Review of Forget About Heaven: Don’t Yell At Me, Take It Up With My Dead Mother by Kathleen Hoy Foley

This book review was written by Eugene Kernes   

This book was provided by the author

Book can be found in: 

Genre = Sociology

Collection = Kathleen Hoy Foley Trilogy

Intriguing Connections = 1) The Persecuted and The Persecutors, 

2) Biographies: Auto, Memoir, and Other Types, 

Watch Short Review

Excerpts

“You did not want to cross my mother. Unfortunately, your mere existence already aggravated her, so angering my mother did not require much. It is a colossal understatement to say that my mother detested any attempt to gain sympathy, especially from her –– my mother received sympathy, she did not grant it.” – Kathleen Hoy Foley, Chapter 2, Page- 12-13

 

“Every once in a while, though, a mysterious something inside her gave way, an outburst of anger unrelated to an outwardly bland circumstance. Those times she’d burn fierce and swift –– an instantaneous eruption of molten fury. It meant big trouble for you if at that particular moment you were on her wrong side, because you’d end up a pile of cinder before you even knew what the hell happened. She wouldn’t tell you why, either. She’d just cast her weighted pall over the entire household and withdraw into the silent treatment that lasted as long as she damn well pleased.” – Kathleen Hoy Foley, Chapter 5, Pages 19-20

 

“If Kathleen’s trying to get me to say I’m sorry, she’s barking up the wrong tree. I don’t go in for apologizing. I don’t accept no apologies either. Don’t come crying to me with I’m sorry. My line is, If you’re sorry, you wouldn’t do it. I’m not apologizing for nothin’. You’re not gonna get me to apologize. Kathleen’s not gonna get me to apologize. I didn’t do nothin’.” – Kathleen Hoy Foley, Chapter 68, Page 157

Excerpts provided with permission from the author

Review

Is This An Overview?

In life, Kathleen could not reconcile with Kathleen’s mother Pat.  After Pat passed away, they could.  This is a book on how a mother and daughter are able to share their stories with each other, and through the processes of sharing, find reconciliation.  By sharing their views on events, they are able to understand how each affected the other’s life, how others experienced their actions and behaviors.  Throughout their life, they saw primarily the harm, the hardships inflicted on them by others.  Through sharing their stories, they were able to get to know each other and understand why they behaved the way they did.  Understand why there were bursts of anger, how they treated others when they were in pain, how emotional wounds affected their behavior.  Through sharing their stories, they were able to be heard, to find worth, belonging, and acceptance. 

 

Caveats?

The writing quality is mixed.  The path to reconciliation is emotional, through sharing tragic stories.  A reader should be emotionally prepared.  The conversation that occurs is with someone who passed away.  Pat’s responses and changes in thinking are based on what Kathleen thinks they would be.  Although the honestly in responses and the changes are desired, its uncertain if they would have happened while Pat lived.  Reconciliation takes immense effort to hear what another has to say.

Questions to Consider while Reading the Book

•What is the raison d’etre of the book?  For what purpose did the author write the book?  Why do people read this book?

•What are some limitations of the book?

•To whom would you suggest this book?

•What did Kathleen think of Pat?

•What does Pat think of death?

•What do people want?

•How did Pat use sympathy?

•Why did Pat have outbursts of anger? 

•How did Pat pain effect Pat and others around Pat?

•How do emotional wounds effect behavior? 

•What is the role of women in society?

•Who is the women in the fog?

•How is George Washington involved?

Book Details

This book is currently free through publisher website: Women in Hiding Press: Forget About Heaven

Edition:                   First Edition

Publisher:               Women in Hiding Press

Edition ISBN:         9780982855850

Pages to read:          352

Publication:             2018

1st Edition:              2018

Format:                    eBook 

Ratings out of 5:

Readability    3

Content          2

Overall          3

Review of How America Works... and Why it Doesn't: A Brief Guide to the US Political System by William Cooper

This book review was written by Eugene Kernes   

This book was provided by the author

Book can be found in: 

Genre = Politics

Book Club Event = Book List (01/18/2025)

Intriguing Connections = 1) To Cooperate Or To Defect?, 

2) Why Is Behavior of Individuals Different When They Are in A Group?, 

3) The Persecuted and The Persecutors, 4) When Intelligence Goes Wrong, 

5) How Competitive Is Competition?, 

6) Get To Know The Peoples Of The World (United States of America), 

7) What Defines A Culture? How To Belong To A Community?

Watch Short Review

Meet The Author (An Interview)

Excerpts

“Drawing on the stark lessons of human history and the Enlightenment’s teachings, the founders’ principal (and overlapping) aims for the Constitution were threefold.  The first was to create a representative democracy that gave the American people (narrowly defined) a stake in their own government.  The second aim was to prevent the concentration of government power in too few hands.  And the third was to accept and harness the realities of human nature in a system that would last.” – William Cooper, Chapter 4: Constitutional Principles, Page 33

 

“With federalism, drawing the right lines can be hard, as two contrasting considerations are often at odds.  Giving states too much autonomy leaves local minorities vulnerable to abuse.  If the federal government doesn’t step in to protect them, no one will.  Yet giving the federal government too much authority diminishes the vital role local officials should play in formulating policy.  Far-away officials ignorant of the facts on the ground shouldn’t dictate the affairs of local communities.” – William Cooper, Chapter 4: Constitutional Principles, Page 53

 

“Humans lived in tribes for most of our history.  The bonds of tribalism are thus deeply hardwired into the human psyche.  Tribalism makes us loyal to and biased in favor of fellow members of our own tribe.  In the process, it distorts our thinking, overriding facts and data.  And it makes us biased against outsiders who we dislike and perceive to be a threat.” – William Cooper, Chapter 6: Tribalism, Social Media, and Political Structure, Page 93

Excerpts with permission from the author

Review

Is This An Overview?

The American Constitution has mixed qualities, but has enabled an effective architecture for governance.  Meant to make sure that the people have ownership in the government, to prevent concentration of power, and accept the complexity of human behavior.  A democracy that is meant to prevent the concentration of power by spreading power and authority to the people broadly.  Meant to enable a peaceful transfer of power based on elections.  A federalist system in which state and federal governments counterbalance each other.  Protection of free speech that protects human freedom by enabling negotiation through sharing different views rather than through violence. 

 

But there are problems within the America political system that prevent effective governance.  Three problems are tribalism, social media, and the political systems’ structure.  Wanting to belong is normal for people, but tribalism effects how people process information.  Tribalism distorts thinking, and oversimplifies information.  Tribalism enables various cognitive biases that distort information in favor of one’s own political party and against the opposition.  Social media amplifies the cognitive vulnerabilities and intensifies tribal prejudice.  Social media uses tribal biases to find reaffirming views, without enough verification of the information. 

 

The American two-party political system polarizes the tribes, which enables a destructive rivalry.  A rivalry that has criminalized politics as each party mutually recriminates the legal actions against the other party with more force.  Rather than encourage bipartisan efforts to uncover the truth when there are major accusations and enable an appropriate prosecution of politicians, the criminalization of politics has negative consequences.  Consequences such as that the ideas become prosecuted no matter the guilt or innocence of a person, takes energy away from governing effectively to use towards hatred of political rivals, and deters talented people from politics.  

 

Caveats?

The book was written in a neutral manner to be acceptable by the different political parties, but infrequently the author’s biases become salient.  Infrequently utilizing the same tribal biases.  Knowledge of the biases does not prevent the biases. 

 

The political system is complex, that makes finding resolutions difficult.  There is little on ways to resolve the problems that the American political system is facing.  Some resolutions have mixed qualities, such as having more political parties to reduce the destructive tribal competition for power.  

Questions to Consider while Reading the Book

•What is the raison d’etre of the book?  For what purpose did the author write the book?  Why do people read this book?

•What are some limitations of the book?

•To whom would you suggest this book?

•What features of American politics to work or have worked?

•What causes American politics to fail? 

•What is tribalism and how does it affect the U.S.A.?

•How does tribalism affect cognition? 

•How does social media affect politics? 

•What is the American political structure? 

•What threats does American politics face? 

•How has politics been criminalized? 

•Do people respect the voting system?

•How have Americans become untethered from reality and traditions? 

•How should power be dispersed or centralized? 

•What effect does concentration of power have?

•What is the connection between individual freedom, government by consent, and majoritarian rule?  

•What effect did the Articles of Confederation have?

•What are the articles in the Constitution? 

•What are some constitutional abominations?

•What is the Three-Fifths Clause? 

•How do gun ownership laws affect society? 

•What are the Constitutional founding principles? 

•Is America a direct democracy? 

•How does politics affect Supreme Court justice? 

•How is impeachment being used?

•How is checks and balances being used? 

•What is federalism? 

•Should process or outcomes be the focus of political systems?

•What is the effect of free speech? 

•What institutions began restricting free speech? 

•How can party politics become despotic? 

•What is capitalism? 

•What is the narrative fallacy?

•What is the availability bias?

•What is confirmation bias?

•What as the birther question?

•What are the forms of gerrymandering? 

•Are people loyal to a philosophy or a tribe? 

•How does political leaders’ behavior affect other people’s behavior? 

•How does inequality affect politics? 

Book Details

Publisher:               Gemini Adult Books [Gemini Books Group]

Edition ISBN:         9781802472066

Pages to read:          196

Publication:             2024

1st Edition:              2024

Format:                    Paperback 

Ratings out of 5:

Readability    5

Content          5

Overall          5

Review of Breaking Through Silence: A No-Nonsense Love Letter to Women by Kathleen Hoy Foley

This book review was written by Eugene Kernes   

This book was provided by the author

Book can be found in: 

Genre = Sociology

Collection = Kathleen Hoy Foley Trilogy

Intriguing Connections = 1) The Persecuted and The Persecutors, 

2) Biographies: Auto, Memoir, and Other Types, 3) To Cooperate Or To Defect?,

Watch Short Review

Excerpts

“My personal and emotional boundaries lay destroyed by parental, religious, and cultural authorities, and I lived resigned to their demands and crumbled beneath the power lorded over me and against me. In the end, the abusers enjoyed free reign at my expense while I silently absorbed all the chaos, including crippling guilt and crushing blame and self-loathing that paralyzed any hope of my becoming the best of who I was meant to be.” – Kathleen Hoy Foley, Chapter: First Words, Page 2

“Withheld from me, as it is for all victims of dismissed abuse, was the personal understanding that comes with seeing the truth, the empowerment to release myself from blame, permission to point the finger of responsibility outward, the prospect for the disabling shame to dissipate. What other reasons could there possibly be to deny a sexually traumatized girl or woman her humanity, except to uphold the demands and fantasies of the spineless and to protect the guilty and their defenders?” – Kathleen Hoy Foley, Chapter: First Words, Page 6

“Dearest, it is up to you to take charge of yourself, to assert your own authority. It is your responsibility to recognize that you were abused. You label abuse. You define rape. You assert that what happened to you was unconscionable and undeserved. You claim your innocence. It is the integrity you bring to yourself — the fairness, the kindness you present to your own life spirit. Realizing and correctly labeling what happened to you is necessary self-care. It is choosing wholeness.” – Kathleen Hoy Foley, Chapter 6: There Is Only One Authority: Beautiful You, Page 81

Excerpts provided with permission from the author

Review

Is This An Overview?

There are social and personal problems of keeping silent about abuse and harassment.  Those who are socially punished into silence, do not receive the support needed to recover their physical and mental health.  Those who are dehumanized do not simply get over the trauma.  Those who had traumatic experiences become vulnerable and do not develop appropriately.  Without support, trauma can take on a language of its own, in the form of inappropriate behavior.  Tantrums, quick to become aggravated, and even lash out by physically harming others.  Traumatic wounds teach lessons that ought not be learned.

 

When a culture is blind to the victims, the culture protects the guilty.  While the harassed carry guilt and endure silent torment, the abusers can skillfully continue to inflict violence.  If society will not give the abused power, the abused need to take control, assert authority, to recognize and label what happened as abuse.  The traumatized transform themselves when they break the silence.  Speaking about what happened is a way to support oneself, to find understanding in what happened, to become empowered.

 

Caveats?

The book is poorly organized, without a systemic analysis of trauma.  Although being traumatized is tragic, the author assumes that the way people react to the situations and recover is the same for everyone.  The problem is that not all women think the same way about the tragic circumstances.  The book is against the silence of the harassed, against how society can silence the harassed, but movements and organizations have developed to provide support and give the harassed a voice.

Questions to Consider while Reading the Book

•What is the raison d’etre of the book?  For what purpose did the author write the book?  Why do people read this book?

•What are some limitations of the book?

•To whom would you suggest this book?

•Why stay silent? 

•What happens to the victims when they are forced into silence?

•What happens to the development process of the traumatized?

•What behaviors do the traumatized exhibit? 

•What happens to the abusers when culture is blind to the victims?

•Why break the silence?

•Who has rights over the female body? 

•How to heal? 

•Who is the stalker?

•How to think about forgiveness? 

•What is powerlessness? 

Book Details

This book is currently free through publisher website: Women in Hiding Press: Breaking Through Silence

Edition:                   First Edition

Publisher:               Women in Hiding Press

Edition ISBN:         9780982855836

Pages to read:          172

Publication:             2014

1st Edition:              2014

Format:                    eBook 

Ratings out of 5:

Readability    2

Content          2

Overall          2

Review of Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel H. Pink

This book review was written by Eugene Kernes   

Book can be found in: 

Genre = Economics, Behavioral

Book Club Event = Book List (02/08/2025)

Intriguing Connections = 1) How To and Not To Run a Business, 2) How To Allocate Resources?, 

3) The Entrepreneurial Spirit, 4) Ways To Help Oneself and Life Lessons, 5) To Cooperate Or To Defect?, 6) How to Teach? How to Learn?, 7) Why Do People Think Differently?, 

8) Learning Economics: Basic to Advanced, 9) What Defines A Culture? How To Belong To A Community?,

Watch Short Review

Excerpts

“Of course, the starting point for any discussion of motivation in the workplace is a simple fact of life: People have to earn a living.  Salary, contract payments, some benefits, a few perks are what I call “baseline rewards.”  If someone’s baseline rewards aren’t adequate or equitable, her focus will be on the unfairness of her situation and the anxiety of her circumstance.  You’ll get neither the predictability of extrinsic motivation nor the weirdness of intrinsic motivation.  You’ll get very little motivation at all.  The best use of money as a motivator is to pay people enough to take the issue of money off the table.” – Daniel H. Pink, Chapter 2: Seven Reasons Carrots and Sticks (Often) Don’t Work…, Page 33

“In other words, rewards can perform a weird sort of behavioral alchemy: They can transform an interesting task into a drudge.  They can turn play into work.  And by diminishing intrinsic motivation, they can send performance, creativity, and even upstanding behavior toppling like dominoes.  Let’s call this the Sawyer Effect.” – Daniel H. Pink, Chapter 2: Seven Reasons Carrots and Sticks (Often) Don’t Work…, Page 35

“Extrinsic rewards can be effective for algorithmic tasks – those that depend on following an existing formula to its logical conclusion.  But for more right-brain undertakings – those that demand flexible problem-solving, inventiveness, or conceptual understanding – contingent rewards can be dangerous.  Rewarded subjects often have a harder time seeing the periphery and crafting original solutions.” – Daniel H. Pink, Chapter 2: Seven Reasons Carrots and Sticks (Often) Don’t Work…, Page 44

Review

Is This An Overview?

Motivating others through extrinsic rewards and punishments is more complex than just providing benefits.  The purpose of extrinsic motivation was to encouraging activities with rewards to get more of the wanted activities, while discouraging activities with punishment to get less of the activities.  The problem is that extrinsic motivation has negative effects. 

 

When extrinsic rewards are introduced, people lose their intrinsic interest in the activity.  Rewards transform interesting tasks into drudgery, play transforms into work.  Rewards diminish intrinsic motivation which harms performance, creativity, and appropriate behavior.  Rewards provide a temporary productivity boost, at the cost of productivity after the boost.

 

Extrinsic rewards behave like an addiction, as they provide temporary happiness while needing larger rewards later to have the same effect.  When rewarded, people do not do more than what gives them the reward.  Rather than encourage wanted behavior, extrinsic motivation can encourage unwanted behavior.  When rewarded for satisfying short term goals, goals imposed by others, extrinsic motivation can induce unethical behavior as people will seek to satisfy the goal with less regard to the consequences of the methods chosen. 

 

Extrinsic motivation, such as money, is useful as a baseline reward.  To pay people enough for money not to be part of their list of problems.  Rewards can make algorithmic, routine tasks more productive, but hurt creative tasks.  Rather than extrinsic motivation, people can be intrinsically motivated to find joy in what they do.  Rather than restrict behavior, people can be intrinsically motived through their own autonomy.

 

Caveats?

A use for extrinsic motivation is to provide enough baseline rewards, but there is not enough information about baseline rewards.  There is uncertainty about when baseline rewards become enough.  There is also a social aspect to baseline rewards, as people can be affected by the rewards of others.  The alternative methods to motivation have mixed qualities.  

Questions to Consider while Reading the Book

•What is the raison d’etre of the book?  For what purpose did the author write the book?  Why do people read this book?

•What are some limitations of the book?

•To whom would you suggest this book?

•What are biological drives?  How do biological drives effect motivation?

•What is the difference between extrinsic incentives and intrinsic incentives?

•What is intrinsic motivation? 

•What happened during the 1940s Harlow experiments?

•What happened during the 1960s Deci experiments?

•What is Maslow’s Hierarchy?

•What is flow?

•How does economics see human economic behavior? 

•What are open source projects?

•How do open source projects complete with for profit projects?

•What is the Sawyer effect?

•What happens to children when they are extrinsically rewarded for learning?

•What is the Candle Problem experiment? 

•What happened to blood donations when given a monetary paying for the blood donations?

•How does goal setting effect motivation?

•How does goal setting effect ethics?

•What happened at the day-care center when punishing parents for picking up their kids late?

•How are extrinsic rewards like an addition? 

•What are the flaws of extrinsic reward and punishment? 

•When do extrinsic rewards work? 

•What are alternative motivators for algorithmic tasks? 

•What is self-determination theory (SDT)?

•Who are Type I and Type X? 

•Who are Type A and Type B?

•What do leaders think of those who work for their organizations? 

•What are ROWEs?

•How can organizations give more autonomy to their workforce?  What effect does autonomy have on the workforce? 

•How do lawyers operate under billable hours? 

•How do self-appraisals work?

Book Details

Edition:                   First Riverhead trade paperback edition

Publisher:               Riverhead Books [Penguin Group]

Edition ISBN:         9781594484803

Pages to read:          226

Publication:             2011

1st Edition:              2009

Format:                    Paperback

Ratings out of 5:

Readability    5

Content          5

Overall          5

Review of Woman in Hiding: A True Tale of Backdoor Abuse, Dark Secrets & Other Evil Deeds by Kathleen Hoy Foley

This book review was written by Eugene Kernes   

This book was provided by the author

Book can be found in: 

Genre = Sociology

Collection = Kathleen Hoy Foley Trilogy

Intriguing Connections = 1) The Persecuted and The Persecutors, 

2) Biographies: Auto, Memoir, and Other Types, 3) To Cooperate Or To Defect?, 

4) Get To Know The Peoples Of The World (United States of America)

Watch Short Review

Excerpts

“Yes, I am a secret keeper from a long line of secret keepers. The girl who knew how to keep quiet grew into a woman petrified of what was buried so far down that it was barely a memory — simply a ghost that never gave up its haunting. My family was wrong in their belief that altering the truth heals and allows the hideous to disappear into the ether as if it never existed.” – Kathleen Hoy Foley, Prologue, Page 11

 

“I am flawless: a perfect victim, primed under John J. Allen’s tutelage of no complaining, ever. What rapist wouldn’t love me? I make no sounds. I lie still, my limbs pliant. I am patient. Polite to a fault, taught so well. I display outward grace. Poise in rape. Dignity while being degraded. Its oddness is lost to me. It is all I have, so it’s what I use to distract myself from the truth: that I am filthy, like a debased princess pretending her gown is not ripped to shreds, pretending she doesn’t stink. Pretending I am not a slut. But the stench is devouring me; sweat and the gummy insides of him cling to my skin. Stink that will never wash off.” – Kathleen Hoy Foley, Chapter 7: Evil Deeds, Page 112

 

”Trauma had changed me, whether I liked it or not. Despite my outgoing, happy appearance and my ability to make friends quickly, no one saw the heart full of pain I lugged around those school halls — dread over what was creeping toward me like an invasion of cancer waiting to strike once again. But if I allowed myself to collapse into the fear that outlined me with its trembling silhouette, despair would devour me whole and there would be no way back, ever. I would be gone, completely, trapped forever on those filthy mattresses, enduring over and over the violation of his greasy hands and the rape of more than just my body. He, all he had done to me, would destroy the rest of my life.”  Kathleen Hoy Foley, Chapter 11: The Darkest Secret and More Evil Deeds, Page 161

Excerpts provided with permission from the author

Review

Is This An Overview?

Silencing the past, silencing the tragedy, silencing the emotional wounds does not lead to healing.  Pretending that traumatic events did not happen, does not change the fact of what happened.  This is a story about a lifetime of silence, of being a secret keeper.  This is a story about sharing those secrets.  Secrets of physical harassment, emotional harassment, sexually harassment.  Harassment of the vulnerable paves the way for trauma, to misery.  In response to the pain caused to them, to escape their pain, they develop behaviors that lead to more misery.  Behaviors such as taking out their rage on those even more vulnerable than them.  Situational awareness changes for the traumatized, as they see danger everywhere.  The support for victims of harassment is often denied by society, which does not recognize the harassment, which allows the perpetrators to continue their inappropriate behavior.

 

Caveats?

This is a story about tragic events, that the reader needs to be emotionally prepared to engage with.  As an autobiography, there is always a concern for how the events are remembered.  Tragic as the events were, there is uncertainty about the actual thoughts the author had as a child or later.  As the book is consistent of personal thoughts, they sometimes read like poetry, sometimes poorly written comments in need of organization.  The perspective on events is singular.  An understanding of the events would have been enhanced by what others thought of the situations.  Representing a lifetime of events means that many events, interactions, and details are missing.

Questions to Consider while Reading the Book

•What is the raison d’etre of the book?  For what purpose did the author write the book?  Why do people read this book?

•What are some limitations of the book?

•To whom would you suggest this book?

•Is Kathleen a storyteller? 

•How was Kathleen treated as a child?

•How did Kathleen respond to harassment as a child? 

•What does Kathleen think of the Christianity?

•What does Kathleen think of Kathleen’s mother?

•What happened to Kathleen’s birthday? 

•Who is Kathleen’s father?

•What Kathleen adopted?

•Should Kathleen defended Kathleen during the harassment? 

•What is a perfect victim?

•Who raped Kathleen?

•How did society react to Kathleen being raped?

•How did Kathleen change after the rape?

•Who is Big Bill and Little Bill?

•Who is Bobby? 

•How as Jackie (John J. Allen, Jr. ) treated?

•How was John J. Allen treated?

•Why did Kathleen venture into crime?  How did Kathleen feel about crime?

•What was the escape from pain? 

•What was the experience with the social worker? 

•What happened with the stalker?

•Should adoption records be open? 

•Who is George? 

•Who is Phil?

Book Details

This book is currently free through publisher website: Women in Hiding Press: Woman in Hiding

Edition:                   First Edition

Publisher:               Women in Hiding Press

Edition ISBN:         9780982855812

Pages to read:          320

Publication:             2011

1st Edition:              2011

Format:                    eBook 

Ratings out of 5:

Readability    3

Content          3

Overall          3