The Young and the Rest of Us

Emmy award-winning actress Jess Walton, known to millions of soap opera lovers as the iconic Jill Abbott on the #1 daytime drama The Young and the Restless, recounts her own extraordinary story in a revealing, star-studded memoir of her challenges, triumphs, romances—and real-life plot twists.

In June 1987, Jess Walton walked through the artists’ entrance at CBS for her first day on The Young and the Restless, where she had just been hired to play the recast role of Jill Abbott. Two Emmy awards, four decades, and countless onscreen affairs, marriages, corporate takeovers, and cake fights later, she’s a beloved icon with an astonishing tale to tell.

In her refreshingly candid style, Jess shares her journey as a young actress from Toronto theaters to Los Angeles, where she found herself at the center of a Laurel Canyon circle that included the likes of Neil Young, David Geffen, Laura Nyro, and Joni Mitchell. Landing a Universal contract and a steady stream of guest starring roles, Jess embraced everything 1970s L.A. had to offer—including Hollywood parties fueled by limitless booze and drugs, and trysts with stars. She recounts with candor and gratitude the surprising path that eventually led her to sobriety, true love—and ultimately, to fictional Genoa City, Wisconsin, and the role of a lifetime.

Brimming with behind-the-scenes drama and celebrity cameos to delight fans, The Young and the Rest of Us is also rich in personal, relatable truths about marriage, motherhood, empty-nesting,

self-discovery, and finding the courage to start over—as often as it takes. In a voice as fearless and frank as Jill’s, but with, humor and grace all her own, Jess Walton looks back on a life as unpredictable, and adventure filled as anything she has portrayed on screen.