Heather Seggel, Author at BookPage | Discover your next great book!

Colby is about to embark on a year he’s been dreaming of forever: Once he graduates, he’s both driver and roadie for his best friend Bev’s band as they tour the Pacific Northwest, after which he and Bev will take off and spend a year exploring Europe. So it’s a major surprise when, before the rubber has even hit the road, Bev tells Colby she’s bailing on him as soon as the tour is done. That squall of feedback you heard wasn’t just Colby’s life screeching to a halt; meet The Disenchantments.

There are many reasons this book should be on your radar. Author Nina LaCour (Hold Still) has created a road trip so realistic you’ll end up with leg cramps from sitting in the van so long. Each stop along the way has its own side trips, cruddy motel rooms and wonderfully odd local characters. Also tattoos, impromptu dance parties, nude hot tubbing and epic graffiti. The excitement of live shows comes through, along with the boredom of hours on the road and time spent simply waiting.

While they travel, Colby presses Bev for an explanation. She does ultimately reveal an event from her past that shaped her decision to plan the trip, and also to abandon it . . . but did she really understand what she was seeing? With his plans in chaos, will Colby be able to regroup and reconsider his future without Bev in it? And when she told him, “You have to find something to love,” did she mean “besides me”?

While navigating these hard questions, Colby, Bev and their fellow travelers have lots of conversations about art and music; they’re a pleasure to eavesdrop on, and it’s inspiring to observe the way they each take details from their environment and turn them into a work of art, a sculpture, drawing or song, that captures a better moment than the one that really was. It’s not giving anything away to say the story resolves on an inspiring note, too—when life gives you so much raw material, sometimes it’s possible to make inspired, and brave, decisions. The Disenchantments’ music may make your ears bleed, but their story is beautiful and full of heart. Don’t miss it.

Children's & YA, YA, YA Fiction

Children's & YA YA Fiction YA

Waiting for disaster to strike

Review by Heather Seggel

by Heather Seggel

When 15-year-old Phillip hurts his foot on a cross-country run, he hides to avoid sadistic Coach Farragut, aka “Ferret,” and meets the most amazing girl. Rebekah seems to like him back, and so he ends up at her church youth group, an activity he hides from his atheist dad. Not that Dad would notice, having finally decided to clean out a basement full of emergency supplies laid in by Phillip's mother, who has since died. The entire family has raised not talking about that to an art form. Lucas Klauss titled his first novel Everything You Need to Survive the Apocalypse; the way things pile up on Phillip, it seems like it might come at any time.

As Phillip gets more involved in Rebekah's church, his relationships with everyone around him change. His best friends are beginning to branch out, one into new friendships with a couple of Grade-A jerks. The other is into girls . . . possibly including Rebekah. Things get ugly. Punches are thrown. And some things are damaged that can never be repaired.

Phillip is a likable guy, smart and funny, and it's easy to root for him to do the right thing. Much harder is figuring out exactly what that is. Does he really believe the things in the pamphlets he's been handing out, which would alienate almost everyone in his life? Is he truly seeking God, or just trying to win over a hot girl? And what does she think about all this? Everything You Need to Survive the Apocalypse is wise about the misunderstandings we hang onto and the ways we fail to understand one another in both friendship and love.

Lifestyles, Nonfiction, Self-Help

Nonfiction Self-Help Lifestyles

New Year’s resolutions made easy

Review by Heather Seggel

by Heather Seggel

Happy New Year! Time to shake off that hangover and hit the treadmill for an hour a day! Woo-hoo!

OK, maybe not. How about: Instead of the annual festival of overdoing your resolutions, then stopping cold and backsliding, why not make a series of small tweaks here and there? Author Brett Blumenthal has 52 Small Changes all picked out with your future health and happiness in mind. From easy health fixes (up your water intake, become more label-savvy, start stretching) to attitude adjustments (build your optimism, find time for yourself), this book has got you covered.

There’s a lot to like about 52 Small Changes. Each week’s project is broken down into easy steps, and the reasons why it’s a worthy undertaking are spelled out in detail. Rather than a simple “Eat more vegetables,” you get a chart breaking down the specific health benefits of several veggies along with ideas to help you incorporate more of them into your daily diet. If you’re already a master at that week’s change, there are “extra credit” ways to go beyond, such as logging your exercise regimen if you already keep a food journal. Of course, you can also take a bye week and concentrate on what you’ve learned so far.

The book has great templates to help you start a food journal, make a budget or track medical appointments; there are also websites listed throughout where you can do the same. Fifty-two small changes may seem like a lot, but taken one week at a time, there’s nothing here you can’t tackle . . . and the potential results are limitless.

Happy New Year! Time to shake off that hangover and hit the treadmill for an hour a day! Woo-hoo!

OK, maybe not. How about: Instead of the annual festival of overdoing your resolutions, then stopping cold and backsliding, why not make a series of small tweaks…

Business & Finance, Nonfiction

Nonfiction Business & Finance

At peace with your pocketbook

Review by Heather Seggel

by Heather Seggel

Despite writing more than 30 books of fiction and nonfiction, author Julia Cameron is best known for one: The Artist’s Way, the iconic bestseller that guided millions of readers to improved creativity. With The Prosperous Heart, Cameron brings some of the same techniques to bear on an area many people would rather leave unexamined: money. The book outlines a 12-week program that calls for honesty and strict accountability to develop a healthy relationship not just with your bank balance but with your life as a whole.

Some of the methods proposed here will be familiar to readers of Your Money or Your Life and the literature of Debtors Anonymous; tracking every cent in or out, refusing to take on more debt and keeping a personal inventory are hallmarks of the genre. But The Prosperous Heart distinguishes itself through the stories Cameron tells about her own life and times. Offered up with humor and humility, these examples support her central thesis: that “every person is creative, and can use their creativity to create a life of ‘enough.’ ” She adds, “I myself have worried about money—and found that having money does not end this worry.”

The exercises here, including the “morning pages” made famous in The Artist’s Way, can offer meaningful help. Pick up a pen and blank notebook and start working through the exercises, and it might just change your outlook. The program takes 12 weeks, but recognizing that you’re better off than you think is a result that pays long-term dividends in every area of your life. Cameron measures prosperity in terms of faith, not finances; this book should improve the way you think and feel about both.

Memoir, Nonfiction, Self-Help

Nonfiction Self-Help Memoir

‘Carpe diem’ from a terminal voice

Review by Heather Seggel

by Heather Seggel

Lee Lipsenthal’s life changed in one bite. The medical director of the Preventive Medicine Research Institute, his life’s work had been helping others work through their fears about death and live more joyfully. In July 2009, when a bite of BLT caused him abnormal discomfort, he already suspected the worst. Diagnosed with esophageal cancer, Lipsenthal found that everything he had taught others paid dividends when he needed them most: He was not afraid to die. Enjoy Every Sandwich shares what he learned along the way and commemorates his life, which ended in September 2011.

Making peace with death didn’t make life a picnic. His wife Kathy was angry at his apparent willingness to “give up,” and his children—and parents—were devastated. There were certainly hard days. But Lipsenthal kept his focus on what he could do, and used the same techniques he promoted in his job—meditation, gratitude, humor—to guide his path. His family and friends, including one pal who made hilariously convoluted plans to score him an introduction to Sir Paul McCartney, prompted him to observe, “I no longer have a bucket list. I have love in my life.”

The book’s title comes from an exchange between the late musician Warren Zevon and David Letterman, during a final interview when it was clear Zevon would not survive his own cancer diagnosis. It’s a lovely message, and it’s hard to read Enjoy Every Sandwich without coming to like Lipsenthal a lot, and grieving the loss of someone who helped so many. How sweet, then, that the book exists to make his legacy available to us all.

Children's & YA, YA, YA Fiction

Children's & YA YA Fiction YA

Painting the breakup blues

Review by Heather Seggel

by Heather Seggel

It should not shock you to learn that Why We Broke Up doesn’t have a happy ending. It’s the story of a breakup, told through the items Minerva Green collected while dating Ed Slaterton, which she has boxed up to return to him. The novel is Min’s letter to Ed, with each chapter centered on one item in the box and a story about how it came to be there. Daniel Handler provides the words, and Maira Kalman’s paintings of each item introduce the chapters; the two fit together to create a perfect mood, both magical and heartbreaking.

Min is a classic film-obsessed café denizen who shops at vintage stores that are only open for an hour and a half one day a week, but hates being pigeonholed as “arty” or “different.” Ed is co-captain of the basketball team and about as far from “different” as it gets, with his jocky earnest ways and string of exes. Can these two star-crossed lovers overcome their pasts and their separate groups of friends to throw an epic birthday bash for an 88-year-old stranger who may or may not be a film star from days of yore? Yeah, probably not.

Handler’s prose gets inside Min’s head and jumbled hormones; when she’s ultimately betrayed we’re ready to throw the box of stuff right in Ed’s stupid face (despite still kind of liking him). And Kalman’s paintings give us not just the thing-ness of the things left behind, but some of the magic that made them worth saving. Anyone who has had a broken heart and sifted through the detritus left behind will find Min’s collection extremely relatable. If that’s not you yet, just wait; Why We Broke Up is a beautiful story, but also soul food for dark times. Don’t miss it.

Children's & YA, YA, YA Fiction

Children's & YA YA Fiction YA

Does growing up have to mean growing apart?

Review by Heather Seggel

by Heather Seggel

Evan and Lucy have been best friends since childhood. After Lucy’s parents split up, she moved away, and now her winter break visits are the highlights of Evan’s year. Until this year. Lucy comes home draped in Goth gear, with a new attitude that falls somewhere between angry and totally absent. Evan is determined to figure out where his old friend is in the midst of this transformation; Lucy is just as focused on keeping her secrets under lock and key. This emotional tug-of-war is just one of the stories threading through Winter Town.

Author Stephen Emond (Happyface) has created an intricate world for Evan and Lucy to navigate, and shifts in perspective allow each to tell part of the story. Evan is an artist, or might be, if he can shake off his family’s Ivy League game plan; comic strips that he has drawn, sometimes in collaboration with Lucy, appear in the book, giving yet another view of what’s going on with him. Emond strikes a nice balance with the artwork. It never overwhelms the story, but gets us closer to the characters, and it’s lovely to look at, sometimes clean and literal, then cartoonish and fantastic.

Another neat trick Winter Town pulls off is blending some seriously heavy subject matter—parental pressure, dangerous relationships, drug use—into what is frequently hilarious writing. There’s an early scene, in which Evan’s entire family openly speculates about his sexuality as if he weren’t right there, that belongs on screen. Add in pop culture riffs and chapters titled with Beatles and Beach Boys songs, and Winter Town is a rare treat: a book about art and love, friendship and independence, that’s a real pleasure to read. Don’t miss it.

Nonfiction

Nonfiction

New discoveries in free will

Review by Heather Seggel

by Heather Seggel

Contemporary science is for the most part attached to determinism, or the belief that physical laws govern the physical world, of which we humans are a part. This potentially eliminates the concepts of free will and personal responsibility. After all, it wasn’t me that ate that tray of brownies. That was just a biological response to stimulus! Right?

Not so fast, says Michael Gazzaniga. In Who’s in Charge?, the neuroscientist argues that the brain is governed by the mind, which he defines as a sort of self-created system of brain government. Sound nutty? Yes, a little. But the ramifications extend through science into psychology, ethics and law, and repeatedly argue for responsible behavior. In the author’s view, “We are people, not brains,” effectively revoking our free pass to pig out.

Gazzaniga’s extensive work with “split-brain” patients (whose right and left brain hemispheres have been medically separated) gave him insight into the ways we make sense of seemingly senseless information. When Gazzaniga showed a picture of a wagon only to a patient’s left eye (which is connected to the brain’s right hemisphere), the word “toy” came to the patient’s mind. The left hemisphere could not explain why the patient thought of that word, but nevertheless tried, describing “an inner sense” that called the word to mind. This act of interior storytelling in order to make sense of things, referred to here as “the interpreter,” makes a strong case for the existence of a mind that is part of the brain yet separate from it.

Who’s in Charge? is based on talks presented at the Gifford Lecture series, known for its focus on religion, science and philosophy. This ramble through fields that would seem to be at odds with one another is one of the book’s main pleasures. Another is Gazzaniga’s commitment to humanizing science at every turn. He writes, “It is the magnificence of being ‘human’ that we all cherish and love and that we don’t want science to take away.” As long as there are scientists who endorse that view, humanity should be safe for years to come.

Children's & YA, YA

Children's & YA YA

The burdens teens bear

Review by Heather Seggel

by Heather Seggel

The Sharp Time spans just one week in the life of high school senior Sandinista Jones. Her post-graduation plans fell apart when her mother died unexpectedly, and after a conflict with a teacher makes school seem like anything but a safe haven, she’s alone and frightened, but also very angry and out for revenge. A possible channel for her angst appears when she takes a part-time job at a vintage clothing shop, The Pale Circus, and finds a potential soul mate in co-worker Bradley. Yet such intense focus on her own drama causes her at first to miss the fact that Bradley has significant troubles of his own. Maybe their friendship can lead them both to some healing and resolution. If not, her punk rock name isn’t going to be the scariest thing Sandinista turns loose on the streets of Kansas City.

Mary O’Connell has given us a bright, energetic heroine who manages to keep a sense of humor despite suffering some very hard knocks. The book opens up discussions of a lot of big issues—teacher-student bullying, Catholic sex abuse, gun control, grief, revenge, vandalism, theft—and doesn’t offer any pat answers, making The Sharp Time a good pick for reading groups. You can’t call it a happy ending, but there’s comfort in seeing Sandinista learn that when bad things happen, “you just have to take it, you have to feel it. There is nothing else.” That, and a friend who’s got your back, just might be enough.

Children's & YA, YA, YA Fiction

Children's & YA YA Fiction YA

No ordinary rehab

Review by Heather Seggel

by Heather Seggel

Amy Reed sets her new novel, Clean, in a drug and alcohol rehab clinic for teens. Actually, she tosses us in and locks the door behind us until graduation, and it’s a tough but fascinating sentence to serve.

Clean follows five teens through treatment: Christopher (“the nerdy guy”), Kelly (“the pretty girl”), Jason (“the tough guy”), Eva (“the emo/Goth girl”) and Olivia, who just got there. Through journal entries, medical forms and transcribed group therapy sessions with hard-nosed counselor Shirley, we learn each person’s story a little at a time. While the path to becoming an addict is always bleak, teasing out the details makes Clean unfold like a mystery. Is the guy climbing in Christopher’s bedroom window real or imaginary? Olivia is “just” hooked on diet pills; does she really belong here?

With a subject as broad as addiction, Reed uses small moments to show us daily life in rehab. A simple thing like watching a movie now requires kids to sit two feet apart with no blankets, after previous residents were busted in a moment of intimacy under the covers.

When it’s time for graduation, we don’t know who will stay sober, but the characters in Clean make us hope for the best, for them and for anyone facing a similar challenge.

Clean follows five teens through treatment: Christopher (“the…

Essays, Humor, Memoir, Nonfiction

Nonfiction Memoir Humor Essays

The idiot girl sleeps tonight

Review by Heather Seggel

by Heather Seggel

Idiot Girls and other fans of writer Laurie Notaro most likely know what they’re getting themselves into with her latest collection, It Looked Different on the Model. This reader’s first warning sign came when the table of contents provoked a laugh attack that very nearly resulted in coffee out the nose. Things only got more perilous—and hilarious—from there.

Notaro and her husband recently relocated from Phoenix to Eugene, Oregon, and many of the pieces here reflect the culture shock of being surrounded by so many eccentrics. It’s not just the woman who takes out one breast at a picnic despite there being no hungry infant within a half-mile radius, or the young man discovered napping on Notaro’s lawn with a line of ants traversing his face. As if that weren’t enough, all her husband’s friends are graduate-level English majors! Just try being Anna Nicole Smith for Halloween in that crowd: blank stares all around.

The eccentricity doesn’t limit itself to humans, either. When her dog’s shrieking becomes overwhelming, Notaro buys a bark translator to better understand its needs. Suddenly modest, the dog won’t perform on cue, leading to a bark-off between Notaro and her husband, followed by competitive analysis of the translations. At least she bought the device while conscious; one of the funniest pieces here is about Notaro’s adventures with Ambien, combining sleep with online shoe-shopping and eating Devil Dogs in bed. Buyer’s remorse? Eater’s remorse? Ha. “There was just no contest. I like sleeping, so if a Twinkie or Devil Dog had to die every now and then at the hands of a teeth-gnashing night-eater, I was cool with that.”

Each piece stands on its own, but they’re even funnier together, since Notaro will build on the premise of one essay in another. For instance, we know she takes Ambien and wanders the halls eating snack foods, so when her husband starts finding little star-shaped chocolate imprints on his pillowcase, she’s certainly the most obvious suspect. When she catches the perpetrator in the act, it’s priceless . . . and disgusting. No spoilers here; read for yourself, but wait half an hour after eating, lest you literally bust a gut laughing.

Children's & YA, YA Fiction

Children's & YA YA Fiction

Misadventures on the moors

Review by Heather Seggel

by Heather Seggel

Tallulah Casey is spending the summer at a performing arts school in Yorkshire (described in its brochure as like “Wuthering Heights but with more acting and dancing and less freezing to death on the moors!!”). Hence, Withering Tights. At 14, Tallulah’s looking forward to making new friends, finding her talents (spontaneous attacks of Riverdance are a talent, right?) and having unfettered access to boys, but the summer has even bigger things in store. Like baby owls hatching, performance art aplenty—including a female Heathcliff—a small fire in the dorms . . . and a lot of access to boys. Oh, and a handy glossary, so American readers can tell a “noddy niddy noddy” from a “nunga nunga” (a crucial distinction).

Fans of author Louise Rennison’s Georgia Nicolson series will be tickled to find Georgia in a sort of cameo here, and the glossary, eccentric adults (and toddlers!), animal characters and beaucoup de boy drama are virtually Rennison’s trademark. But Withering Tights departs from the other series with Tallulah herself; instead of Georgia’s hilarious self-involvement, this series is anchored by someone who wears her insecurities front and center, like her nobbly knees. Her parents are traveling constantly; her father’s idea of a helpful talk on growing up was to give her a James Bond novel and call it a day. As a result, she’s kind and appreciative of those around her and quickly forms familial bonds. Rennison hasn’t changed too much, though: Like Georgia’s diaries, Tallulah’s story is a laugh-out-loud winner, chock full of Irish jigs and the occasional sheep’s bladder. Start here, and be glad nothing’s neatly resolved at the end, because there’s more to look forward to in the series!

Social Science

Social Science

The challenges and rewards of being an outsider

Review by Heather Seggel

by Heather Seggel

The high school lunch bell has just sounded; where are you going to sit? Do you have a spot reserved at the popular table? Or are you a band geek, trying to find your friends and avoid being tripped by the preps? Maybe you’re a floater, able to mingle with the different cliques and groups. Forget that pop quiz in biology; lunch hour is often the most stressful period in the school day, pointing out as it does the layers of division among school kids.

Into this world comes author Alexandra Robbins (Pledged, The Overachievers). The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth wears its bias right in the title. While observing seven distinct types at different schools across the U.S., Robbins repeatedly unearths evidence of the value brought to the setting by so-called “nerds,” “geeks,” “emos” and others often singled out for exclusion or abuse. Her “quirk theory” posits that the very qualities that make these kids outsiders in school are the ones that will have positive real-world applications later. But for those talents to be realized they must be nurtured, not squelched. This book takes an interesting approach to righting that wrong.

Where in the past Robbins merely reported on what she saw, now she gets into the trenches, creating challenges designed to expand the social circles and safe points of contact for the people she profiles. It’s a relief to see band geek Noah come out of his shell and develop new leadership skills, and “popular bitch” Whitney thrives when she’s allowed to ditch her high-maintenance power clique and talk to whomever she likes.

The revenge of the nerds prophesied here should please anyone who was ever left out of a group for being too much themselves. Students, parents and teachers working to facilitate more social cross-pollination will appreciate the tips on how to create a safe space for creativity to thrive. Robbins makes the case that it’s necessary work, because the harshest consequence of enforced conformity “is that so many . . . students . . . think that they have done or felt something wrong.” The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth is fascinating; here’s hoping it finds a place in the curriculum for teachers and students alike.

Heather Seggel

Growing apart on the road

Waiting for disaster to strike

New Year’s resolutions made easy

At peace with your pocketbook

‘Carpe diem’ from a terminal voice

Painting the breakup blues

Does growing up have to mean growing apart?

New discoveries in free will

The burdens teens bear

No ordinary rehab

The idiot girl sleeps tonight

Misadventures on the moors

The challenges and rewards of being an outsider

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