Title: Own Your Stupidity
Author: Sids Ahky Stevens
Publisher: XlibrisUS
ISBN: 978-1-51447-226-2
Pages: 120
Genre: Self-Improvement
Reviewed by: Allison Walker
Pacific Book Review
Coming to terms with the past is part and parcel to growing up, but how many of us can truly say we acknowledge the mistakes we made and have learned from them? In Own Your Stupidity, author Sids Ahky Stevens describes a childhood fraught with hard-learned lessons and harder-earned experience. She struggles to come to terms with a difficult past, find her place within her somewhat disjointed family, and discover herself as a woman.
Throughout the novel, Stevens relates the difficulty of building a relationship with an emotionally undemonstrative, single mother; the frustration and disappointment when trying to connect with her absent and uninterested father; and the persecution she faced at the hands of her own extended family. When turning to fistfights and drinking doesn’t solve her problems, Stevens must confront her emotions and learn to trust the people who truly care about her.
“I own my stupidity,” Stevens writes, as she describes the trials and tribulations of growing up, and the many ways she needed to learn from her mistakes. She struggles to find her place in an uneasy balance between the quest for independence and self-discovery, and the traditional role of a urban wife and mother. In the end, her musings relate a powerful message about choosing who you want to be and how you want to live.
Many times, the novel becomes an outlet for frustration as Stevens reminisces over her past, the many mistakes she made and the lessons she learned from them. As she leads her reader into coming to terms with the past, and finding her place in her sometimes critical, oftentimes divided family, Stevens creates a valuable resource for the woman who needs to hear these words: You are powerful, but you also have needs and that’s OK.
Own Your Stupidity is infused with bits of advice and short anecdotes as Stevens imparts her hard-earned wisdom upon her readers. Stevens keeps her stories frustratingly vague; for example, hinting at a violent relationship with certain members of her family, but never really going into detail besides a single incident with an older cousin. Early in the novel, Stevens argues the virtue of a private home life — understandable after being raised in a small town in which your personal business was often run through the dirt by gossipy neighbors. But it also prevents a real connection with the author. For all her comments on her childhood, you leave the story feeling like you never really got to know her.
Stevens’ road to self-discovery is one walked by many, and while the path may vary in terrain, the journey is the same. Being able to own her stupidity, or the mistakes she makes, helps Stevens find her way to being the woman she wants to be. And in sharing in that journey, Stevens helps other women find their way to self-love and inner peace.
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