She is at heart just a girl in pursuit of her dreams. With laugh-out-loud humor and candor, she shares the challenges and disappointments of the actor’s journey and shows us that behind the red carpet moments, she is ever authentic. In thirteen chapters, Taraji talks about family, love, motherhood, education and following her dreams to the big screen. Because I know her struggle I appreciate how much she has done and how far that has taken her. Around the Way Girl is also a classic actor’s memoir in which Taraji reflects on the world-class instruction she received at Howard University and the pitfalls that come with being a black actress. When I reached the last page of Around the Way Girl, I looked at Taraji in a different light. Here too she opens up about her experiences as a single mother, a journey some saw as a burden but which she saw as a gift. She shares stories of her father, a Vietnam vet who was bowed but never broken by life’s challenges, and of her mother who survived violence both in the home and on DC’s volatile streets. Henson reads her inspiring and funny book about family, friends, the hustle required to make it from DC to Hollywood, and the joy of living in your own truth.With a sensibility that recalls her beloved screen characters, including Yvette, Queenie, Shug, and the iconic Cookie from Empire, yet is all Taraji, the screen actress writes of her family, the one she was born into and the one she created.

Academy Award nominee and Golden Globe winner Taraji P.

Around the Way Girl by Taraji P. Henson