Viola Davis - Finding Me

Viola Davis - Finding Me 

5⭐

Genre: Memoir, Biography, Autobiography, Non-Fiction 

Pages: 304

Format: Hardback 

Publisher: Coronet, Hodder & Stoughton 

Date Published: 26th April 2022

 

Huge thank you to Tandem Collective UK and Hodder & Stoughton for sending me this book to read and review. 

Book Blurb: 

Finding Me is Viola Davis' story, in her own words, and spans her incredible, inspiring life, from her coming-of-age in Rhode Island to her present day. Hers is a story of overcoming, a true hero's journey. Deeply personal, brutally honest, and riveting, Finding Me is a timeless and spellbinding memoir that will capture hearts and minds around the globe.

IN MY BOOK, YOU WILL MEET a little girl named Viola who ran from her past until she made a life-changing decision to stop running forever. This is my story, from a crumbling apartment in Central Falls, Rhode Island, to the stage in New York City, and beyond. This is the path I took to finding my purpose but also my voice in a world that didn’t always see me.

As I wrote Finding Me, my eyes were open to the truth of how our stories are often not given close examination. We are forced to reinvent them to fit into a crazy, competitive, judgmental world. So I wrote this for anyone running through life untethered, desperate and clawing their way through murky memories, trying to get to some form of self-love. For anyone who needs reminding that a life worth living can only be born from radical honesty and the courage to shed facades and be . . . you.

Finding Me is a deep reflection, a promise, and a love letter of sorts to self. My hope is that my story will inspire you to light up your own life with creative expression and rediscover who you were before the world put a label on you.

My Review: 

What an amazing memoir! I already loved Viola Davis in How to Get Away with Murder but after reading this book, I realised how amazing of a human being she is. I now have such a deep admiration for her! 

In parts, it was so hard to read about her challenging childhood and all the traumas she experienced through her younger years, but what amazed me the most was Viola’s determination, resilience and strength. This memoir allowed me to get a glimpse into her personal life, from a traumatic childhood where she and her family didn’t have food to eat for days, to her struggling to belong in Julliard as a Black acting student…In this book, Viola also talks openly about the film and acting industry and how hard is to get to the top. For me, this memoir was sad, and shocking yet at the same time very inspiring. It was so interesting to read how honestly Viola talks about struggling to find self-love until later in adulthood and how she felt like she finally belonged when on the set of How to Get Away with Murder.

The memoir starts from the very beginning, Viola’s hard childhood which was filled with abuse, lack of food, poverty, racism, living without hot water and being in a house infested by rats…It wasn’t pretty but even little Viola had that strong determination and passion to get out of poverty and become something bigger. Over the years she pushed herself to achieve that, even though the path was not always easy or straight. She had to go through so many obstacles and with that also had to find herself, especially start loving herself. This memoir is full of successes, changes, failures, courage, resilience, strength, love, wisdom and determination. It displays the ugly and the pretty of Viola Davis’s life from her birth up until now.

Overall: It is the best memoir I have read this year. I now love Viola Davis even more! She is such an inspiration for strength and resilience. I think this book should be on everyone’s bookshelf or their TBR. I will be definitely revisiting this book, but this time in audio format as Viola narrates the book herself, which I think would bring out some parts of the book even further and have a bigger impact on the reader. It is such an intimate, honest and raw memoir that left such a significant impact on me. 

About the Author:

Viola Davis is the only Black actor to have achieved the “triple crown” of acting, winning an Oscar, an Emmy, and a Tony for her work in film, television, and the theater. The New York Times named Davis one of the ten greatest actors of the twenty-first century. In addition to her acting work, she is an acclaimed producer and philanthropist. 

https://twitter.com/violadavis