Review by Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Union's collection of wide-ranging, insightful, and funny essays is full of the candid stuff that readers love to find in celebrity memoirs, along with genuine storytelling and bare emotion, which are rarer. She grew up in a conservative, white Oakland suburb, and it was a revelation to spend summers in her teens with her grandma in Omaha, where she could relearn blackness with a crew of black friends. A devastating sexual assault in her teens left her with permanent scars and inspired her to work with other young victims, while losing a friend to cancer much too young got her involved with women's-health advocacy. She talks about race and colorism, sex and breakups, double standards, and competition among women in Hollywood. She's wide open about her crash-and-burn first marriage, dodging the press' constant hounding while trying to get pregnant through IVF (in a chapter called Get Out of My Pussy), and the realities and fears of raising three young black men with her husband, Dwyane Wade. Throughout, Union is warm, outspoken, laugh-out-loud funny, and unafraid to reveal painful moments or the versions of herself that had a thing or two to learn. This is sure to be a crowd-pleaser, and deservedly so.--Bostrom, Annie Copyright 2017 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
This sparkling book collects amusing and heartbreaking stories from the life of actress Union (Being Mary Jane). After moving with her family from Omaha, Neb., to Pleasanton, Calif., in grade school, Union grappled with being black in a predominately white student population and attempted to assimilate and gain peer approval by being the class clown. At 19, a stranger raped her at gunpoint; for a year afterward she barely left the house. In time, she began to heal, pursuing modeling and acting, attending college, and getting married. Union shines a light on issues of race in America and the difficulties young black women face in Hollywood; in an essay on raising boys (two from her basketball star husband Dwayne Wade's previous marriage as well as his nephew), Union explores the daunting responsibility of parenting in a culture dangerous to black youths. Several essays deal with "teen drama," dating, making friends, and sexuality; some are quite funny, as when she describes her surprising first encounter with a tampon and discusses when to drink wine or tequila after a break-up. Union's no-holds-barred essays and intimate voice will appeal to her fans as well as those less familiar with her work. Agent: Albert Lee, Aevitas Creative Management. (Oct.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Review by Library Journal Review
Union's raw and unflinching portrayal makes you feel like you're getting to know a new friend, or reacquainting yourself with an old one. Each essay brings readers closer into the fold and forces us to question our own truths. We learn about Union's struggle to lead a "double life"-retreating from her blackness to fit in at a mostly white school in California while trying to embrace it among skeptical black friends in Omaha, her internal meanderings over hair and makeup that carry specific cultural weight (Natural hair or weave? Narrow the nose, or...?), and the unequal expectations carried by people of color as they navigate professions that make them an "other." Union also details her experience as a rape survivor and includes these telling lines: "I am grateful I was raped in an affluent neighborhood with an underworked police department (and) overly trained doctors and nurses. The fact that one can be grateful for such things is... ridiculous." Considering that the narrative of sexual violence in the United States largely focuses on white women, Union's voice as a survivor holds unique importance and poignancy. That said, she is much more than this single experience, as her book boldly shows. VERDICT Union invites readers into her world with honesty, grit, and grace. A much-needed addition to the endless catalog of celebrity memoirs.-Erin Entrada Kelly, Philadelphia © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A black actress and activist chronicles her life story and speaks out about issues important to her.As in many memoirs, Unionknown for her roles in such films as Bring It On and Deliver Us from Eva and currently on the TV show Being Mary Janebegins by remembering episodes from her childhood that show her insecurities, vulnerabilities, and naivet when it came to things like boys, puberty, and making friends in grade school. Readers learn about her efforts with her hair, fitting in as a black person in an almost all-white school, and the process of learning about her own body. A third of the way into the narrative, the author tackles the more serious moments in her life, particularly the day she suffered the horrific experience of burglary and rape at the shoe store where she worked. "After I was raped," she writes, "I didn't leave my house for a whole year unless I had to go to court or to therapy." Though she has since become a strong advocate for sexual assault victims, the author shifts to the issues of color and racism in America, of raising her stepchildren in a world where young black men are considered dangerous regardless of who their parents are, and the death of a close friend from cancer. With honesty and humor, Union bares her soul and shares her levels of insecurity, the difficulties of being a black woman in Hollywood, and the way fame has changed her life. She embraces many multilayered issues in these intimate essays, giving readers glimpses of insight into her soul. However, some will wish that the author explored many of these issues further, and those unfamiliar with her work in film and on TV will find some of her references obscure. Personal, reflective moments that reveal various aspects of an actress and activist's life. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
