kirkus review for “ In search of my heart”

In search of my Heart 

coloring journal 

Jennifer Verdieu 

Author house 

ISBN: 978-1-5462-4803-3; August 30,2018

BOOK REVIEW 

Verdieu's debut coloring journal provides readers with space to write and intricate shapes to color.

In a brief note at this book's beginning, the author tells of how journaling played a therapeutic role in the life of "Jennifer" , who shares her name: " At eight years old, her father abandoned her...At twenty three years old, she ask him why he never came back for her. He replied, because she never apologized to him for burdening him with her birth. To process the ugly truth, her first step was to start a journal. "in this darkly toned book of abstract drawings, Verdieu then provides opportunities for adults to color and write down whatever thoughts or memories that the coloring brings to mind. she divides the book into chapters , with each bearing a delightfully esoteric title in latin-" chapter 2 : intra in Ventriculum"; " chapter 5: Et Violonist." All but the final  one is composed of 10 drawings with an accompanying page of lined space. 

Verdieu's drawings are abstract, asymmetrical , torsolike shapes, composed of tiny cells and fronds for readers to fill in as they choose. They're intricate enough that figuratively inclined colorists will be able to pick out familiar objects or scenes : One, for example, might contain a monkey dangling from a jungle branch; another, a seated figure smoking a pipe. All suggest a great deal of movement, with a mosaic lushness that evokes the chaotic order of the natural world. Although the author gives no explicit instructions on how to use her book, one can easily imagine a reader coloring a page that reminds him or her of a sailboat that's caught in a storm , and the writing down a memory of a rainy day on the coast, or an imagined story of an unlucky fisherman. Verdieu's deft chapter titles and highly interpretable images encourage the user to fashion his or her story ; indeed, there's even a place for the colorist to supply a title, once finished. 

Beautifully simple and rather brilliant self-guided art therapy. abstract art