Year of Yes: How to Dance It Out, Stand in the Sun and Be Your Own Person by Shonda Rhimes

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Year of Yes: How to Dance It Out, Stand in the Sun and Be Your Own Person by Shonda Rhimes


                I completely slept on this book. I could have read it earlier but I’m not sure if I should have read it earlier. I am a firm believer of “we read books when we’re meant too” and reading this book now, I understand what Rhimes means in ways I may not have earlier. I enjoy Rhimes’s shows and I enjoyed this book. I love the introspection, the candor, the humor. As fans we unintentionally put those we admire in glass houses where everything is perfect and happiness runs freely. Rhimes tears that glass house down and exposes herself and the journey she had to take to truly find happiness.
                I felt challenged while reading this book. Challenged to look at things differently and to see what I had been intentionally and unintentionally saying yes to. Reading about a successful Black woman, redefining and finding her happiness in inspiring. Rhimes found the strength to change her entire frame of thinking and in doing so changed her life. Then she wrote about it and put it out there for everyone else. That takes guts. It’s easy to root for her because she makes herself easy to know. Her writing is comforting because as serious as she takes herself, she is human and she is funny and she is multidimensional. Rhimes lets readers see all of that.
                My favorite parts revolved around the speeches she wrote and the was she talked about one of my absolute favorite characters, Christina Yang. The speeches were just extremely well done and powerful. They resonated with me. Christina though, she was emotional for me. I loved watching Sandra Oh play Christina Yang and reading how Rhimes chose to end that chapter of Grey’s Anatomy and her story line almost broke me. Rhimes relationship with that character was just amazing. I was really sad to see her go and my relationship with the show has changed since then but reading Rhimes reflection back on Christina brought joy. It was bittersweet but enjoyable.
                All in all I recommend Year of Yes. This memoir is a fun read full of emotional ups and downs and a rediscovery of purpose. Will it cause you to look at your own life and reevaluate things? Very possible, I know it made me pause on more than one count and consider things differently. But this memoir is more than that. It’s fun and it’s an ode to dedication, hard work, success, family and love. I give this memoir 4 out of 5 stars.


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