*Review* Stronger Together by Terry Crews and Rebecca King Crews

 Genre: Memoir

Published: April 15, 2021

Duration: 4 hours, 44 minutes

America’s Got Talent host and comic personality Terry Crews and his wife, singer Rebecca King Crews, share the staggering ups and downs of their relationship and how they weathered the myriad crises that have rocked their marriage. 

In a unique narrative, Stronger Together begins on the day everything fell apart. In their own voices, Terry and Rebecca recount D-Day, as they call it - the moment that Terry admitted his unfaithfulness and addiction to porn, and Rebecca told him not to come home. Charting a course back to their earliest days, each one shares more about their difficult childhoods. Growing up in Flint with a devout mother and abusive father, Terry became fascinated by superheroes, landed a career in the NFL, then in Hollywood, while hiding an addiction to porn that fueled a toxic masculinity that led to that awful day. Rebecca, whose father died when she was a child, recounts being the only biracial child in Gary, Indiana, her passion for singing, her early pregnancy, her devotion to God, and her blind faith in Terry despite the challenges of being an NFL wife, her passion for motherhood, and the emotional pain when Terry’s hidden addiction was exposed. 

As they share their journey, the mistakes they made, the moments that shifted their worlds, and ultimately, what put them back together, they provide hope, reflection and comfort. In this audiobook, you will also hear the kindness in their voices, and what it sounds like to have a partner who truly listens, respects and loves. The book includes a final coda about the year 2020 when the couple endured Rebecca’s breast cancer diagnosis and controversy around Terry’s social media comments. 

Honest, intimate and filled with hope, Terry and Rebecca make you feel if they can survive it, you and your partner can, too.

This book is only available as an audiobook, but that just so happens to be my favorite way to indulge in celebrity memoirs so that was perfect for me. I really liked the way this audiobook was presented, with each person telling their part of things as it became relevant. It felt like they were right in front of me, telling me their story. 

It was really interesting to me to hear about how they each grew up, and how those experiences shaped them, especially Terry's story. I apparently have really only known feminist Terry, so it was a bit of a shock to me to hear some of the beliefs he had and the ways he acted before their D-Day. But that also gives me a measure of hope if we could just get the men to want to change for the better. He also briefly speaks about his sexual assault and the blowback he received from speaking about it during the Me Too movement, which just goes to show that women also have some work to do, because Me Too should be for everyone who has ever been victimized, regardless of their gender. 

Overall I give Stronger Together 4.56438 out of 5 stars. - Katie 

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