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Review Date: 8/27/2012
Helpful Score: 2
You know what -- it was just ok. As others have posted, it was a bit tedious. It's a quick read, but I found that I kept waiting for something to happen. I have to admit that I was disappointed -- if you're paying attention, you'll see the ending coming -- but the ending -- completely unrealistic -- left me a bit flat. Really isn't as good as all the press and hype it's getting. As someone said much better than I, "The conclusion is somewhat unsatisfying and not completely unpredictable." Try to read it through, without any interruptions, if you can.
Review Date: 11/3/2012
Helpful Score: 3
Without question, one of the worst books I have ever read. Absolutely horrid. I could not get past 100 pages. As so many others have noted on these pages and other reviews, it is an ASTONISHINGLY POOR READ. This is the deal: this book was written as fan fiction and was not supposed to be published. Someone got it to an editor and here we have this vapid mess foisted onto the world. What's worse than the appallingly bad writing is that so many adult women ate this up -- a fact that is truly scary to me. This book reads like a 16 year old wrote it as fan fiction for another 16 year old. I was not so much insulted by the shockingly poor writing but more so that they -- the author, editor, and publishing company -- think so little of american women that this crap passes as fiction. Please don't waste your precious time and money reading this crap. There are so many other talented writers out there who are much more deserving.
Review Date: 5/5/2017
Helpful Score: 1
It's 316 pages long but because of the large font and wide margins there's not many words on the page.
In what should have taken me a weekend to read instead took MONTHS.
In the vein of "Gone Girl", we have yet another book written for the masses and written only to be sold to Hollywood. Deeply unlikable characters and very repetitive. Characters so similar I had trouble telling who was whom. The ending did not come as a surprise. I finished it just to finish it. It's like eating one of those huge desserts -- in the end, you wish you hadn't.
In what should have taken me a weekend to read instead took MONTHS.
In the vein of "Gone Girl", we have yet another book written for the masses and written only to be sold to Hollywood. Deeply unlikable characters and very repetitive. Characters so similar I had trouble telling who was whom. The ending did not come as a surprise. I finished it just to finish it. It's like eating one of those huge desserts -- in the end, you wish you hadn't.
Is Marriage for White People?: How the African American Marriage Decline Affects Everyone
Author:
Book Type: Hardcover
2
Author:
Book Type: Hardcover
2
Review Date: 5/20/2012
My 3-star rating is a bit of a misnomer. I can't say that I liked the book as the evidence presented is so bleak. As an African-American woman, it was difficult to read. Rather than be a wake-up call to black men -- that their actions are not just harmful to the black community, but is placing the future of marriage in jeopardy -- he pens that black woman should not look to black men as marriage material; that we should no longer "marry down" -- marry someone from a lower class who may not carry the same values or economic strengths -- but we should "marry out". Basically, consider men who are non-black. This, the author feels, would make the marriage pool for blacks smaller and as a result, strengthen marriages between black men and black women. A very difficult idea to embrace, for many of us black women. "Easier said than done," I can hear my own mother saying.
But you cannot escape the data: Nearly 7 out of 10 black women are unmarried, and as many as 3 out of 10 will never marry.
Fewer than half of all black men are husbands.
College educated black women are no more likely to marry, or stay married, than white women who have only completed high school.
The percentage of black children born to unwed parents exceeds 70% not because single, black women are getting pregnant more often, but because black women are so much more likely to be single.
If what Mr. Banks says is correct -- that the numbers imbalance gives black men the power to dictate the terms of their intimate relationships -- and if they are clearly not marrying, or if they choose to marry, they are marrying non-black females, then perhaps we, as black women, need to consider, or have no choice but to consider, alternatives.
A controversial book that puts all the data first and foremost, and a somewhat simplistic solution, still made for an interesting read. I would recommend this book.
But you cannot escape the data: Nearly 7 out of 10 black women are unmarried, and as many as 3 out of 10 will never marry.
Fewer than half of all black men are husbands.
College educated black women are no more likely to marry, or stay married, than white women who have only completed high school.
The percentage of black children born to unwed parents exceeds 70% not because single, black women are getting pregnant more often, but because black women are so much more likely to be single.
If what Mr. Banks says is correct -- that the numbers imbalance gives black men the power to dictate the terms of their intimate relationships -- and if they are clearly not marrying, or if they choose to marry, they are marrying non-black females, then perhaps we, as black women, need to consider, or have no choice but to consider, alternatives.
A controversial book that puts all the data first and foremost, and a somewhat simplistic solution, still made for an interesting read. I would recommend this book.
Review Date: 8/6/2010
Helpful Score: 4
I actually hated this book. Too linear, too perfect -- you knew it would all work out in the end, with a nice little bow on top. Absurd and ridiculous. Characters you could care less about, living a life that is patently unrealistic, and her redemption at the end -- if you even want to call it that -- smacked of obvious prose and reading-for-dummies. She explained it all, never allowing the reader to truly care, to truly wonder. Ludicrous. I am sorry I went to the time and trouble to read it.
Review Date: 8/28/2009
Witheringly bad. Pun indeed intended. Read it just to finish it. Not compelling, characters you could care less about, laugh-out-loud-because-it's-so-bad prose.
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