one day, he isn't sure whether to be worried or relieved. Their troubled relationship is beginning to wear on him and his two children. But when she's been gone for four days with no word, Jack reports her missing to the police. A week after her disappearance she’s found dead, raped and strangled. Stunned by her murder, Jack struggles to deal with his children's grief and his own conflicted feelings, while facing the prospect of raising his kids alone.

Mounting evidence points to Jack, and when he’s eventually arrested for her murder, his life turns upside down. The police and prosecuting attorney want him in jail. Child Protective Services wants to put his kids in foster care, and his former mother-in-law is suing for custody. His friends and clients abandon him. Desperate to save himself and keep his family together, he finds a clue to her disappearance and tries to discover the truth.

A mainstream novel wrapped around a mystery, Island Life by Michael W. Sherer is the story of a man’s struggle to take control of a life ravaged by loss through the redemptive power of love.
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Visit author's website http://www.islandlife-thenovel.com/

Lacey’s Day
Jack Eadon
Eloquence Press (2007)
ISBN 9780975330050
Reviewed by Paige Lovitt for Reader Views (11/07)

Synopsis: The recently released second edition and brand new audio tape of author Jack Eadon’s popular romantic novel Lacey’s Day, tells the story of a passionate Internet romance, based on the author’s own five-month “affair of the heart” with a woman he met online.

The leading lovers in Lacey’s Day are Ted and Lacey: characters Eadon based entirely on himself and the woman he met online ten years ago. But the book’s exciting climax and ending differ greatly from Eadon’s own experience. While Lacey’s Day includes a romantic in-person meeting between the lovers, in real life, Eadon never met his “Lacey.”

Eadon gives life to Ted and Lacey’s relationship by writing it as close to reality as possible; many of the e-mails in the book are the exact e-mails Eadon sent and received during his own romance. This incredibly honest and vulnerable approach makes Lacey’s Day an exceptionally realistic and compelling read. 

Eadon says he hopes readers will be inspired by the intense love between Ted and Lacey and be encouraged to create honest love and desire in their own relationships. Though Eadon’s own story is one of lost love, Lacey’s Day will delight readers with its romantic, suspenseful, Fitzgerald-like ending.
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Visit author's website http://www.themuffinlady.com/