What do you think?
Rate this book
Life Lessons: Stories of hope, love and laughter in the face of AIDS
Life Lessons is about finding meaning in every life experience, be it positive or negative. Each moment has a lesson if we are open to the possibility of growth.Life Lessons takes you on a spiritual journey that will render it impossible for you to regard life in the same way.Maris Hodge Wright openly shares stories from her wealth of counseling experience that have impacted her life. They are stories of love, betrayal, forgiveness, and joy.
126 pages, Paperback
First published March 4, 2004
2 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
May 6, 2015
Life Lessons: The truth about the book!
At first the book seems to be about a therapist working in New York dealing with people with AIDS. It then becomes a much more personal memoir with Maris relating details of her marriages and more particularly her second marriage to a photographer.
Her husband, the photographer, had an affair with a model which became one he couldn't end, one where she didn't want it to end no matter what and he became either desperate or enraged or both. The model alleged that he had driven a car straight at her intending to trap her between a fence and the vehicle, and he was charged with attempted murder. This is where the book becomes much more interesting.
The author defends her unfaithful husband and naturally is very unpleasant indeed about the girl, calling her a gold-digger (gotta give her this one), a whore (definitely not), and saying she was only in it for what she could get (nah, she really loved him, or thought she did). Her husband was cleared of attempted murder it is true. But it is also true to say he was actually guilty as he only got off on a technicality although Maris omitted this 'minor' detail from the book.
I don't know how interesting this book would be to the average reader but it was fascinating to me as I know all the players, and all of them, the photographer included, are very nice people you would like to be friends with. The girl used to model for me when I produced fashion shows (and is now happily married and owns several small businesses). The author, a psychologist, is a major Harlequin romance reader. Her errant husband changed his occupation from photographer of nubile flesh to preacher and never passes me without a word to say about Jesus. And the very high-priced lawyer who found the technicality was my close, personal friend, which is how I know all about it. He never was any good at confidentiality.
I don't know Maris' motives for writing the book, but I would suggest to any author wanting to write a vengeful text that publishing it in the US is no guarantee that it won't trickle down to someone who knows all about it and might decide to say what really happened not necessarily to set a wrong right, but just because it's irresistible.
Read in 2005, reviewed in 2012
At first the book seems to be about a therapist working in New York dealing with people with AIDS. It then becomes a much more personal memoir with Maris relating details of her marriages and more particularly her second marriage to a photographer.
Her husband, the photographer, had an affair with a model which became one he couldn't end, one where she didn't want it to end no matter what and he became either desperate or enraged or both. The model alleged that he had driven a car straight at her intending to trap her between a fence and the vehicle, and he was charged with attempted murder. This is where the book becomes much more interesting.
The author defends her unfaithful husband and naturally is very unpleasant indeed about the girl, calling her a gold-digger (gotta give her this one), a whore (definitely not), and saying she was only in it for what she could get (nah, she really loved him, or thought she did). Her husband was cleared of attempted murder it is true. But it is also true to say he was actually guilty as he only got off on a technicality although Maris omitted this 'minor' detail from the book.
I don't know how interesting this book would be to the average reader but it was fascinating to me as I know all the players, and all of them, the photographer included, are very nice people you would like to be friends with. The girl used to model for me when I produced fashion shows (and is now happily married and owns several small businesses). The author, a psychologist, is a major Harlequin romance reader. Her errant husband changed his occupation from photographer of nubile flesh to preacher and never passes me without a word to say about Jesus. And the very high-priced lawyer who found the technicality was my close, personal friend, which is how I know all about it. He never was any good at confidentiality.
I don't know Maris' motives for writing the book, but I would suggest to any author wanting to write a vengeful text that publishing it in the US is no guarantee that it won't trickle down to someone who knows all about it and might decide to say what really happened not necessarily to set a wrong right, but just because it's irresistible.
Read in 2005, reviewed in 2012
Displaying 1 of 1 review