Permission Slips

August 24, 2009
“I was one of those kids who was always putting on a show,” The View
cohost Shepherd writes in this tell-all memoir loosely structured as a self-help book; after every tumultuous chapter Shepherd gives the reader permission to do this or not do that based on her own experience (“Write yourself a permission slip that says, 'I tried, and I can't handle this' ”). Shepherd is a feisty African-American single mom, comedian and former Jehovah's Witness. The tone is good-natured, rueful and funny. Yet it will be no surprise that Shepherd has had a few bumps in the road: among others, being shamed by her family and church for having sex at age 14; rejected in her showbiz career; and the birth of a severely premature baby, divorce and a diagnosis of diabetes. Shepherd is a woman coming to terms with her altered looks as she passes 40 alone and raising a child. She is still religious, and occasionally the reader may pull back, such as when Shepherd admits she does not believe in evolution. All in all, though, this is a good, dishy read, if not easy to apply to one's own everyday life.

September 1, 2009
Girlfriend, Sherri Shepherd is one out there lady. If you know her at all, you know her from The View (her first week on, she said she didnt know if the earth was round). But she explains that gaffe, and so much more, in this rambling memoir. The conceit here is that Shepherd dishes a bit about her life, and then the reader gets a permission slip of advice. For instance, when fertility treatments render her a dead fish in the bedroom, the slip reads: Write yourself a permission slip to be the ho in matrimony that you wished youd been when you were single. However, infidelity is only one chapter in the life of a woman who went from Jehovahs Witness to girl about town and back to born-again celibateand from legal secreatary to stand-up comic to nationally known cohost. The book itself is not that linear, jumping around from one topic to the next (and dotted with those annoying permission slips). But, like Sherri on The View, its all very up close and personal and kind of fun.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)