Handbook for an Unpredictable Life: How I Survived Sister Renata and My Crazy Mother, and Still Came Out Smiling (with Great Hair)

Now in paperback, the Oscar-nominated actress and The View co-host, Rosie Perez’s story of surviving a harrowing childhood in an orphanage and how she found success-both in and out of the Hollywood limelight

Rosie Perez first caught our attention with her fierce dance in the title sequence of Do the Right Thing and has since defined herself as a funny and talented actress who broke boundaries for Latinas in the film industry. What most people would be surprised to learn is that the woman with the big, effervescent personality has a secret straight out of a Dickens novel. At the age of three, Rosie’s life was turned upside down when her mentally ill mother tore her away from the only family she knew and placed her in a Catholic children’s home in New York’s Westchester County. Thus began her crazily discombobulated childhood of being shuttled between othe Home,o where she and other kids suffered all manners of cruelty from nuns, and various relatives’ apartments in Brooklyn. This unstable lifestyle forced a precocious kid to become a fiercely independent young woman, and eventually inspired her to perform, an obvious escape hatch. This story traces her life from Brooklyn and othe Home,o to the early days of her career on film and TV sets and the LA and New York City hip-hop scenes of the 1980s and ‘90s.

In anyone else’s hands, this might be considered a omisery memoir,o but Rosie’s inimitable voice makes this the heartfelt, riveting, raw, funny, and inspirational story of a woman who has finally found a place of strength and peace.