Biographies and Memoirs

Unbroken: Life Outside the Lines

Adriene Cat | Biographies and Memoirs

Adriene Caldwell’s memoir, Unbroken: Life Outside the Lines, chronicles a childhood characterized by trauma. Born to a schizophrenic mother who beat her, neglected her, and eventually surrendered her to the state, Caldwell endures sexual assault, the drowning death of a friend, homelessness, extreme poverty, and a sadistic foster mother she dubs “The Bitch from Hell.” She claws toward stability through academic excellence and a transformative year in Germany. Yet adulthood brings new devastation: stripping, cocaine addiction, a predatory affair with a former foster father, and multiple suicide attempts. Each cycle of hope and collapse exposes the fissures of social safety nets promised...

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Unbroken: Life Outside the Lines

Adriene Cat ()

| Reviewed by Joanne Higbee

Adriene Caldwell’s memoir, Unbroken: Life Outside the Lines, chronicles a childhood characterized by trauma. Born to a schizophrenic mother who beat her, neglected her, and eventually surrendered her to the state, Caldwell endures sexual assault, the drowning death of a friend, homelessness, extreme poverty, and a sadistic foster mother she dubs “The Bitch from Hell.” She claws toward stability through academic excellence and a transformative year in Germany. Yet adulthood brings new devastation: stripping, cocaine addiction, a predatory a...

Into the Eye

James Houston Turner (Regis Books (an imprint of Ruby Rock Films))

| Reviewed by Jeff Klune

James Houston Turner’s Into the Eye is a geopolitical thriller that introduces former KGB colonel Aleksandr Talanov, who is thrust into the heart of a diabolical human-trafficking network in central Africa. Tasked with the covert KTAC team, Talanov must locate and rescue Dr. Shawni Juma, a virologist who has uncovered evidence linking the brutal warlord Ojo Mutebi to the wealthy communist ideologue Istvan Szabo. When a rescue helicopter is betrayed from within, and Talanov is stranded in a rebel camp, the mission explodes into a high-stakes, gl...

No Truce With The Vampires - Those Who Endure

Martyn Rhys Vaughan (Martyn Rhys Vaughan)

| Reviewed by Louise Garten

Martyn Rhys Vaughan’s No Truce with the Vampires: Those Who Endure transplants gothic horror into the sun-scorched Australian outback to conclude its trilogy. In a future where vampires have conquered Earth after humanity nearly destroyed it, the surviving human race is exiled to “Stralia” and infantilized into docile farmers. The story follows Greg Ferguson, a hardy sheepherder in the Red Centre, who discovers from his dying mother’s hidden documents that their world is a prison. Alongside the mysterious Allira, he uncovers the truth about vam...

Turning the Giant: Disrupting Your Industry with Persistent Innovation

John Berra (Forbes Books)

| Reviewed by Rachel Groover

Automation industry veteran and former president of Fisher-Rosemount Systems and executive vice president of Emerson, John Berra, delivers a spirited manual for facing adversity in professional life. He draws on his personal experience turning corporate obstacles into opportunities and his four-decade ascent from Monsanto control engineer to the leader of a $6.7 billion automation division to contend that the giants professionals face—self-doubt, competition, innovation, corporate bureaucracy, skepticism, and success—are not enemies to be slain...

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