Around the Way Girl: A Memoir by Taraji P. Henson
A Review By: SY
2017 Audie Award Finalist for Autobiography/Memoir
Academy Award nominee and Golden Globe winner Taraji P. Henson reads her inspiring and funny book about family, friends, the hustle required to make it from DC to Hollywood, and the joy of living in your own truth.
With a sensibility that recalls her beloved screen characters, including Yvette, Queenie, Shug, and the iconic Cookie from Empire, yet is all Taraji, the screen actress writes of her families - the one she was born into and the one she created. She shares stories of her father, a Vietnam vet who was bowed but never broken by life's challenges, and of her mother, who survived violence both in the home and on DC's volatile streets. Here, too, she opens up about her experiences as a single mother, a journey some saw as a burden but she saw as a gift.
Around the Way Girl is also a classic actor's memoir in which Taraji reflects on the world-class instruction she received at Howard University and the pitfalls that come with being a black actress. With laugh-out-loud humor and candor, she shares the challenges and disappointments of the actor's journey and shows us that behind the red carpet moments, she is ever authentic. She is at heart just a girl in pursuit of her dreams.
Review Notes:
Audio Book Publication Year: 2016
An installment in a Series? No
Narrator (s): Taraji P. Henson
Academy Award nominee and Golden Globe winner, Taraji P. Henson, reads her inspiring and funny book about family, friends, the hustle required to make it from DC to Hollywood, and the joy of living in your own truth.
Taraji's public persona makes her seem like the girl we all grew up with in the neighborhood. Around The Way Girl: A Memoir confirms our assumptions, providing us with a sobering account of life events that made her into the woman that she is. Funny and streetwise, and raised to have a soldier's heart, Taraji tells the story of a girl who grew up in sometimes violent and hard circumstances, but found respite and escape in fine arts. She reflects on how the influence of her parents shaped how she would navigate the world; choices in her young life as a single mother refined her natural-born grit and chances taken made her a Hollywood star.
Fans of her work and heavy East Coast accent will enjoy hearing Ms. Henson tell us about her life in her own words - which had equal doses of hilarity, heartbreak, and hope.
Reading Recommendation? Yes!
Rating: 4 (It’s lit!)
Content Warnings? Physical abuse/violence
