David was always different from his brothers. Born and raised in the midst of South Florida's music scene, he was labeled a sissy and mocked by neighborhood boys. Introduced to Miami's gay nightlife, drugs, and reckless sexual escapades, he wonders if this is where he truly belongs, here in the arms of faceless strangers. As David wanders from one shadowy scene to another, stacking shame upon shame, he chooses to ignore the concerns of his estranged family and a mysterious, but comforting, voice. Does this heavenly voice truly care? Is David, finally plagued by disease, destroying his life forever? Based on true events, David's story is one of misadventure, selfish exploration, disappointment, and ongoing scandal, but throughout its entirety, redeeming hope...a divine hope for life's fresh beginning in a moment of surrender and choice.
Author of Why I Wore Lipstick to My Mastectomy Geralyn Lucas’s funny and moving story of leaving the traumatic experience of cancer behind and learning to survive all the challenges of a life she thought she would not have. When Geralyn Lucas, author of Why I Wore Lipstick to My Mastectomy, put on red lipstick in the hall on the way to the operating room, she was showing her doctors, her family, and, most important, herself that she planned on coming out of the OR and living life to the fullest. She figured that that day in the OR would be the hardest day of her life—but, it turns out, the twenty-seven-year-old cancer survivor was a bit short-sighted. Then Came Life picks up almost two decades later, when Geralyn is now living the life she was afraid she’d never be able to have. After having almost died from cancer as a young woman, Geralyn felt that growing old enough to get wrinkles is a gift—one she prayed fervently for in her youth. But she is now in her midforties: Her two miracle babies (both C-sections, both advised against by her doctors) have grown into a mean tween with a fierce eye roll for her mother’s failures and a tornado of little-boy energy who refuses to play by his preschool’s rules; a storybook romance with her husband has become couples therapy with a grumpy prince; and her demanding corporate job at Lifetime TV that she loves moves across the country without her. She has lost the wonder of that cancer gratitude moment, and when she looks in the mirror at her hard-won wrinkles, all she can think about is that she wants to have Botox. Then Came Life is a charming, quirky, delightful yet poignant story of surviving life, a collection of coming-of-(middle)-age stories of trying to be a role model for her daughter while being dissatisfied with her own looks, and what happens when her adoring son is more intent on romancing her than her husband is (right down to dueling Valentine’s Day cards). With the clear-eyed wit and observations of Nora Ephron, she not only explores the dissonance of facing the challenges she was afraid she wouldn’t be alive to have but also confronts them with a great sense of infectious empowerment and a hilarious voice. Geralyn harnesses her fighting spirit and leaves behind the trauma of cancer to battle all the rest that life has to throw at her. Then Came Life is not a cancer recovery story: It is about rediscovering the resilience, courage, and optimism it takes to reinvent yourself at every age.
Challenges women who have had difficult setbacks to connect with their inner strength and approach life optimistically while tracing how the author embraced her second chance at life to reinvent herself.
THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! "I had the choice to come back ... or not. I chose to return when I realized that 'heaven' is a state, not a place" In this truly inspirational memoir, Anita Moorjani relates how, after fighting cancer for almost four years, her body began shutting down—overwhelmed by the malignant cells spreading throughout her system. As her organs failed, she entered into an extraordinary near-death experience where she realized her inherent worth . . . and the actual cause of her disease. Upon regaining consciousness, Anita found that her condition had improved so rapidly that she was released from the hospital within weeks—without a trace of cancer in her body! Within this enhanced e-book, Anita recounts—in words and on video—stories of her childhood in Hong Kong, her challenge to establish her career and find true love, as well as how she eventually ended up in that hospital bed where she defied all medical knowledge. In "Dying to Be Me," Anita Freely shares all she has learned about illness, healing, fear, "being love," and the true magnificence of each and every human being!
“A bold memoir” of one young woman’s courageous battle with breast cancer—the basis for the Emmy-nominated Lifetime movie starring Sarah Chalke (People). Having recently graduated from Columbia Journalism School and landed her dream job at 20/20, the last thing twenty-seven-year-old Geralyn expects to hear is a breast cancer diagnosis. And there is one part of the diagnosis that no one will discuss with her: what it means to be a young woman with cancer in a beauty-obsessed culture. Trying to find herself while losing her vibrancy and her looks, Geralyn embarks on a road of self-acceptance that will inspire all women. Although her story is explicitly about a period of time when she was driven by fear and uncertainty, Geralyn managed a transformation that will encourage all women under siege to discover their own courage and beauty. The important and outrageous lessons of Why I Wore Lipstick come fast and furious with the same gusto that Geralyn has learned to bring to every aspect of her life.
The National Book Award finalist and debut novel by the bestselling author of The Dinner Party: "A readymade classic of the office-novel genre. . . . A truly affecting novel about work, trust, love, and loneliness." --Seattle Times No one knows us quite the same way as the men and women who sit beside us in department meetings and crowd the office refrigerator with their labeled yogurts. Every office is a family of sorts, and the ad agency Joshua Ferris brilliantly depicts in his debut novel is family at its strangest and best, coping with a business downturn in the time-honored way: through gossip, pranks, and increasingly frequent coffee breaks. With a demon's eye for the details that make life worth noticing, Joshua Ferris tells a true and funny story about survival in life's strangest environment--the one we pretend is normal five days a week.
Then Came You - Two sisters, two stories of love... all in one book! Shannan is a successful photographer with everything going for her but love. With a freshly broken heart, her image of love is blurred and she's skeptical about opening up her heart and giving love another shot. Then came Jabari. A handsome mailman who manages to get her attention. His charm and self-confidence coupled with the sexual tension between them make him hard for Shannan to resist him. But when his past comes back and threatens another blow to her heart, Shannan fights back. With her camera and the help of her "ride or die crew", will this photographer capture true love this time? Zaniyah, her younger sister, was enjoying the single life. Then came Brian. As children, they couldn't have been more different. She was the hot, sassy cheerleader all the boys noticed, including Brian. But he was the quiet, awkward nerd boy that she rarely noticed. All grown up now, Z is still a hottie and still has quite the male following. When her date blows her off, Brian, who has gone from nerdy duckling to handsome swan steps in. Infatuated by the man Brian has become, she agrees to a " friends with benefits" relationship, since he's only going to be in town for a short period of time. How was she to know that his kiss would make her mind go blank? That his touch would make her body go limp? Who told her heart to participate in this? Now he has to go and all she wants is for him to stay. Then Came You will make you believe in true love again!
Everybody Out of the Pond At the Water's Edge will change the way you think about your place in the world. The awesome journey of life's transformation from the first microbes 4 billion years ago to Homo sapiens today is an epic that we are only now beginning to grasp. Magnificent and bizarre, it is the story of how we got here, what we left behind, and what we brought with us. We all know about evolution, but it still seems absurd that our ancestors were fish. Darwin's idea of natural selection was the key to solving generation-to-generation evolution -- microevolution -- but it could only point us toward a complete explanation, still to come, of the engines of macroevolution, the transformation of body shapes across millions of years. Now, drawing on the latest fossil discoveries and breakthrough scientific analysis, Carl Zimmer reveals how macroevolution works. Escorting us along the trail of discovery up to the current dramatic research in paleontology, ecology, genetics, and embryology, Zimmer shows how scientists today are unveiling the secrets of life that biologists struggled with two centuries ago. In this book, you will find a dazzling, brash literary talent and a rigorous scientific sensibility gracefully brought together. Carl Zimmer provides a comprehensive, lucid, and authoritative answer to the mystery of how nature actually made itself.
Every summer, Samantha Wheland joins her childhood friends, Isabel, Kendra and Mina, on a vacation somewhere exotic and fabulous –– this year it's a beach house in Honduras. But for the first time, their clan is not complete. Mina lost her battle against cancer six months ago, and the friends she left behind are still struggling to find their way forward without her. For Samantha, the vacation feels wrong without Mina. She's unsure what direction her life should take and fearful that whatever decision she makes about her French boyfriend's surprise proposal will be the wrong one. The answers aren't in the journal Mina gave Sam before she died. Or in the messages Sam believes Mina is sending as guideposts. Before the trip ends, it will take the bonds of existing friendships, family stories of love and loss, and a glimpse into a world far removed from her own to convince Sam to trust and follow her heart.
The plans of four women--including a college student egg donor, a working-class surrogate mother, a wealthy woman, and her stepdaughter--are thrown into turmoil when the wealthy woman's husband suddenly dies and names the stepdaughter the unborn baby's guardian.
