Permission Slips: Every Woman's Guide to Giving Herself a Break »

Sherri Shepherd currently serves as a co-host on ABC's The View, which airs five days a week on ABC affiliates nationally and consistently draws more than 3 million viewers per show. She also plays a recurring character on NBC's 30 Rock.

Covering topics such as "It's Jesus or Jail," "Marriage, the Hard Way," "Children: The Gift You Can't Give Back," and "All the Things I Don't Know...And All the Things I Definitely Do," stand-up comedienne, actress, and ABC's The View co-host Sherri Shepherd comically chronicles her struggles to keep up with the many roles-professional, wife, mother, daughter, and friend-that women must play in today's world. Sherri urges women to pursue their most important dreams and to never give up, but also let's readers know that it's okay to give themselves "permission slips" when things don't always work out the way they want them to. As her many fans know, Sherri is never hesitant to speak from the heart, and her bubbly personality shines through in this delightful autobiography.

Publishers Weekly

“I was one of those kids who was always putting on a show,” The View cohost Shepherd writes in this tell-all memoir loosely structured as a self-help book; after every tumultuous chapter Shepherd gives the reader permission to do this or not do that based on her own experience (“Write yourself a permission slip that says, 'I tried, and I can't handle this' ”). Shepherd is a feisty African-American single mom, comedian and former Jehovah's Witness. The tone is good-natured, rueful and funny. Yet it will be no surprise that Shepherd has had a few bumps in the road: among others, being shamed by her family and church for having sex at age 14; rejected in her showbiz career; and the birth of a severely premature baby, divorce and a diagnosis of diabetes. Shepherd is a woman coming to terms with her altered looks as she passes 40 alone and raising a child. She is still religious, and occasionally the reader may pull back, such as when Shepherd admits she does not believe in evolution. All in all, though, this is a good, dishy read, if not easy to apply to one's own everyday life. (Oct. 14)