This Is Just My Face: Try Not to Stare
<p>The Oscar-nominated <i>Precious</i> star and <i>Empire</i> actress delivers a much-awaited memoir - wise, complex, smart, funny - a version of the American experience different from anything we've heard. </p> <p>Gabourey Sidibe - "Gabby" to her legion of fans - skyrocketed to international fame in 2009 when she played the leading role in Lee Daniels' acclaimed movie <i>Precious</i>. In <i>This Is Just My Face</i>, she shares a one-of-a-kind life story in a voice as fresh and challenging as many of the unique characters she's played onscreen. With full-throttle honesty, Sidibe paints her Bed-Stuy/Harlem family life with a polygamous father and a gifted mother who supports her two children by singing in the subway. Sidibe tells the engrossing, inspiring story of her first job as a phone sex "talker". And she shares her unconventional (of course!) rise to fame as a movie star alongside "a superstar cast of rich people who lived in mansions and had their own private islands and amazing careers while I lived in my mom's apartment." </p> <p>Sidibe's memoir hits hard with self-knowing dispatches on friendship, depression, celebrity, haters, fashion, race, and weight ("If I could just get the world to see me the way I see myself," she writes, "would my body still be a thing you walked away thinking about?"). Irreverent, hilarious, and untraditional, <i>This Is Just My Face</i> will resonate with anyone who has ever felt different and with anyone who has ever felt inspired to make a dream come true. </p>