Download or read book Smash Mouth Jesus A Memoir written by Jack Flynn and published by WestBow Press. This book was released on 2015-07-16 with total page 114 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The life of an abused child is filled with pain and self-blame. And there is the never-ending question of why one of the people who is supposed to love you is also responsible for hurting you. Millions of children experience abuse and neglect every day. For most, their stories go untold. In author Jack Flynn’s memoir, Smash-Mouth Jesus—A Memoir: God’s Answer to Violence, he takes you on a journey of redemption through the nightmare of helplessness and self-hatred associated with child abuse. Flynn illustrates the challenges an abandoned and abused child faces when thrown into a cruel world with no direction. He shares his journey of coming to terms with a God he fears—a God who seems to be cruel and all-powerful. Each day Flynn faced the challenge to trust the God who seemed to be destroying him. Smash-Mouth Jesus—A Memoir: God’s Answer to Violence is a story of working through the past and not letting it define you. As Flynn shows, that journey is long and difficult, and the temptation to give up can be great. But if one perseveres, the rewards and love are tremendous.
Download or read book Sex Drugs Jesus written by De'Vannon Hubert and published by De'Vannon Hubert. This book was released on 2022-03-28 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Transparency is one of the most effective tools we have that can help us heal. It can also help us understand ourselves better as well as other people. What would you do if you believed you only had months to live? How would you feel if your community was stolen from you? Could you survive living on the streets for any length of time? Can you imagine what it's like to try to find a job when you have felonies on your record? Are there any words to describe the heart of a mother as she watches her youngest child die? It’s taken my whole life to realize that the main person I’ve been battling against has been me. As such, my memoir delves into raw detail about my war with my myself. I open up about my crystal meth addiction and how I became a drug dealer in Houston, Tx. The pain of growing up in poverty under the hand of an abusive dad is put on display as well. The time I spent serving in the Air Force during Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and the promiscuity that went along with it is also divulged. I talk about how I received my HIV + diagnosis on a voicemail and my Hep B + diagnosis in the postal mail. My story gets more intense as I share about how I got 3 felonies, the time I spent in jail, and how I ended up homeless after S.W.A.T. kicked my door in. I talk about the biggest heartbreak in my life which happened when I was kicked out of a megachurch, that I had served with my whole soul for years, just because I am a member of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community and refused to accept the conversion therapy package they offered. So often people judge those who have been in similar situations. My hope is that my honesty can offer a glimpse into these issues from the inside, rather than from the outside looking in. I struggled with dividing my memoir into two separate books, but I felt it would be more impactful to tell everything all at once. My memoir is my testament and it’s the greatest form of outreach I have ever offered to the world. I hope that I can earn your trust and attention with the words I have written within these pages.
Download or read book Jesus Land written by Julia Scheeres and published by Catapult. This book was released on 2012-10-30 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times bestseller: An “exquisitely wrought memoir” about how “love can flourish even in the harshest climates”—for readers of The Liar’s Club and Running with Scissors (People). This poignant, darkly funny account of two siblings—one white, one Black—growing up in the Christian fundamentalist communities of Indiana and the Dominican Republic is “one of the best memoirs in years” (Anne Lamott, author of Bird by Bird). Julia and her adopted brother, David, are 16 years old. Julia is white. David is black. It is the mid–1980s and their family has just moved to rural Indiana, a landscape of cottonwood trees, trailer parks, and an all–encompassing racism. At home are a distant mother—more involved with her church’s missionaries than her own children—and a violent father. In this riveting and heartrending memoir, Julia Scheeres takes us from the Midwest to a place beyond imagining. Surrounded by natural beauty, Escuela Caribe—a religious reform school in the Dominican Republic—is characterized by a disciplinary regime that extracts repentance from its students by any means necessary. Julia and David strive to make it through these ordeals and their tale is relayed here with startling immediacy, extreme candor, and wry humor. Over a decade after its first publication, Jesus Land remains deeply resonant with readers. This New York Times bestselling memoir is a gripping tale of rage and redemption, hope and humor, morality and malice—and most of all, the truth: that being a good person takes more than just going to church.
Download or read book Jesus a Memoir written by Xavier DeCosta and published by . This book was released on 2021-12-15 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Happy written by Alex Lemon and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2009-12-29 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: His freshman year of college, Alex Lemon was supposed to be the star catcher on the Macalester College baseball team. He was the boy getting every girl, the hard-partying kid everyone called Happy. In the spring of 1997, he had his first stroke. For two years Lemon coped with his deteriorating health by sinking deeper into alcohol and drug abuse. His charming and carefree exterior masked his self-destructive and sometimes cruel behavior as he endured two more brain bleeds and a crippling depression. After undergoing brain surgery, he is nursed back to health by his free-spirited artist mother, who once again teaches him to stand on his own. Alive with unexpected humor and sensuality, Happy is a hypnotic self-portrait of a young man confronting the wreckage of his own body; it is also the deeply moving story of a mother’s redemptive and healing powers. Alex Lemon’s Technicolor sentences pop and sing as he writes about survival—of the body and of the human spirit.
Download or read book Smile Even If Your Life Is Upside Down written by Jenny Matula and published by WestBow Press. This book was released on 2014-03-26 with total page 124 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is the true story of a child-abuse survivor who found Gods love and through it was able to survive the hard times in her life. The inspirational story of Jenny Matula shows how Psalm 23 came alive and describes how Gods miraculous works in her life gave her the strength to overcome hardships. Each chapter of the book will uplift your spirit with examples of how faith in Gods love enables her to overcome challenges and become stronger in her Christian faith. It is a story that will inspire you to place your trust in God in his love for you.
Download or read book Fresh Off the Boat written by Eddie Huang and published by Spiegel & Grau. This book was released on 2013 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Taiwanese American rebel restaurateur chronicles his rise to success from his difficult childhood in the American South to his decision to embrace all he had learned about food in his father's restaurants and his mother's kitchen to create his own culinary identity.
Download or read book The Encore written by Charity Tillemann-Dick and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2017-10-03 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this “heartrending, passionate, and surprisingly humorous account of the conjunction between art and death” (Andrew Solomon, New York Times bestselling author), acclaimed opera singer Charity Tillemann-Dick recounts her remarkable journey from struggling to draw a single breath to singing at the most prestigious venues in the world after receiving not one but two double lung transplants. Charity Tillemann-Dick was a vivacious young American soprano studying at the celebrated Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest when she received devastating news: her lungs were failing, her heart was three and a half sizes too big, and she would die within five years. Medical experts advised Charity to abandon her musical dreams, but if her time was running out, she wanted to spend it doing what she loved. In just three years, she endured two double lung transplants and had to slowly learn to breathe, walk, talk, eat, and sing again. With new lungs and fierce determination, she eventually fell in love, rebuilt her career, and reclaimed her life. More than a decade after her diagnosis, she has a chart-topping album, performs around the globe, and is a leading voice for organ donation. Weaving Charity’s extraordinary tale of triumph with those of opera’s greatest heroines, The Encore illuminates the indomitable human spirit and is “an uplifting story of overcoming significant odds to fulfill a dream” (Kirkus Reviews).
Download or read book Blood in the Water written by Jack Flynn and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2019-09-10 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Blood in the Water by Jack Flynn is a thriller set in Boston in the gritty world of mob bosses, con artists and gangs, where allegiances are formed with law enforcement and criminals just as easily as they are broken. Homeland Security agent, Kit Steel, is committed to avenge terrorism. And she’s after the blood of her nemesis, one of world’s most ruthless and dangerous criminals, Vincente Carpio. He has the blood of her husband and young son on his hands, and Kit is unwavering in her determination to see him kept behind bars forever. Clever, calculating, and manipulative, Carpio has aid and influence on the outside, and he’s waiting for the perfect moment when the final pieces of the jigsaw fall into place. Harbour Union chief, Cormack McConnell, has lived his life close to the wire above and below the law, and he controls everything that happens on Boston’s waterfront. Someone wants him out of the way, fast. After he narrowly survives a brutal attack on his bar, The Mariner, complications arise when Cormack believes he’s been betrayed by one of his crew – a young man, Buddy Cavanaugh, who he’s shocked to discover is the love of his precious nineteen-year-old daughter, Diamond. Everyone has a game to play until it becomes apparent that there are much darker, far-reaching forces of evil at work which look to be preparing for the international stage. What follows is a gripping race against time, a rollercoaster action-packed story with international terrorism at its core and family at its heart.
Download or read book How to Murder Your Life written by Cat Marnell and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2017-01-31 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the New York Times bestselling author and former beauty editor Cat Marnell, a “vivid, maddening, heartbreaking, very funny, chaotic” (The New York Times) memoir of prescription drug addiction and self-sabotage, set in the glamorous world of fashion magazines and downtown nightclubs. At twenty-six, Cat Marnell was an associate beauty editor at Lucky, one of the top fashion magazines in America—and that’s all most people knew about her. But she hid a secret life. She was a prescription drug addict. She was also a “doctor shopper” who manipulated Upper East Side psychiatrists for pills, pills, and more pills; a lonely bulimic who spent hundreds of dollars a week on binge foods; a promiscuous party girl who danced barefoot on banquets; a weepy and hallucination-prone insomniac who would take anything—anything—to sleep. This is a tale of self-loathing, self-sabotage, and yes, self-tanner. It begins at a posh New England prep school—and with a prescription for the Attention Deficit Disorder medication Ritalin. It continues to New York, where we follow Marnell’s amphetamine-fueled rise from intern to editor through the beauty departments of NYLON, Teen Vogue, Glamour, and Lucky. We see her fight between ambition and addiction and how, inevitably, her disease threatens everything she worked so hard to achieve. From the Condé Nast building to seedy nightclubs, from doctors’ offices and mental hospitals, Marnell “treads a knife edge between glamorizing her own despair and rendering it with savage honesty.…with the skill of a pulp novelist” (The New York Times Book Review) what it is like to live in the wild, chaotic, often sinister world of a young female addict who can’t say no. Combining “all the intoxicating intrigue of a thriller and yet all the sobering pathos of a gifted writer’s true-life journey to recover her former health, happiness, ambitions, and identity” (Harper’s Bazaar), How to Murder Your Life is mesmerizing, revelatory, and necessary.
Download or read book Forever and Ever Amen written by Randy Travis and published by Thomas Nelson. This book was released on 2019-05-14 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A riveting tale of unfathomable success great joy deep pain, and redemption that can come only from above. From a working-class background in North Carolina to a job as a cook and club singer in Nashville to his "overnight success" with his smash 1986 album Storms of Life--which launched the neotraditional movement in country music--Randy's first three decades are a true rags-to-riches story. But in 2009, this seemingly charmed life began a downward spiral. His marriage dissolved, he discovered that his finances had unraveled, and his struggles with anger led to alcohol abuse, public embarrassment, and even police arrest in 2012. Then, just as he was putting his life back together, Randy suffered a devastating viral cardiomyopathy that led to a massive stroke which he was not expected to survive. Yet he not only survived but also learned to walk again and, in 2016, accepted his induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame by singing the hymn that explains his life today: "Amazing Grace." Filled with never-before-told stories, Forever and Ever, Amen is a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at dizzying success and the miraculous road to restoration.
Download or read book Fall Down 7 Times Get Up 8 written by Naoki Higashida and published by Random House. This book was released on 2017-07-11 with total page 189 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the author of the bestselling The Reason I Jump, an extraordinary self-portrait of a young adult with autism “Essential reading for parents and teachers of those with autism who remain nonverbal.”—Temple Grandin Naoki Higashida was only thirteen when he wrote The Reason I Jump, a revelatory account of autism from the inside by a nonverbal Japanese child, which became an international success. Now, in Fall Down 7 Times Get Up 8, he shares his thoughts and experiences as a young man living each day with severe autism. In short, powerful chapters, Higashida explores school memories, family relationships, the exhilaration of travel, and the difficulties of speech. He also allows readers to experience profound moments we take for granted, like the thought-steps necessary for him to register that it’s raining outside. Acutely aware of how strange his behavior can appear to others, he aims throughout to foster a better understanding of autism and to encourage society to see people with disabilities as people, not as problems. With an introduction by the bestselling novelist David Mitchell, Fall Down 7 Times Get Up 8 also includes a dreamlike short story Higashida wrote especially for the U.S. edition. Both moving and of practical use, this book opens a window into the mind of an inspiring young man who meets every challenge with tenacity and good humor. However often he falls down, he always gets back up. Praise for Fall Down 7 Times Get Up 8 “[Naoki Higashida’s] success as a writer now transcends his diagnosis. . . . His relative isolation—with words as his primary connection to the outside world—has allowed him to fully develop the powers of observation that are necessary for good writing, and he has developed rich, deep perspectives on ideas that many take for granted. . . . The diversity of Higashida’s writing, in both subject and style, fits together like a jigsaw puzzle of life put in place with humor and thoughtfulness.”—The Japan Times “Profound insights about what the struggle of living with autism is really like . . . Once again, the invitation to step inside Higashida’s mind is irresistible.”—London Evening Standard “Naoki Higashida’s lyrical and heartfelt account of his condition is a gift to anyone involved with the same challenges. . . . Higashida shows a delicate regard for the difficulties his condition creates . . . and is adept at explaining his experiences in language that makes sense to neurotypicals.”—The Guardian
Download or read book Life Soup written by Pamela Lynn France and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 189 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book We All Looked Up written by Tommy Wallach and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2015-03-24 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The lives of four high school seniors intersect weeks before a meteor is set to pass through Earth's orbit, with a 66.6% chance of striking and destroying all life on the planet.
Download or read book Through It All Jesus Kept Me Strong written by Elisheva and published by Abbott Press. This book was released on 2013-06 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Elisheva had given up hope. She thought that because she hadn't become a marine biologist, as she dreamed, and had instead become a heavy drinker and high school dropout, that her life was basically over. She began chasing men who really didn't love her, and she was confused about her sexuality because of the sexual abuse and molestation she had experienced. Now, in her memoir Through It All, Jesus Kept Me Strong, she tells the story of her struggle to find herself in the wake of physical and mental abuse. A victim of parental neglect and low self-esteem, she never took the time to listen to God. When she finally realized just how much He really loved her, however, her life began to turn around. She finally understood that no matter how beat-up she was, He would stand by her through many challenging times as she drew strength to keep on going. God sees all and hears all prayers. Elisheva was raised in the chaos of abuse and struggled to find a positive life force--her Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. As she grew up trying to survive the lies, family secrets, deceit, abuse, and more, she finally found God and learned that there is love in turning to God for salvation.
Download or read book Everything s Trash But It s Okay written by Phoebe Robinson and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2019-10-15 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: DON’T MISS PHOEBE ROBINSON’S COMEDY SERIES EVERYTHING’S TRASH—NOW ON FREEFORM! New York Times bestselling author and star of 2 Dope Queens Phoebe Robinson is back with a new, hilarious, and timely essay collection on gender, race, dating, and the dumpster fire that is our world. Wouldn't it be great if life came with instructions? Of course, but like access to Michael B. Jordan's house, none of us are getting any. Thankfully, Phoebe Robinson is ready to share everything she has experienced to prove that if you can laugh at her topsy-turvy life, you can laugh at your own. Written in her trademark unfiltered and witty style, Robinson's latest collection is a call to arms. Outfitted with on-point pop culture references, these essays tackle a wide range of topics: giving feminism a tough-love talk on intersectionality, telling society's beauty standards to kick rocks, and calling foul on our culture's obsession with work. Robinson also gets personal, exploring money problems she's hidden from her parents, how dating is mainly a warmed-over bowl of hot mess, and definitely most important, meeting Bono not once, but twice. She's struggled with being a woman with a political mind and a woman with an ever-changing jeans size. She knows about trash because she sees it every day--and because she's seen roughly one hundred thousand hours of reality TV and zero hours of Schindler's List. With the intimate voice of a new best friend, Everything's Trash, But It's Okay is a candid perspective for a generation that has had the rug pulled out from under it too many times to count.
Download or read book Far From Respectable written by Daniel Oppenheimer and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2021-06-01 with total page 150 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Regarded as both a legend and a villain, the critic Dave Hickey has inspired generations of artists, art critics, musicians, and writers. His 1993 book The Invisible Dragon became a cult hit for its potent and provocative critique of the art establishment and its call to reconsider the role of beauty in art. His next book, 1997’s Air Guitar, introduced a new kind of cultural criticism—simultaneously insightful, complicated, vulnerable, and down-to-earth—that propelled Hickey to fame as an iconoclastic thinker, loved and loathed in equal measure, whose influence extended beyond the art world. Far from Respectable is a focused, evocative exploration of Hickey’s work, his impact on the field of art criticism, and the man himself, from his Huck Finn childhood to his drug-fueled periods as both a New York gallerist and Nashville songwriter to, finally, his anointment as a tenured professor and MacArthur Fellow. Drawing on in-person interviews with Hickey, his friends and family, and art world comrades and critics, Daniel Oppenheimer examines the controversial writer’s distinctive takes on a broad range of subjects, including Norman Rockwell, Robert Mapplethorpe, academia, Las Vegas, basketball, country music, and considers how Hickey and his vision of an “ethical, cosmopolitan paganism” built around a generous definition of art is more urgently needed than ever before.
