Just as I Am: A Memoir by Cicely Tyson

Just as I Am: A Memoir by Cicely Tyson
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishing
Genre: Contemporary, Historical, Memoir, Non-Fiction
Rating: 5 stars
Reviewed by Nymphaea

“Just as I Am is my truth. It is me, plain and unvarnished, with the glitter and garland set aside. In these pages, I am indeed Cicely, the actress who has been blessed to grace the stage and screen for six decades. Yet I am also the church girl who once rarely spoke a word. I am the teenager who sought solace in the verses of the old hymn for which this book is named. I am a daughter and a mother, a sister and a friend. I am an observer of human nature and the dreamer of audacious dreams. I am a woman who has hurt as immeasurably as I have loved, a child of God divinely guided by his hand. And here in my ninth decade, I am a woman who, at long last, has something meaningful to say.” –Cicely Tyson

Unvarnished and honest.

I never read much about Cicely Tyson. I knew she was an actress and beautiful, but it’s not until I got into this book that I realized how cool she is. I don’t mean cool as in hard to talk to, but cool as in: she’s awesome. She’s not pretentious and tells things how they are without being mean. This book was like reading something a friend would tell me. It’s just her life how she saw it and how she felt while it happened. Some might call it simple, but I consider it engrossing.

Cicely Tyson is definitely someone who deserves more air time. It’s brilliantly written and shows how much she cares for her friends and even past lovers. I felt smarter by reading the book. I also realized the empathy she has while writing this. Her life wasn’t easy. She had troubles and some of her hardest times are what she writes about so eloquently.

If you’re looking for a Hollywood autobiography, then this might be the one to choose. I’m glad I did.