I don’t know if I’ve watched an entire episode of The View, but I respect Sunny Hostin. Her book originally caught my attention when featured during a National Antiracist Book Festival earlier this year. Picked this up from my TBR pile after hearing her being interviewed by Soledad O’Brien, and I appreciated hearing about how her identity has been shaped. I relate to her growing up with the privileges of being mixed-race and yet not being fully embraced by her Black or Puerto Rican communities (I am both Black and Filipina).

Asunción “Sunny” Hostin is the embodiment of the Zig Ziglar quote, “Success occurs when opportunity meets preparation.” I enjoyed reading about her journey from living in the projects to becoming a lawyer and eventually an Emmy-winning cohost of The View and navigating multiple worlds as an Afro-Latina. Though I don’t align with her on everything, I value her voice in the fight against issues like police brutality, infertility stigma, and violence against children.

Especially for young people of color with an interest in journalism or law, this book has several tips for how to survive or thrive within those industries. Glad it exists.

My friend gifted me this book because he watches the View religiously and absolutely adores Sunny. He said I could be inspired by her since we have some things in common (i.e., being mixed latina women and having lived in DC). I have seen clips here and there but was not too familiar with her before I read this book.

Often, the writing felt corny and a bit forced. I’m not sure if she used a ghostwriter or not, but that’s how the book read. However, I appreciated how honest she was about her personal struggles and how much detail she gave about her work as a prosecutor. She also spilled the tea when it came to working in media. I thought the lessons she learned from her experiences gave me new ways to think about things and were very inspiring. Her book definitely made a me fan but not sure if I would read her fiction works if the writing is similar.

Prior to reading this book, I had never heard of Sunny Hostin. I don’t watch The View, since I am cord cutting millennial. (Cable TV? Is it 2002?) But my grandma loved The View. A few months ago, she asked me to get Sunny’s new book and read it. She had heard Sunny talk on the show about the book, and she told me she was curious about it.

The first time I ordered it, it got lost in the mail. So I opted for Target curbside pick up for my second try. And around the same time I started to read the book, my grandma’s health began to decline.

When I called her and told her I finally got the book, she was happy to hear that, but in that same conversation, she told me she thought she was on her way to heaven soon. When I went to visit her and brought the book to show her, she was bedridden and on hospice.

I really enjoyed this book, despite not knowing anything about Sunny Hostin prior to reading it. Sunny has had an interesting life, and she is honest, straightforward, and inspiring as she details her efforts to have “a seat at the table” - to not only pursue her own profession dreams but to also “tap into all the varied talents that can make this country what is has never been but has the potential to one day be.” I also especially connected with Sunny describing her experience being multiracial and growing up in a multicultural home. I don’t have the same ethnic or racial background as Sunny, but I am also multiracial and grew up in a multicultural home. I really connected with what she wrote about never feeling enough for any side - that “you don’t really count” because you’re not fully that ethnicity or race. Or people making misguided assumptions about you, or presuming they know or can speak on your own experiences. This is a perspective that is hard to find - the feeling that you need to check more than one box in a country that encourages, and sometimes forces you, to select just one. My only complaint about this book is that it was too short - I wanted to hear more from Sunny!

Thank you, Sunny, for writing this book, for speaking on the multiracial/multicultural experience so authentically, for speaking honestly about the struggles you’ve faced in an effort to bring about equitable change in this country. Thank you for all you have done to confront those obstacles to make a difference.

But I will forever remember this book as one of the last things that I shared with my grandma. One of my last conversations with my grandma was about this book. I read the book as she slipped in and out of being coherent. I read the book by her bed as she lay in a coma. The book sat in the room when she died.

So most importantly, for me anyway - Sunny, thank you for writing this book, because it helped me feel connected to my grandma even as she slipped away.

2023 a Year of Memoirs