This Is Just My Face

Try Not to Stare

By: Gabourey Sidibe

Narrated by: Gabourey Sidibe

The Oscar-nominated Precious star and Empire actress delivers a much-awaited memoir - wise, complex, smart, funny - a version of the American experience different from anything we've heard.

Gabourey Sidibe - "Gabby" to her legion of fans - skyrocketed to international fame in 2009 when she played the leading role in Lee Daniels' acclaimed movie Precious. In This Is Just My Face, she shares a one-of-a-kind life story in a voice as fresh and challenging as many of the unique characters she's played onscreen. With full-throttle honesty, Sidibe paints her Bed-Stuy/Harlem family life with a polygamous father and a gifted mother who supports her two children by singing in the subway. Sidibe tells the engrossing, inspiring story of her first job as a phone sex "talker". And she shares her unconventional (of course!) rise to fame as a movie star alongside "a superstar cast of rich people who lived in mansions and had their own private islands and amazing careers while I lived in my mom's apartment."

Sidibe's memoir hits hard with self-knowing dispatches on friendship, depression, celebrity, haters, fashion, race, and weight ("If I could just get the world to see me the way I see myself," she writes, "would my body still be a thing you walked away thinking about?"). Irreverent, hilarious, and untraditional, This Is Just My Face will resonate with anyone who has ever felt different and with anyone who has ever felt inspired to make a dream come true.

©2017 Gabourey Sidibe. Reproduced with special arrangement with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company (P)2017 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

"Academy Award-nominated actress Gabourey Sidibe's memoir gives listeners an intimate account of her victories and struggles in her own vibrant voice.... Sidibe's narration is full of genuine laughter, a dash of sarcasm, and an authentic-sounding Senegalese accent. An entertaining memoir that sounds as reflective and cathartic for Sidibe as it will be for her fans." ( AudioFile)

Laugh Out Loud

The moment I saw Gabourey Sidibe was releasing a memoir, and that she would be narrating the audiobook, I knew I wanted to read it. She has such a sassy and funny personality. I loved her performance of This is Just My Face; it's so her. I'm a big reader of print, but this book definitely deserves to be listened to.

Gabourey gives lots of deets into her life that help to understand her personality, work ethic, and life choices. She's a star and I love that she embraced the fame she was fortuned. 😉

So good!

I loved this book, such a great retelling of someone's past and their experiences. I love that the author read the audio book version as it makes the story that much more relatable. So genuine. Bravo Gabourey!

Amazing!!

Gabourey did a fantastic job, I don't think anyone else would have been able to narrate her story! She had me feeling all sorts of emotions from sad to happy to completely excited for her! This book brought joy to my daily commute! I'm going to listen to it again just in case I missed something!

Such beautiful insight… and hilarious!

Gabby is truly milt kinda person, and her sense of humor made her story come alive.

See another side to Gabourey Sidibe.

Liked the book. It had some real shockers in it. I liked being in the mind of such a witty vulnerable woman.