Building Mountains from Dust: A Memoir

by Kimberly S. Young

In Building Mountains from Dust, Kimberly Young shares her story of survival and inspiration. At fifty, Kimberlys structured, organized, and driven life is thrown into a tailspin when she is diagnosed with advanced staged lung cancer. Never a smoker, Kimberly makes frank reflections about her decision not to have children, and how she makes peace with her mother, who abandoned her over fifteen years ago. This is a story about heart-wrenching life lessons, forgiveness, and about finding faith, as in a tragic twist of fate, Kimberly survives her cancer when her husband of twenty years suddenly dies.

128 pages, Hardcover

Published May 22, 2018

About the author

Kimberly Young is a licensed psychologist, an author, and an internationally-known speaker on Internet addiction. In 1995, she founded the Center for Internet Addiction and since then she has written numerous articles on the topic including four books, Caught in the Net, Tangled in the Web, Breaking Free of the Web, and Internet Addiction: A Handbook for Evaluation and Treatment. She is a professor at St. Bonaventure University and her work has appeared in hundreds of media outlets including The New York Times, USA Today, Time, and Newsweek, and she has appeared on The Today Show, Good Morning America, CNBC, CNN, and ABC World News Tonight. She has written creatively on and off since she was eight-years-old, mainly working on poems and short stories. While recovering from retina re-attachment eye surgery, she was homebound for several months and decided to pursue her creative writing more seriously. The Eighth Wonder is her first novel.

Reviews

[Bookgirl86 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Any book that starts out with a Stevie Nicks quote is a winner for me and this book did not disappoint. 
'Building Mountains from Dust: A Memoir' is the story of a fifty year old woman named Kimberly Young, who goes from thinking that she is perfectly healthy one day to being diagnosed with advanced stage lung cancer the next. To top that off, her husband is battling health issues of his own and dies. What follows is the story of her inner emotional journey through coming to terms with her diagnosis. 
Because the book is a memoir, Young's writing is that much more heartfelt and real. Reading about her devastation over the diagnosis and her eventual acceptance of her situation was, at times heartbreaking and mesmerizing. I couldn't put this book down. I needed to find out what happened next at every turn. 
After having recently dealt with a cancer diagnosis in my own family, Young's struggles to make things right with the mother that had abandoned her touched me deeply.
Especially coming at this time in my life, this book has left such an impact on me that I don't think I'll ever forget it. Young's ability to overcome the adversity in her life and continue to look on the bright side was inspiring to me, personally. 
I'm giving five stars to this book! I'd recommend this to anyone who has personally had cancer or who has had a relative that was diagnosed with cancer, like I do. Or just anyone who is looking for an inspirational read that will make you feel better about your own struggles. Young's diagnosis definitely puts whatever you might be dealing with in your own life into perspective. 
Either way it's a breathtaking read that will make you really think about what you want to do with your life and the things that you hold most dear.
5 stars

[Writers N Authors Book Reviews · Rating 5 out of 5]

Building Mountains from Dust us a touching memoir, the authors battle with advanced-staged lung cancer is the center point of the book.  You become part of the author's life lessons, forgiveness, love, loss, and heartbreak.  Learning more about Young's expectations if life, in herself and in to read her failures was heartbreaking and uplifting.  

Building Mountains from Dust is a memoir with flashbacks in both perspectives. Life is full of choices, Young gives us a unique love story in Building Mountains from Dust, Kimberly Young shares her story of survival and inspiration.

https://writersnauthors.com/building-...