Stash

October 1, 2022

Stand-up comic, actor (e.g., Netflix's Cobra Kai), and host of the No. 1 food podcast in the country, Green Eggs and Dan, Ahdoot uses an essay format in Undercooked to explain how food became a crutch and finally a dangerous obsession for him, starting with his brother's untimely death. Before he died of cancer, Braitman's father rushed to teach her important things like how to fix a carburetor and play good practical jokes; long after his death, she realized the cost of What Looks Like Bravery in suppressing her sorrow at his passing; following the New York Times best-selling Animal Madness. In Forager, journalism professor Dowd recalls her upbringing in the fervently Christian cult Field, founded by her domineering grandfather, where she was often cold, hungry, and abused and learned to put her trust in the natural world. Hospitalized from ages of 14 to 17 with anorexia nervosa, Freeman (House of Glass) recalls in Good Girls her subsequent years as a "functioning anorexic" and interviews doctors about new discoveries and treatments regarding the condition. In Happily, which draws on her Paris Review column of the same name, Mark uses fairytale to show how sociopolitical issues impact her own life, particularly as a Jewish woman raising Black children in the South. Philosophy professor Martin's How Not To Kill Yourself examines the mindset that has driven him to attempt suicide 10 times. Award-winning CBS journalist Miller here limns a sense of not Belonging: abandoned at birth by her mother, a Chicana hospital administrator who hushed up her affair with the married trauma surgeon (and Compton's first Black city councilman) who raised Miller, the author struggled to find her place in white-dominated schools and newsrooms and finally sought out her lost parent (60,000-copy first printing). From Mouton, Houston's first Black poet laureate and once ranked the No. 2 Best Female Performance Poet in the World (Poetry Slam Inc.), Black Chameleon relates an upbringing in a world devoid of the stories needed by Black children--which she argues women must now craft (60,000-copy first printing). A graduate of the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa, Mount Holyoke College, and Columbia University, Ramotwala demonstrates The Will To Be in a memoir of early hardship (her mother's first-born daughter died in a firebombing before the author was born) and adjusting to life in the United States (75,000-copy first printing). In Stash, Robbins, host of the podcast The Only One in the Room, relates her recovery from dangerous drug use (e.g., stockpiling pills and scheduling withdrawals around PTA meetings and baby showers) as she struggles with being Black in a white world. Author of the multi-award-winning, multi-award-nominated No Visible Bruises, a study of domestic violence, Snyder follows up with Women We Buried, Women We Burned, her story of escaping the cult her widowed father joined and as a teenager making her way in the world (100,000-copy first printing).

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February 1, 2023
A memoir of addiction, attempted recovery, and hitting bottom. "My parents were hippies who, despite their African American heritage, had done the very Scandinavian thing of continuing to parent me after their divorce," writes Robbins, who rebelled by beginning a love affair with an Oakland pimp and drug dealer who introduced her to smoking freebase cocaine. Though she liked it, she eventually quit. "To me," she writes, "the world was divided into two categories of people: failures, aka folks who were stupid enough to let other people see that they needed help, and successes, aka self-reliants like me, who would die before they accepted help from anyone." Later, after marrying a TV star and working as a publicist, enjoying life as a "young, interracial power couple," the author discovered that she merely traded one addiction for the more genteel one of reliance on Ambien. Soon, she was seeking drugs among different doctors and pharmacists, lying to others and herself about her condition, and enduring cycles of feast (when a prescription is refilled) and famine (when the bottle is empty). Sometimes, Robbins hits just the right note--e.g., "being high--really high--is like being completely submerged in viscous fluid." However, the back and forth of repeated scamming attempts, rationalizations, cold sweats, evasions, therapy sessions in rehab, and negotiations over an eventual divorce takes on a certain numbing sameness after a while. Ultimately, falling in with a fellow addict ("Four DUIs....You would think that anyone with four DUIs would be dead or in prison") and committing to rehab broke the cycle. Although the story turns toward at least the possibility of a happy ending, the author is aware that it can all come crashing down in an instant. "We're doing the best we can with what we have, and sometimes that has to be enough," she concludes. Breaks little new ground, but a solid cautionary tale about the dangers of drug addiction and the struggle to overcome it.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

February 1, 2023
In her debut book, Cathcart Robbins details the end of her marriage and the beginning of her sobriety. Both events come as a shock--to the outside world, she's a perfect wife and mother. But her carefully hidden addiction has spiraled out of control. Her adult life has been built on a lie, and the fear of being discovered propels the book forward. This makes for an engaging page-turner despite the heavy material. A sense of paranoia and deep self-loathing contrasts with the author's playful sense of humor. As a now successful podcast host and freelance writer, and with the benefit of hindsight, it would've been easy for Cathcart Robbins to paint a flattering image of herself. Instead, she stays honest about how she felt in each moment, sincerely recounting the joys and humiliations of her early sobriety. Overall, Stash is an earnest and well-crafted memoir that will be especially useful for readers interested in secular addiction memoirs or those looking for sobriety literature that puts motherhood at the forefront.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

March 13, 2023
In this vibrant if light debut, The Only One in the Room podcaster Robbins recounts her yearslong addiction to Ambien after pulling herself up from high school dropout to Hollywood PR exec. Spurred by her cratering marriage and the stress of keeping her past hidden, Robbins got high, hid Ambien doses inside her designer clothes, experienced crushing withdrawals, and fished undigested pills from her own vomit, all while growing increasingly afraid she might lose custody of her kids in a messy divorce. Eventually, she checked into a $40,000-a-month desert rehab facility, where she fell in love with a fellow addict who helped her achieve and maintain sobriety. Robbins’s characterization of her husband—mostly just a specter playing hardball during divorce negotiations—is disappointingly thin, and the general pace can get too breakneck to let important moments breathe. The story is moving, though, and Robbins has charisma to spare (“If hiding in plain sight were an Olympic sport, I would be a gold medalist,” she quips). Readers will breeze through this dishy, heartfelt confessional, but may be left wanting more.