About the Book:

In this wildly candid and compulsively readable book, Hollywood's most powerful woman, the force behind the top-rated dramas Grey's Anatomy, Scandal, and How to Get Away with Murder, reveals how saying "YES" changed her life — and how it can change yours too.

Shonda Rhimes will be the first to admit she didn't expect to be famous. But three hit television shows made her a household name. Her iconic characters — Meredith Grey, Cristina Yang, Olivia Pope, Annalise Keating — live boldly and speak their minds. So who would suspect that Shonda Rhimes is an introvert? That she hired a publicist so she could avoid public appearances? That she hugged walls at splashy parties and suffered panic attacks before media interviews so severe she remembered nothing afterward?

Before her Year of Yes, Shonda Rhimes was an expert at declining invitations others would leap to accept. With three children at home and the success of her company ShondaLand, it was easy to say that she was simply too busy. But in truth, she was also afraid. Afraid of cocktail party faux pas like chucking a chicken bone across a room; petrified of live television appearances where Shonda Rhimes could trip and fall and bleed out right there in front of a live studio audience; terrified of the difficult conversations that came so easily to her characters on-screen. In the before, Shonda's introvert life revolved around burying herself in work, snuggling her children, and comforting herself with food.

The Year of Yes is the result of her oldest sister muttering something that was both a wake up and a call to arms: You never say yes to anything. "And by that she meant I never accept any invitations," Rhimes says. "I never go anywhere. I never do anything. All I did was go to work and come home. And she was right. My life had gotten really small." Then Shonda, the youngest of six children from a supremely competitive family, knew she had to embrace the challenge: for one year, "I was going to say YES to all the things that scared me, that made me nervous, that freaked me out, that made me think I'm going to look foolish doing it. Anything that took me out of my comfort zone I was going to do it, if asked to do it."

This poignant, intimate, and hilarious memoir explores Shonda's life before her Year of Yes — from her nerdy, book-loving childhood creating imaginary friends to her devotion to creating television characters who reflected the world she saw around her. And it chronicles her life after her Year of Yes had begun — when Shonda forced herself out of the house and onto the stage, appearing on Jimmy Kimmel Live, and giving the Dartmouth Commencement speech; when she learned to say "YES" to her health (revealing that she lost 127 pounds, during and after the Year of Yes), "YES" to play and she stepped out of the shadows and into the sun; when she learned to explore, applaud, and love her truest self. YES.

What people say:

"A book that is fun, dishy and inspirational all at the same time…a powerful book, a great gift for a friend or yourself, whether you're a fan of the Shondaland lineup or not." — Motherlode Blog/NYTimes.com

"This memoir/call to arms from the one-woman force behind Grey's Anatomy, Scandal, and How to Get Away With Murder is basically a New Year's resolution between two covers. Wherever you're going, bring it with you." — Bloomberg Businessweek

"Can help motivate even the most determined homebody to get out and try something new in the New Year." — Chicago Tribune

About the Author:

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.