July 1, 2017
Known to fans for her work on NBC's The Carmichael Show and in the feature film Girls Trip, Haddish recalls a tougher-than-tough upbringing in South Central Los Angeles, where she circulated through foster care after her mother sustained a serious brain injury and tried to cope at a nearly all-white school as a ninth grader who didn't know how to read. Now she has her first Showtime stand-up comedy special, She Ready, in the fall.
Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
The stand-up comedian and actress opens up about her past and the perils of being a woman in comedy.In her uncensored and often hilarious debut memoir, Haddish reveals pivotal events from her personal life that helped propel her toward the stage. "I got into the entertainment business so I could feel accepted," she writes. "And loved. And safe." After learning about the trials of her early years, readers will appreciate how trying to make a roomful of strangers laugh could prove easier than negotiating the minefield of the author's home life. Though somewhat dismissive of her uncanny ability to rise above adversity, Haddish provides a colloquially written rags-to-riches story that is both impressive and harrowing. Abandoned by her father at age 3 and forced to live with her grandmother at 8, after her mother was in a devastating car accident that caused permanent brain damage, Haddish spent years taking care of her younger siblings or being abused while in foster care. She turned to humor as a defense mechanism, getting her comedic start as a teen working as an "energy producer" at bar mitzvahs around Los Angeles. Once her grandmother learned she would no longer receive financial support for caring for her granddaughter, she turned Haddish out, causing her to become homeless at 18. At 21, the author's stepfather told her that not only was he responsible for the accident that had forever changed her mother, but that it had been meant to kill her and all her siblings so he could cash in on the life insurance. After learning this, Haddish says she started dating policemen. "It's always good to have police friends," she writes, "especially black police, because there aren't a lot of them." The author's unrelenting positivity and openness about how insecurities about her own self-worth led to poor decisions later in life offer important lessons and hope for others seemingly trapped in toxic relationships.Both entertaining and grippingly introspective, Haddish's take-no-prisoners tale is a testament to self-will and how humor can save your life.
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Starred review from December 1, 2017
Comedian Haddish was not born to a life of laughs. After an accident her stepfather later confessed to staging, her mother experienced severe brain damage and wild mood swings. Placed in the foster care system as a teen, and struggling to read at a basic level in ninth grade, Haddish found that humor and jokes helped her endure. When offered a choice between the Laugh Factory comedy camp or counseling to help recover from issues within the foster system, she chose the former and found her calling. In her first book, Haddish recounts her early life straight through to her powerhouse success both on the comedy circuit and in Hollywood with the 2017 film Girls Trip. She spares nothing in this no-holds-barred account, from laughable accounts of failed pimps for boyfriends and taking Will and Jada Pinkett Smith on a swamp tour to graphic descriptions of a memorable one-weekend stand to unfiltered honesty on her struggle as a domestic abuse survivor. With an informal and conversational style, Haddish directly addresses readers, dares to be herself, and says, "You can't fake funny." VERDICT A bawdy, laugh-out-loud tell-all with a liberal dose of heart.--Stacy Shaw, Orange, CA
Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.