On my way home that day, the teacher’s question weighed heavily on me. What I had not paid attention to started to take centre stage in my life. I was still young, but I was old enough to notice some anomalies in my family. I was awake to the stark and uncomfortable reality that I was the odd child at home. Of the four-member nuclear family in my house, there appeared to be a stronger bond among the first three occupants of that house. I felt like a stranger. In most cases, such stories come out with exaggerated virtues of the writer. The rough edges are often trimmed, and all the creases about their lives are neatly ironed out, leaving an almost perfect account of an obviously imperfect person.

It was in her absence that he got involved with me, and things got dangerously complicated. Whatever it was, his stance was clear. And I was left to evaluate my own options. The first thing that hit me when he said no to keeping the pregnancy was my own life. I had grown up without a father in my life. I had often been reminded of how I had been born by mistake. I was still wondering if the man whose name I bore was my father. How was I going to bring another human being into this world to live like me, someone whose father would reject him or her as Mr. Nelson had rejected me? If there was a way to spare someone else the trauma I was contending with, why would I reject that option, especially when I was not psychologically and emotionally prepared to be a mother?" she stated. Pulling her own Caroline from Real Housewives of Lagos card, Yvonne goes into alleged cases of actresses and actors being pimped out to Nigeria’s financial and political elites. While she doesn’t mention names, she goes on about her experience and how she avoided following the same pattern during her time in Nollywood. Accra, June 19, GNA – Ghanaian actress Yvonne Nelson has released her highly anticipated autobiography, “I Am Not Yvonne Nelson,” which has sparked conversations on social media. In essence, this book recounts an endless struggle by the author to discover herself and her place in the world. She faces a fair dose of ups and downs. As with all human stories, there are surprises and dramatic ironies that are known, perhaps, only to Providence. For instance, Aggrey Memorial, which she despises so much turns out to be the right place that prepares her for the success that would define her life.While a lot of the drama trailing Yvonne Nelson’s memoir has focused on her romantic relationships, the book’s main focus and inspiration behind its title comes from her relationship with her parents. The launch was graced by many industry stalwarts, businessmen, and politicians, including John Dumelo, Adjetey Anang, Mustapha Abdul-Hamid, and Becca. Also present were media personalities, including Manasseh Azure Awuni, Sammy Forson, and GhanaWeb Entertainment Editor Benefo Buabeng, popularly known as Abrantepa. In the 14th chapter titled “Genevieve Nnaji and the rest”, Yvonne Nelson refers to the veteran actress as “my unproblematic queen”. She talks about her time working with Genevieve Nnaji on the set of a movie titled “To Love and to Cherish” and describes how great it was working with the screen goddess. I Am Not Yvonne Nelson" as the title suggests is not the conventional memoir, it is a short piece of a life of a woman in search for her father.

But while a lot of the drama trailing the book has focused on her romantic and failed relationships, the book’s main inspiration comes from from Yvonne Nelson’s relationship with her parents. Her mother had claimed a certain man named Oko Nelson was Yvonne’s father all her life despite the man’s complaints that he wasn’t. For years, Yvonne and her alleged father were estranged over the belief that he didn’t claim her. It wasn’t until Mr Nelson was ill that her mother finally revealed that he wasn’t her father. The actress describes the pain that followed this revelation and how her alleged father’s death further compounded it. The discovery of her true paternity gave birth to the title of the book, ‘I Am Not Yvonne Nelson’. The surname she bore over many years wasn’t her real surname.

From pg. 9, I knew she was someone who will always take accountability when it presents itself with time.

I say this, knowing fully well that some may mistake it as me slutshaming but I am not. I am only working with the clues available in this book.Assignments from teachers, or what we often called “homework”, were supposed to be done at home. If we had a favourite programme on television or an important outing and didn’t want the assignment to interfere with our programme, we squeezed some time and did it in school so our day and night would be cleared for our personal stuff. The teacher’s assignment on whether Eugene and I were related was not a conventional assignment, and I did not have anything special to attend to at home, but I could not resist the urge to start it right from school. Written in a language that is characteristically provocative, somewhat honest and sharp with an overly redundant description. This is a book that is bound to ruffle feathers and ignite wild debates, but those who read it objectively and without the judgmental binoculars will see the story of a young woman—fallible like all other mortals— who is determined to leave a mark despite the internal and external forces that have erected high hurdles in her way. This book is not an ordinary autobiography. It is a search for an answer to a question that has nagged the author since her childhood. It chronicles a journey that starts unassumingly but auspiciously in Dansoman, gets gloomy and bleak after Aggrey Memorial AME Zion Secondary School in Cape Coast, and sets the stage for the author’s struggles; a struggle against failure and the desertion that comes with it, a struggle which later becomes the fight against the pitfalls of fame and success.