In this ambitious follow-up to her 2017 memoir, actress Gabrielle Union offers a new crop of essays on identity, trauma, love, and family. There is a self-help bent to parts of this book that I never completely got on board with but overall this follow-up offers fun stories and that catching-up-with-your-wildest-friend over coffee feeling from the first book.
I think once you read the first essay, Loved Even as a Thought, which details Union’s surrogacy journey, you can skip around to any essay as there is no narrative structure. Standout essays for me included; Dear Isis, where Union discusses what she’d do differently with her iconic Bring it On character, Into The Matrix, an essay about Union’s relationship with Janet Jackson and Dance Battle, a recap of an epic dance battle between Union’s celebrity posse and Bruno Mars at Chateau Marmont.
My biggest critique about Union and this book is that she wrote a lot about the trauma done to “black bodies” by police and still decided to produce and star in a L.A copganda show ??? Like she never even addresses it.
I’m a lifelong reader who started blogging about YA books in 2011 but now I read in just about every genre! I love YA coming of age stories, compelling memoirs and genre bending SFF. You can find me talking all things romance at Romance and Sensibility.