SEPTMEBER’S BOOK OF THE MONTH: “Around The Way Girl” by Taraji P. Henson
Award-winning, role-portraying, sassy, overtly vocal yet classy with a squeeze of tangy lemon, you would not even begin to understand the parallels that existed between Taraji P. Henson’s real, scaled and exposed life with her most memorable characters played. “Around The Way Girl” is figuratively a river, hand-cut, slaved and persevered for the purpose of explaining the ability to live life on life’s terms… Taraji’s life. From the parental history that existed prior to Taraji’s birth to her stance and crucially-developed professional life that caused parenting, itself, to be absolutely difficult. Her truth serves to be a gain for all that are blessed enough to hear or read it. Although lengthy, it is one of those memoirs that seemingly desired to give you more than the surface to skim through. For that, I felt a deeply-existing appreciation for her undeniable transparency. I chose AudioBooks as a means to grasp the honesty of Taraji’s story and the benefit of hearing her conveyance of the life that took her from the economically-strained Southeastern portion of “Chocolate City, Washington D.C. to the hoods and hills of Hollywood… and then the world. It was absolutely a treat!! In this blessing of literature, she tells of childhood, dismantling fear, adolescence, the understanding of “Hustle”, The journey of acting, Educational crossroads, thorough love, loss, learning and life. Every chapter slices a tad deeper into the rarest Rack of Lamb. Can you handle her truth? Can you listen or read a story that overshadows the characters that have been played and see the truth in each and every one of them? See, Taraji is more than Boris’ daughter… greater than the lover of Debbie Allen and, the late Teena Marie’s “Square Biz”.Taraji mounts over the towers of attitude, personality, witt and pure talent. She is a mother of a son that found himself a fatherless child. The daughter of a women that gave her the rulebook on making a life and not allowing your offspring to go without. “Cookie” is more than a television persona. You should find out why it remains a name that she holds close to her heart from “Back in the day”. Certainly, I can give quotes or breakdown each chapter inclusive for “Around The Way Girl”. I can give you great insight but then you wouldn’t need your own pair of eyes in which to view her world with. I recommend a read of just the first chapter and you will be hooked as if it is a scene stolen from her earliest or latest flick and/or show. You WILL BE Captivated, Informed, Touched, Inspired, Tickled and Anxious to now move forward with the purpose of living a life of progression…. Just as Taraji has.
Whitney T. Living
Go get the Book a Great Read!