The Three Most Talked About Memoirs of 2017
In show business, they say tragedy comes in threes, well so does the gift of laughter. Get hyped with two memoirs that offer tons of career tips, parenting advice, and plain old common sense. Get schooled on survival in the hood with one shockingly revealing memoir. Some chapters are hilarious, while others take on a more serious tone. Get ready to experience bliss, nostalgia, and at times melancholy, with three of the most talked about memoirs of 2017. Three comedians prove there is indeed room at the top for those who can laugh at their pain and persevere.
I Can't Make This Up: Life Lessons
by Kevin Hart with Neil Strauss
Atria/37 INK
6/6/2017
Like his new memoir, Hart is on fire and really good at delivering the nitty gritty details of family drama. Fortunate for readers, he has more than enough personal material to work with and work up captivated fans. In a city full of dreamers, Hart is unrestrained, rejected, and determined to make it big. He is close to his mother and brother, but when it comes to his father, it's complicated.
They arrived on set like a herd of elephants. My dad spotted the craft services table, where there were chips, candy, and other snacks piled up for the cast, crew, and guests to eat. He snuck over to the table and filled his hands and pockets with goldfish crackers and cupcakes, then brought them back to the family to share, as if he'd just robbed a convenience store.
Life Lessons is an appropriate title for a well written biography which gives fans a peek into the chaotic life of one of America's funniest men. Hart just wants to have fun and make money while doing it.
His message to fans is not complicated: Struggle, rejection, and failure are all a part of becoming successful. Embrace the struggle.
Real Job: Selling sneakers
Church: Avoided at all costs
Raising Other People's Kids: No Way
Parenting Skills: Good
Advice: Never take no for an answer
Nostalgia: Jherri Curl
Year: '80s
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Stand by Your Truth: And Then Run for Your Life!
by Rickey Smiley with Charisse Jones
Gallery Books
10/24/2017
The Rickey Smiley Morning Show debuts in Dallas, Texas, in April of 2004, and the usual uneventful ride to work via Interstate 20 is never the same. Prank phone calls with personas like Bernice Jenkins and Lil Darryl leave me grinning from ear to ear. One of my favorite prank calls is when Smiley phones a locksmith to tell him that he's been kidnapped and locked in the trunk of a Cutlass. Smiley yells, "Hurry up!" He pretends to have difficulty breathing. The gullible locksmith asks Smiley, who is whispering instructions, to repeat his location. The call ends with Smiley hanging up after he admonishes the locksmith with "you gone get me kilt."
Smiley pens a memoir as bold as his on-air antics when he puts both friend and foe on blast. He calls out bad mothers and absentee fathers who need to polish their parenting skills. He has praise for those parents who take full responsibility for raising their children.
How do you have sense enough to figure out how to drive a car, or how to pass an exam, but then turn off your mind, your sense of right and wrong, when it comes to your own child? How do you not take care of someone who carries your name, who carries your genes, who carries a piece of your soul? It's unnatural. It's not human.
Smiley puts it all out there. He admits to being in the "slow" class year after year. But despite his poor academic performance, it is the strong worth ethic of three generations that propel him to success.
Fans will embrace timeless advice on just about everything, including how it takes a village to raise a child, dressing the part, and how to say goodbye to negativity. His generosity matches his hunger for success as he is on a mission to empower others.
Smiley's message on parenthood is old school: Spare the rod and spoil the child.
Real Job: Selling sneakers
Church: Attends regularly
Raising Other People's Kids: Yes
Parenting Skills: Excellent
Advice: Make amends
Nostalgia: Albums
Years: '70s, '80s
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rabbit: The Autobiography of Ms. Pat
by Patricia Williams with Jeannine Amber
HarperCollins Publishers
8/22/2017
"If you don't laugh, you'll cry" has new meaning. Leave It To Beaver, the happy TV family, is the antithesis of Williams' bitter family ties. No one in her contaminated, crack-infested world has a legal hustle, a real job, or a high school diploma. A growing girl's personal space is a rare commodity in Granddaddy's roudy liquor house on Atlanta's West Side. When you are "poor as hell" hustling and scheming is no coincidence. It's the key to survival. Her days are filled with predicaments that are hopeful and hopeless, marvelous and atrocious, sweet and bittersweet.
As hungry as we were, I can't say Mama didn't try. She came up with all kinds of schemes to get us fed. One time she took us to the Curb Market late at night so we could dig through the dumpsters out back looking for anything the vendors had thrown out that wasn't too rotten to eat. We found an hold head of cabbage, some wilted carrots, and a couple of stale loaves of bread.
Like the wave of nausea after a rollercoaster ride, emotions boil over with disdain for Williams' misdeeds in one chapter, then awe for her good deeds in another. Guardian angels come in the form of a loving Granddaddy, a compassionate teacher, a caseworker, a trusted friend, and an upgraded boyfriend. Will their unconditional support be enough to save Williams from herself?
Williams has a message for her readers: Get out there and kick some ass.
Real Job: Stocking shelves at Target
Church: Only for survival
Raising Other People's Kids: Yes
Parenting Skills: Poor
Advice: Believe in miracles
Nostalgia: Miss Mary Mack
Years: '70s, '80s
