Blue Wolf Reviews

Tag: control

  • Your Name is Not Anxious

    Your Name is Not Anxious

    A very personal guide to putting anxiety in its place

    Stephanie Dowrick is a well-known and trusted author. She is referred to by professional people, as well as those seeking answers to mental health issues.  In Your Name Is Not Anxious she shows us how tame our fears and anxieties, rather than fight them.  Stephanie’s’ focus on these issues becomes personal, as she watches a member of her family suffer with anxiety issues.

    The wonderful news is that this is not a book to grind your way through, but it is set out in chunks of text.  The reader may choose which parts are appropriate for their needs at the time.  There is a section on “Emergency Measures.”  One would refer to this section if a person’s anxiety level were high or a panic attack were imminent.  Moreover, there are chapters such as “Talk to Yourself like a friend.” Many of us would benefit from reading chapters as effective as this chapter.

    Interestingly, the author quotes the Principal of a Steiner School who believes that a “School System that avoids competition and comparison, helps young people to have real confidence in their ability to learn”.  They foster the attitude that learning is a joy in itself.  Challenges are set out for these children, without results and ranking.” There is much information which Parents and Educators may take from these chapters.

    As with the best professional and self-help books, the information is set out simply and with a view to answering any questions or concerns about anxiety.  There is an index which covers any issues that the reader may wish to explore more fully.  This topic needs this clear and helpful guide to address this crippling aspect of our society. Stephanie Dowrick has provided this.

  • IT ALL COMES DOWN TO THIS

    IT ALL COMES DOWN TO THIS

    After widow Marti Geller, died having battled with cancer, her three complex but distinctly different adult daughters, are both taken aback by the terms of her prescriptive Will but also by the video which makes the girls wonder if they ever knew their mother! Why is Marti so adamant that the beloved family vacation home in Mount Desert Island, Maine be sold promptly? Is she trying to manage her daughters from the grave, or is she just attempting to bring them closer together?

    The Geller sisters’ lives and their relationships with each other are very complicated. Their mother, Marti, isn’t the only member of the family with long-held secrets; the girls are harbouring several of their own. Each daughter is living with a secret, which is based on a lie about themselves; painting a slightly skewed picture of her life to the other two. Will their mother’s death be the impetus for the women to divulge the truth and embrace new possibilities?

    Eldest daughter Beck, is disinclined to sell the summer cottage, whereas the younger two Claire and Sophie, who are at the crossroads in their lives, are reluctant to keep it.  C.J. Reynolds, who has recently been released from prison has returned to the island and is very anxious to buy the property; he has a shared past history with one of the women.

    Author, Therese Anne Fowler’s, book ‘It All Comes Down To This’ is not only a story about choice, fate and coincidence but also explores the notion of being true to yourself. With its many twists and turns, the reader will find this ‘Sister Story’ a light holiday read.  

  • Platform Seven

    Platform Seven

    Platform Seven is Louise Doughty’s ninth novel, a novel in which she delves into the darker side of human behaviour with emphasis on the psyche behind this behaviour. Platform Seven certainly continues this theme.

    Peterborough Railway station is an unremarkable place. There have been two suicides from the platform, eighteen months apart; thus, begins the story of Lisa Evans but who is Lisa Evans and what is keeping her trapped-on Platform Seven? How does she escape?

    Lisa was the first suicide: she has no memory of her life and how she ended up on the platform unable to escape, she only knows she has the ability to know what people are thinking. She knows what the elderly man stealthily entering the station is about to do.

    Try as she might Lisa cannot stop him from leaping to his death in front of a train. He is the second suicide. Somehow this liberates her and as her memory gradually returns, so too does her freedom.

    Describing herself as a ghostly form floating as consciousness Lisa reflects back on her life with fiancé, Matty, a doctor who is abusive and controlling, although that is not how he presents. With this comes intense pain as she recalls and realises how corrosive he was to her to her wellbeing.

    Lisa Doughty has once again presented a chilling exploration into the effects of toxic relationships, as she slowly, bit by bit reveals the tragedy that this creates, which in this case lead to Lisa being a nebulous, almost etheric form lingering on the Peterborough Station, neither of this world or the next.

    As Lisa’s story is revealed so to are the lives of the staff who work at the Station, bringing into stark focus the complexities of human relationships, which makes this rather unusual storyline work in spite of introduction of the ghostly element, which has been used as the vehicle to tie the plot together.

    For those who love to be chilled and thrilled in their reading, grab a copy.

     

  • Spy Toys: Out of Control

    Spy Toys: Out of Control

    In the second book in this incredibly action-packed series and fresh from the success of their first mission, our heroes the Spy Toys – Dan the Snugaliffic Cuddlestar bear, Arabella the Loadsasmiles Sunshine Doll and Flax the custom-made police robot rabbit – are ready for their next task.

    This time, the secret code that controls every Snaztacular Ultrafun toy has been stolen and all over the world toys are revolting and turning against the children who own them.  Terrible things are happening that are simply not right. Aunty Ros calls in the heroes of the story to explain their next mission and Arabella, in typical fashion simply gets nasty about the entire thing, thinking it is below her to help out with this mission.  But all that is before the fun begins involving a range of incredible characters, a massive amount of fun and shambles, disaster and bravery and of course a totally ‘out there’ ending.

    Can Arabella disguise herself as a super-sweet little doll in order to find out more from the daughter of Snaztacular’s top scientist? Can Dan and Flax chase down Jade the Jigsaw, the puzzling prime suspect for the robbery? And can they save the day before the mind-controlled toys forget what it means to play nice? Who is really the evil mastermind and can the Toys stop him before he takes over the world!

    Mark Powers Spy Toys Out of Control will delight young readers everywhere and also their parents, if they are allowed to read the story. Courtesy Bloomsbury Children’s

  • Storm and Grace

    Storm and Grace

    What a magnificent story. For those who love the sea, have dreamed of breathing underwater and are satisfied with nothing less than full immersion, reading this has a magical quality: A story of a powerful attraction between a man and a woman; a story of passion and dangerous relationships. It also involves the art of free diving, where one breath is all you are allowed before sinking as deep as you can in the ocean.

     Grace is studying Marine Biology and is also a journalist for a dive magazine. She is asked to interview a man, Storm, who holds the record for the deepest dive on a single breath. She is mesmerized by his powerful appearance and personality. Similarly, he devours Grace with touch, and whispers, and promises. He promises to send an airline ticket for her to join him at his home on an island. It is here we meet the ghost- like chorus. They whisper and float around the plot always, almost like a Greek chorus. Their whispers and rustlings give warnings and enlarge the understanding of what seems to be an amazing sequence of events.

     Grace goes to the Island, and obsessed, Storm controls her mind, body and breath. He suggests she try free diving, and when she has a successful first dive, the champion diver declares that he can make her “The World’s Deepest Woman”. For Grace, who grew up moving from country to country with her family, never making lasting friends, never being quite sure of herself and always shy, it is as if she is catapulted into stardom. She is Storm’s star! And so the training begins. Storm oversees her weight training, her breathing training, and her yoga. They go out diving often, as Storm continues to challenge his own records.

     Gradually Grace is weaned away from friends at home, her mother, and other people on the island. It is here we hear the voices, gently warning, checking on her need to please.  The reader is almost holding her own breath by now. The descriptions of how to fill your body with air, and how to overcome the weight of water, slowing of your heart, and the mind control, are vivid.

     The style of writing of this novel is almost poetic, it is beautiful and moving. Katherine has used words from the play, Medea, for her ethereal wisps that float around the plot. The reader is drawn in to an understanding of how this story will unfold, and how Grace’s destiny was always following a path.

     A book to treasure.