YOU SHOULD SIT DOWN FOR THIS

A TV star shares her wisdom.

Mowry-Housley (b. 1978), a former co-host of the Fox talk show The Real, offers an upbeat memoir peppered with nuggets of advice that she calls Tameraisms. Describing herself as “a little Black girl who had big dreams and grand ambitions,” she recounts many times that she “doubted herself, almost quit, shed tears, cried a ton, but learned how to laugh some more through it all.” Born in Germany, where her parents were stationed in the Army, she moved to Hawaii when she was 3 and then to central Texas, where she and her identical twin sister conjured up a routine that they performed at county fairs and in shopping malls. Seeing potential in her children’s talents, her mother moved them to Los Angeles. After failed auditions, they finally broke into TV: Mowry-Housley’s brother was cast in Full House and she and her twin in the sitcom Sister, Sister. One Tameraism: “It’s okay to fail as long as you fail up.” With TV work and school, she had no time for boyfriends, resulting in “dashed fantasies, unreasonable expectations, and wasted lip gloss” when she finally started to date. In matters of love, and in her career, she learned quickly that “there is no express train to success.” Mowry-Housley opines on sex, race (she is biracial), and family. She shares a moving homage to a beloved 18-year-old niece killed in a mass shooting, and she reflects on being a working mother and reveals the dark side of her time working on The Real. Although she loved her co-hosts, dealing with cruel public scrutiny played out on social media made it “one of the unhappiest times of my life. I suffered horrible anxiety, I’d throw up in my dressing room, I drank way too much.” Self-care, she underscores, is crucial for happiness. Though she offers little groundbreaking insight, the author comes across as genuine.

Heartfelt hints for living a good life.