Year of Yes: How to Dance It Out, Stand In the Sun and Be Your Own Person

“Rhimes is, unsurprisingly, a fantastic memoirist: Her writing is conversational and witty and lyrical, inflected with the supple human breathiness you might expect from a person who spends her days writing dialogue. It features lots of great punchlines…It features occasional, chatty, second-person asides…[It] is also in many ways a side-door self-help book…[with] pieces of advice that concern not just Rhimes’s readers, but everyone. …Year of Yes is a book about the shifts taking place in Hollywood right now,and in the world right now, in the guise of a friendly memoir. It is, like Shondaland itself, making a statement. It is insisting that it is time for the people who used to be invisible to come forward and be seen.”
—Atlantic.com

“Revealing and delightful.”
— New York Daily News

“There’s real value in the experiences Rhimes shares… When, for example, she discusses learning to take better care of herself, the memoir feels honest, raw and revelatory.”
— The Washington Post

“A sincere and inspiring account of saying yes to life…Rhimes tells us all about it in the speedy, smart style of her much-loved TV shows. She’s warm, eminently relatable, and funny… Like a cashmere shawl you pack just in case, Year of Yes is well worth the purse space, and it would make an equally great gift. Rhimes said “yes” to sharing her insights . Following her may not land you on the cover of a magazine, but you’ll be glad you did.”
—Kirkus

“If you enjoy the rapid-fire dialogue of her characters, reading this book will feel like home. Rhimes opens up, and inspires, discussing her personal experiences as a sister, daughter, mother, friend and boss tempered with biting insights on societal expectations of women…[a] blend of biography and badassery.”
— Ebony.com

“Rhimes guides the reader through her transformative yearlong experiment, each chapter dealing with a different personal challenge for herself, and she lets us deep inside her brain, carefully laying out all of her fears and self-doubt…candid and friendly, almost as if the two of you were catching up over drinks.”
— Slate.com

“A mix of humor and conversational real talk…written with dashes of Oprah-esque inspiration but the no-B.S. frankness of, say, Dr. Cristina Yang from Grey’s Anatomy…Even if Rhimes’s fame and career don’t make her an everywoman, she writes with an everywomanly sensibility…her words brim with such life that by the end of the book, some readers may find themselves wanting to say yes to more things, too.”
—TVInsider.com

“Rhimes’ familiar,conversational writing style makes the book a more accessible Lean In,a self-help book and personal journal all rolled into one.”
—TVGuide.com

“Small, charmingly odd, inspirational stories…Quite simply, it’s a book about how she learned to take care of herself, and how you might be able to as well. Welcome your new life coach, Shonda Rhimes.”
— Vulture

“A self-help book dressed in casual clothes, lessons for living a better life told through relatable personal essays from the woman who set out to, in the course of a year, make her own better… There’s an uncanny familiarity to the journey Rhimes goes on… Never do you feel preached at while reading Rhimes’s book. This woman of huge fame and fortune is speaking directly to you, and she’s doing it with familiarity, humor, and earned wisdom…Year of Yes is an awakening as much as it is a reckoning. Recognize the power of what you’ve been doing. Do more of it.”
— Daily Beast

Shonda Rhimes is the critically acclaimed and award-winning creator and executive producer of the hit television series Grey’s Anatomy, Private Practice, and Scandal and the executive producer of How to Get Away With Murder. Her writing credits also include Princess Diaries 2: A Royal Engagement, Crossroads, and Introducing Dorothy Dandridge. Rhimes holds a BA from Dartmouth College in English Literature with Creative Writing and received her MFA from the USC School of Cinema-Television, where she was awarded the prestigious Gary Rosenberg Writing Fellowship. Rhimes was born and raised outside of Chicago, Illinois, and now runs her production company, Shondaland, from Los Angeles, where she lives with her three daughters. She is the author of Year of Yes and The Year of Yes Journal.