There is no secret that I stan for black culture. I mean I love everything about black people and black culture. Hell the only thing I don’t like black is my coffee. Debate your mama because that mess is nasty. Anyways, back to the topic. Viola Davis is hands down one of my favorite actress. Unlike many, who fell in love with as Viola when she played her award winning role as Annalise Keating, in How To Get Away With Murder, I feel in love with Mrs. Davis when she played Teresa “Terry” Randolph in a episode titled the Badge on Law & Order: Criminal Intent.
Oh ya’ll Terry was a bad ass, she was a police officer who retired on disability after years of being denied a promotion to detective. She eventually takes on another job as a School Security Officer and begins running an her own Security Mafia, hitting up drug dealers for kickbacks.
So what does that have to do with price of tea in China you ask. Nothing, I just telling ya’ll how I feel in love with the woman who wrote the book I’m about to go in on.
I knew my life would be a fight, and I realized this: I had it in me– Viola Davis
As you know many of the books I review, I listen to on Audiobook (for free thanks to the Libby app). This one was no different. Viola Davis narrates its herself, she always makes autobiographies that much more powerful. Now lets get into it.
This book is heartbreaking, motivating, and simply amazing. Yes I’m bias and? The book is still amazing but make no mistake it is not for the faint at her. Viola uses her unique voice to tell the story of her up bring, along with five siblings, as a poor, dark skin girl in Central Falls, Rhode Island.
Davis does not mince words or hold back as she details being bulled because of her dark skin, by another black child. She weaves us through the staggering abuse her mother endured at the hands of her father, often making us laugh, in the middle of it. And we are okay with laughing, because we all know that sometimes the only way to handle the horror is to find that little bit of humor. She doesn’t hold back as she explains the sexual abuse she and her sisters endure.
Although the trails and tribulations Viola endure, this isn’t just a sad story, no my friends this is a transformation story, equal to the magic that happens when a caterpillar turns into a butterfly. In this story we watch Mrs. Viola Davis go from believing she was a poor ugly black girl to knowing she is a beautiful, talented, woman, capable of everything she every dreamed up doing.
From Central Falls, to auditions at Juilliard, and all the way to Hollywood, Viola shows us what is possible, when you don’t just believe you can make it, but know you will make it.
I was able to relate to this book on so many levels, and I pretty sure many other people will too Overall I give this book a 4 out 5.
C.S. Carraway 