Quick Synopsis

Minka Kelly takes readers behind the shiny silver-screen façade and reveals just how good an actress she really is.

Publisher’s Synopsis

Fans know her as the spoiled, rich cheerleader Lyla Garrity on Friday Night Lights or as the affluent, mysterious Samantha on the HBO megahit Euphoria. But as revealed for the first time in these pages, Minka Kelly’s life has been anything but easy.

Raised by a single mother who worked as a stripper and struggled with addiction, Minka spent years waking up in strange apartments as she and her mom bounced around the country, relying on friends and relatives to take them in. At times they even lived in storage units. She reconnected with her father, Aerosmith’s Rick Dufay, and eventually made her way to Los Angeles, where she landed the role of a lifetime on Friday Night Lights.

Now an established actress and philanthropist, Minka takes this next step in her career as a writer. She has poured her soul into the pages of this book, which ultimately tells a story of triumph over adversity, and how resilience and love are all we have in the end.

Book Review

Tell Me Everything is actress Minka Kelly’s thought-provoking and poignant memoir. In this memoir, Minka Kelly shatters the preconceived notions and stereotypes that come with being famous. Instead, her memoir explores her unstable childhood, relationships with her parents, rise to fame, and healing journey. Tell Me Everything is closer to Educated than it is to Jada Pinkett Smith’s Worthy. So if you are looking for Hollywood gossip or the tea on Friday Night Lights, you will be disappointed.

Tell Me Everything is a raw, no holds barred type of memoir the focuses on how Minka Kelly grew up and eventually broke into Hollywood. While Minka includes those moments of childhood that are shiny and happy, she also shares the reality of her childhood – mercurial and traumatic. Her childhood revolved around her mother, Maureen, who was her caregiver as well as an addict. As Maureen hopped from relationship to relationship, partially in search of survival, Minka was left to primarily fend for herself, including withstanding physical abuse. Eventually Minka broke away from her mother and her nomadic childhood in search of her own safety and stability.

Minka generously walks readers through her memories – from loving adventures with her mother to partaking in sex work to earn enough to move away from an abusive boyfriend. As Minka reaches adulthood, she confronts trying to avoid the mistakes of her parents and unlearning dysfunctional relationships. As Maureen develops cancer, Minka is forced to deal with her trauma and find a way to forgive her mother. The constant thread through all of the book’s pages is her complicated relationship with her mother – both as a child desperate for attention and stability and as an adult trying to understand and make peace with her shortcomings.

Tell Me Everything is a candid, and at times painful, read. I do not typically think of celebrity memoirs as courageous or inspirational, but that is exactly what this book is. I was particularly impressed with Minka’s self-reflection and candid writing. She is extremely self-aware and recounts her story in a generous and humane manner. In the end, Minka has written a memoir that is a touching tribute to unconventional women and families and a telling story about the long-lasting effects of trauma and the everyday difficulties of overcoming it.

Overall, Tell Me Everything is a gripping story of resilience and love and a courageous story of persistence, self-acceptance, and growth. If you are looking for an unconventional celebrity story that focuses on the person rather than the career, I highly recommend reading Tell Me Everything.

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