I was so excited when I discovered this book and it did not disappoint in any way. Ms. Nixon is truly an inspiration and a pioneer to girl power. I loved that she used her position to bring female-centered and social issues into the zeitgeist. It's hard to believe that so many of the characters that I grew up knowing and loving (or hating) came from the mind of this modest and traditional woman. She was an architect to modern culture and television history. I will always go back to this book when I want an inspiring story of how smart women always manage to use what many consider frivilous (daytime television) as a platform to make impactful and lasting change. What a life-what a legacy!

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an Advanced Reader Copy in exchange for an honest review. I grew up watching All My Children, and when I saw this up for review, I was on it immediately. I didn't realize the life of a soap opera creator could also be such a soap opera! I loved it. Mrs. Nixon is very missed.

As a life long One Life to Live fan I was so excited to read this book. I love Ms. Nixon and found her life story to be interesting. I felt for her when she described her relationship with her father and growing up in Nashville. Her life was certainly no soap opera and she successfully raised a family while working and making influential friends. A wonderful story of a wonderful life

Full disclosure: I grew up watching All My Children with my Mom off and on; and always loved the show and the characters.

Agnes Nixon was an extremely talented, hard working, admirable woman and writer. The amount of work that goes into soap operas is constantly overlooked in favor of prime time, but really should not be. 10,000+ episodes of All My Children, same for One Life to Live plus her early work shows blows any 100 episode prime time show out of the water.

The story she tells in this book is one of childhood struggles, heartbreaking loss, complicated parental relationships and finally triumph. I enjoyed the book. It is easy to read, has great descriptions of her early life and rise as a writer, and about perseverance. I also loved the relationship with her husband and how he supported her through and through.

I do agree with other reviews that it is more heavily focused on All My Children versus her other shows, however she is forthright in saying that it was her baby.

Sometimes biographies can be dry and boring. Or sometimes you can just tell a ghostwriter is involved who doesn't really even know the subject. Not so with this memoir. It's obvious the words and memories are those of Agnes Nixon herself and she does a masterful job of relating all the important details of her life. Of course her professional life was the most interesting. All the little details of the soap operas she created are fascinating. It's a very entertaining read.

Agnes Nixon's "My Life to Live" unfolds a lot like one of the soap operas she famously developed, moving from her often difficult girlhood in Nashville, a heartbreaking wartime love affair, success in Chicago at Northwestern and writing for Guiding Light, finding success in influential circles in New York, and, finally, making it big as a producer of All My Children, One Life to Live, and Loving.

Nixon devotes the first half of the book to her youth, focusing particularly on her difficult relationship with her volatile father, Harry. Although she grew up in Nashville with her divorced mother Agnes' extended family, Harry's influence shapes many of the events in her young life, from starting college at St. Mary's in Indiana to her transfer to Northwestern. In fact, until her marriage to Bob Nixon in 1951, Harry's acceptance, rejection, and manipulation seem to be the major themes in her life -- ones that she acknowledges appear throughout her soap operas.

Nixon presents her professional life as an almost effortless ride from success to success. After connecting with famed soap-opera creator Irna Phillips in Chicago, Nixon started writing for Guiding Light right after college graduation. After a few years, she decided to try her luck in New York, where she wrote for early television soaps, including As the World Turns, Search for Tomorrow, and Another World.

After more than a decade writing for daytime, Nixon had the clout to pitch her own shows. Although she attempted to launch All My Children first, network politics propelled One Life to Live on the air in 1968, with AMC following in 1970. Nixon was determined to make daytime plot lines more relevant, so she worked medical, social, and political issues into her stories, adding characters of different races, religions, cultures, and sexual orientations.

The book makes clear that AMC was Nixon's obvious favorite among her projects. She devotes several chapters of the book to the development of the show, her hopes for its themes, and her love for the actors, especially Susan Lucci and Kelly Ripa.

By contrast, she says little about One Life to Live, apart her interest in endowing lead character Viki Lord with multiple personality disorder. Strangely, though, she never once refers to actress Erika Slezak, who captured six Emmys during her 42-year run playing the role. Co-star Robin Strasser gets similar treatment, with only a passing reference as a player on Another World. Although Nixon goes into detail about her advocacy of actress Ellen Holly as one of the first African-American soap-opera characters, no one else on OLTL merits a mention.

In fact, even in the book's final chapters, where she discusses AMC and OLTL being canceled on the same day, she talks only about how sad she was for the AMC cast. It seems a strange slight for the longest-running show under Nixon's auspices.

But One Life fans should feel lucky she discusses the show at all -- she fails to mention Loving completely. Not a single word about it, not even the title. Many people would consider a show that ran 14 years to be a success worth noting. Not Nixon, apparently.

As a reader, one has to wonder what else -- and who else -- Agnes Nixon omitted from her memoir. Was she settling scores? Getting a last word in on various people? Or, did she just run out of steam and leave things dangling? Without more insider knowledge, we'll never know.

And, that's really how I came away feeling about the entire book. Although Nixon writes well, as her story progressed, I got the feeling that the things she didn't talk about were probably much more interesting than the things she covered.

For some reason, I just could not get pulled into this book. It's probably because I've never been a soap opera fan and had never heard of the author before this. I was also missing the expected focus on empowerment. If you are a fan of soap operas and this author, you will probably really enjoy reading about her life. She makes quite a few references to storylines and characters she's created, explaining where the ideas came from using experiences in her life. That might make it an interesting read for some. Thank you to NetGalley and Crown Publishing for the chance to read this book!

Autobiography of the women responsible for two of the most iconic television soaps: All My Children and One Life to Live. She developed a social conscience growing up in the Jim Crow era south, and was one of the first to incorporate controversial themes in daytime dramas. It’s interesting to read how difficult it was to be a working woman making a career in writing in the 1950’s and 1960s, but she freely admits she could not have done it without help and a supportive husband.