[Mini] Book Review: We’re Going to Need More Wine

We’re Going to Need More Wine by Gabrielle Union

Synopsis:

In the spirit of Amy Poehler’s Yes Please, Lena Dunham’s Not That Kind of Girl, and Roxane Gay’s Bad Feminist, a powerful collection of essays about gender, sexuality, race, beauty, Hollywood, and what it means to be a modern woman.

One month before the release of the highly anticipated film The Birth of a Nation, actress Gabrielle Union shook the world with a vulnerable and impassioned editorial in which she urged our society to have compassion for victims of sexual violence. In the wake of rape allegations made against director and actor Nate Parker, Union—a forty-four-year-old actress who launched her career with roles in iconic ’90s movies—instantly became the insightful, outspoken actress that Hollywood has been desperately awaiting. With honesty and heartbreaking wisdom, she revealed her own trauma as a victim of sexual assault: “It is for you that I am speaking. This is real. We are real.”

In this moving collection of thought provoking essays infused with her unique wisdom and deep humor, Union uses that same fearlessness to tell astonishingly personal and true stories about power, color, gender, feminism, and fame. Union tackles a range of experiences, including bullying, beauty standards, and competition between women in Hollywood, growing up in white California suburbia and then spending summers with her black relatives in Nebraska, coping with crushes, puberty, and the divorce of her parents. Genuine and perceptive, Union bravely lays herself bare, uncovering a complex and courageous life of self-doubt and self-discovery with incredible poise and brutal honesty. Throughout, she compels us to be ethical and empathetic, and reminds us of the importance of confidence, self-awareness, and the power of sharing truth, laughter, and support.

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This review is spoiler free. But I will give a content warning for anyone looking to read this book (which you should) because Gabrielle Union is a rape survivor and there is a chapter dedicated to that.

I FUCKING LOVE THIS BOOK!

I’m very new to non fiction but I’m learning that I really love biographies.

I’ve been wanting to get this book since I heard about it. After I finally did, I used an Audible credit to also get the audiobook because Union narrates it herself.

There is a lot to be learned from her story and I highly recommend it to anyone but especially white people who consider themselves allies to POC.

Everything about it is fantastic. She is undeniably real and unapologetically black and I love that. It’s really nice to see influential black women embrace their blackness despite the fact that society constantly tells us to suppress it.

Go get this book and read it ASAP.

 5 stars.

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