Finding Me: A Memoir
Written by Viola Davis
Narrated by Viola Davis
5/5
()
About this audiobook
Winner of the 2023 Grammy for Best Audio Book, Narration, and Storytelling Recording!
Narrated by Viola Davis
In my book, you will meet a little girl named Viola who ran from her past until she made a life-changing decision to stop running forever.
This is my story, from a crumbling apartment in Central Falls, Rhode Island, to the stage in New York City, and beyond. This is the path I took to finding my purpose but also my voice in a world that didn’t always see me.
As I wrote Finding Me, my eyes were open to the truth of how our stories are often not given close examination. We are forced to reinvent them to fit into a crazy, competitive, judgmental world. So I wrote this for anyone running through life untethered, desperate and clawing their way through murky memories, trying to get to some form of self-love. For anyone who needs reminding that a life worth living can only be born from radical honesty and the courage to shed facades and be . . . you.
Finding Me is a deep reflection, a promise, and a love letter of sorts to self. My hope is that my story will inspire you to light up your own life with creative expression and rediscover who you were before the world put a label on you.
Editor's Note
Dedication…
“It’s an eenie, meenie, miny, mo game of luck, relationships, chance, how long you’ve been out there, and sometimes talent,” says Davis when pressed to describe her professional triumphs. While the Oscar and Tony winner remains modest, her emotional memoir chronicling her journey from growing up in a rat-infested apartment to Julliard and beyond is an uplifting story of hard work and dedication.
Reviews for Finding Me
2,405 ratings318 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Such a poignant, honest retelling of her life. I couldn’t stop listening to it. Through the tears and triumphs, I was able to walk with her every step of the way.
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I truly enjoyed and loved listening to Viola David life story. Super engaging, I highly recommend it ❤️
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I already loved Viola Davis before listening to her memoir, even more now.What a gift this was! Beautifully narrated by the author, it transpired every single emotion she went through and told a story of a Queen finding her sovereignty! Quite a masterpiece! Bravo!!
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A raw and real memoir of the life of a fighter.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This book was absolutely amazing. It was narrated beautifully. I felt a range of different emotions.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ms. Davis has the skills to describe childhood poverty with vividness to place her readers in the misery with her . Her deprivation , unfortunately, is not unique but her individual story is important in understanding the blows to self esteem that occurs when a child is mocked for her poverty and for the way she looks, the way she smells, the way she lives in abuse, in alcoholism , in being unprotected. The book is a tribute to the human soul that struggles to survive in a piss-stained , bloody, raggedly clothed body.
I understand how it is helpful to have siblings to share the abuse, to feel love from the abusers , to have intelligence and talent in order to get out of that horrible life. I understand how people without those resources fall back into poverty but I wish Viola Davis told her readers more about the reasons her parents could not feed their children or protect them from the rats. ( The
Children peed on themselves rather than struggle through the rats to the bathroom.). The father worked as a groomer at major racetracks and was apparently respected there . Did he drink his salary away? Viola Davis mentions that her mother gambled but the only instance mentioned was one time playing bingo. I wish I knew more about it because this book makes you feel the pain of poverty and , for me, makes you want to do something about the mean teachers , the warped abusers, the bigotry, the helplessness.
I am glad Viola Davis was able to get out and to help others. Her sense of hope and her tribute to the power of love are inspiring.