Emotions! Making Sense of Your Feelings

Mary Lamia, PhD

ISBN-13: 978-1433811937

Teens Social Issues

August 2012

146 pages

About the Book:

From the back cover:

Emotions are a powerful and extraordinary part of being human. Your emotions serve as an instant cueing system to inform you about situations and motivate you to take action.  Anxiety can sharpen your focus and direct your attention.  Pride can lead you to take on something new and challenging.  Guilt can motivate you to correct situations that interfere with your relationships.  All of your emotions are valuable – they inform you, affect the decisions you make, and can motivate you to reach your goals.

Emotions! Making Sense of Your Feelings will help you gain powerful insight into a significant part of who you are.  While your emotional life may feel tumultuous, your emotions are priceless.  It’s time to figure out just what your emotions are telling you!

My Review:

I first discovered Dr. Mary Lamia while I was doing research for my upcoming book on bullying (check my blog post on Monday for an update on this topic).  Honestly, i believe I googled the phrase “bullying expert” and sent emails to about five different people.  Dr. Lamia was one of the three who was gracious enough to respond.  She was more than gracious to answer my questions on the motivations behind bullying and even offered to send me a copy of her upcoming book. I was pleasantly surprised when Emotions!: Making Sense of Your Feelings arrived in my mailbox.

My son, Bud, has struggled with anxiety and depression for many years (see Bud’s Black Days, I Couldn’t Sleep At All Last Night).  Recently, through the right mix of medication and learning how to deal appropriately with his emotions, he has grown into an enjoyable and responsible young man. I wish that Dr. Lamia’s book had been available when Bud was first diagnosed.  It might have helped us all make it through the process more easily.

One of the best things about this book is it is a really remarkable reference that you can keep in your library for your teenagers, young adults (even you, yourself) to go to anytime they are unsure of what they are feeling.  Dr. Lamia writes in the introduction:

You don’t necessarily have to read this book cover to cover.  Depending on what you’re experiencing, you can choose a chapter that resonates with you.

There’s a chapter for each emotion. Included are:

Each chapter includes:

1. a definition and real life example of the emotion, backed by research studies
   anxiety over a big test
2. Ways that the emotion can be positive
   anxiety over a test can motivate you to make sure you are well-prepared
3. Ways the emotion can be negative
   anxiety can become chronic worry
4. Summary and conclusion
5. What’s It to You? – hints for dealing with your emotions
   deep breathing, exercise to burn off excess energy

I found this book to be very helpful (even for me) in identifying emotions.  I especially liked the What’s It to You? sections of the chapters.  This book is geared towards older teenagers and young adults, but how many of us are in touch with all our emotions all the time?  I think this book would be an asset to any home.

My rating:

I give Emotions! Making Sense of Your Feelings five smiley faces!!!  A must read!!!

I was given a complimentary copy of this book for the purposes of review.  All opinions are 100% my own.

Latitudes: A Story of Coming Home

Anthony Caplan

ISBN-13: 978-0981516639

Genre: Coming of Age

Publication Date: May 2012

224 Pages

About the Book:

A coming of age novel about a boy overcoming divorce and cultural dislocation. When Father and Mother, a highflying young American lawyer and his party-hard bride, fall prey to the self-destructive lure of alcohol and sexual liberation, Will and his sisters pay the price in divorce and kidnappings that take them back and forth between the rain forest hideaways of coastal Latin America and the placid suburbs of Long Island. Will identifies with the oppressed workers laboring in his father’s fast food restaurant and longs for American freedom. Father remarries the daughter of a local aristocrat, and Will is sent off to the hothouse world of a New England boarding school. Swimming in a sea of Fair Isle sweaters and LL Bean boots, Will discovers a core of resilience in himself that allows him to survive, thrive, and ultimately embrace the flawed and varied worlds he inhabits. Will reconnects with Mother, sinking into a New York City world of Irish bars and one night stands he cannot save her from. With a little help from friends, and a high school Shakespeare class taught by the school’s closeted gay athletic trainer, Will begins to see the possibility of finding his true path. Latitudes charts the birth pangs of a quest for self and soul – from a tropical childhood to a coming of age on the road.

Review:

Latitudes is a very intense story of childhood and family relationships, and how, as we get older, those relationships change.

Our family recently went through the trauma of a foreclosure and move, all at the same time my youngest was graduating high school.  One thing Art and I kept reminding each other and the children was “we still have each other.”  That stability of our family staying together really helped us all to make it through that rough time.

In the book, Will struggles throughout his childhood, bouncing back and forth between Venezuela and the U.S. with the need to belong somewhere, to some group.  His parents divorce and custody fight only serves to complicate this feeling more.  As Will says:

“When the world is broken for a child, the adults who have done the breaking are rarely in a position to do the gluing.”

And Will’s parents: his mother seeking solace in alcohol and one night stands; his father busy with a new wife and babies, were certainly not the ones to put the family back together.

The poignancy of childhood set in the time period of the 1970′s, mixed with the unusual circumstances of an international upbringing make this a story not to be missed.

My rating of Latitudes: 4 globes!!!!

About the Author:

Anthony Caplan is an independent writer, teacher and homesteader in northern New England. He has worked at various times as a shrimp fisherman, environmental activist, journalist, taxi-driver, builder, window-washer, and telemarketer, (the last for only a month, but one week he did win a four tape set of the greatest hits of George Jones for selling the most copies of Time-Life’s The Loggers.) Currently, Caplan is working on restoring a 150 year old farmstead where he and his family tend sheep and chickens, grow most of their own vegetables, and have started a small apple orchard from scratch His road novels, BIRDMAN and FRENCH POND ROAD, trace the meanderings of one Billy Kagan, a footloose soul striving after sanity and love in the last years of the last century. His latest fiction effort, LATITUDES – A Story of Coming Home, to be released on Kindle, Nook and Smashwords and paperback in the summer of 2012, is a young boy’s transformative journey overcoming dysfunction, dislocation and distance. Connect with Caplan on Facebook, Twitter and Google + and Goodreads.

Interview:

TM: What sparked the idea for Latitudes: A Story of Coming Home?

AC: I reached an age where i could forgive and understand my parents for some of the things I remembered from my childhood, so i wanted to write about that moment when a child realizes he doesn’t have to feel sorry for himself, that he’s holding onto feelings that are only holding him back.

TM: What drew you to the young adult genre?

AC: Telling this story. I didn’t set out purposely to appeal to young adults. I believe this is a good story for adults also, especially if you’re an adult who still remembers those childhood feelings of helplessness and victimization. And of course young adults have an easier time remembering those feelings because they’re closer to them. For some young adults, this story also is a reminder that it can take many years to get over those feelings.

TM: Are there any similarities between your childhood and Will’s?

AC: Yes, a lot of the events and relationships in the story are based on my childhood, with a good dose of dramatization and stretching of the truth, whatever that is.

TM:Your books are set in various exotic locations.  What is your favorite place to live and what is your favorite place to visit?

AC: My favorite place to live is where I live now, in central New Hampshire. I am very proud of our country and wouldn’t live anywhere else, but as far as romantic locations, I lived in the west of Ireland for four years, down a little boreen, or cow path, with no electricity or running water. That was fun, but I wouldn’t want to live there now.

TM: What advice do you have for aspiring writers?

AC: Keep writing, keep reading, and support independent authors. That’s where exciting things are happening.

I received a copy of this book for the purpose of the review.  Regardless, all opinions are mine.