Review by Booklist Review
In this inspirational, Christian-centric memoir, the daughter of Clarence Avant, a music and entertainment entrepreneur who worked with such celebrities as Freda Payne, Don Cornelius, Babyface, and Muhammad Ali, shares how she managed to keep going after the family matriarch, Jacqueline, was gunned down by a home intruder in 2021. Jacquie was a legend in her own right, a generous philanthropist and mentor, and a welcoming hostess who regularly brought entertainers, politicians, and regular folk of all creeds and colors to her dinner table. Author Nicole was frozen in grief until she remembered what her mother had instilled in her, that love is an action word. Having been raised in wealth and privilege in Beverly Hills, Nicole relates how her mother taught her to be respectful to everyone, appreciate her family's hard work, and revere the elders who came before her. Thanks to help from trusted friends (including Oprah Winfrey and Barack and Michelle Obama) and fueled by her mother's final text to her ("Think you'll be happy"), Nicole Avant upholds her mother's legacy with strength, positivity, and pride.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
A former U.S. ambassador to the Bahamas, Avant debuts with a stirring memoir about recovering from her mother's 2021 murder. As the daughter of music mogul Clarence and philanthropist Jacqueline, Avant learned from her parents how to live a life of service to others, and to honor her Black ancestry ("I am here on the shoulders of so many before me"). Those lessons took on new meaning after Jacqueline was murdered during a home invasion in 2021; her final text to Avant, the day before the murder, lends the book its title. Despite her profound grief, Avant found solace in the words of people who reached out to share stories of Jacqueline's impact on them, including Oprah Winfrey, Bill Clinton, and Tyler Perry, as well as grocery store and gas station employees who worked near Jacqueline's home. "People were people," Avant writes, "and Mom made sure they knew they mattered." Spurred by these posthumous tributes, Avant sifts through memories of her mother that helped inform her own path from heartbreak to gratitude, and recounts them with an earnestness that never turns mawkish. This remarkable account of moving through grief will resonate with readers who've been touched by tragedy. Agent: Jan Miller and Alexandria Kominsky, Dupree Miller & Assoc. (Oct.)
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
Memories and life lessons inspired by the author's mother, who was murdered in 2021. "Neither my mother nor I knew that her last text to me would be the words 'Think you'll be happy,' " Avant writes, "but it is fitting that she left me with a mantra for resiliency." The author, a filmmaker and former U.S. Ambassador to the Bahamas, begins her first book on the night she learned her mother, Jacqueline Avant, had been fatally shot during a home invasion. "One of my first thoughts," she writes, "was, 'Oh God, please don't let me hate this man. Give me the strength not to hate him.' " Daughter of Clarence Avant, known as the "Black Godfather" due to his work as a pioneering music executive, the author describes growing up "in a house that had a revolving door of famous people," from Ella Fitzgerald to Muhammad Ali. "I don't take for granted anything I have achieved in my life as a Black American woman," writes Avant. "And I recognize my unique upbringing…..I was taught to honor our past and pay forward our fruits." The book, which is occasionally repetitive, includes tributes to her mother from figures like Oprah Winfrey and Bill Clinton, but the narrative core is the author's direct, faith-based, unwaveringly positive messages to readers--e.g., "I don't want to carry the sadness and anger I have toward the man who did this to my mother…so I'm worshiping God amid the worst storm imaginable"; "Success and feeling good are contagious. I'm all about positive contagious vibrations!" Avant frequently quotes Bible verses, and the bulk of the text reflects the spirit of her daily prayer "that everything is in divine order." Imploring readers to practice proactive behavior, she writes, "We have to always find the blessing, to be the blessing." Some of Avant's mantras are overstated, but her book is magnanimous, inspiring, and relentlessly optimistic. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
