Tina's Reading Books

I bought this book on the strength of this author's others works even though, admittedly, each book I've read has not come close to the first book, Reye's Gold.

As I began this book, I really, really thought she had recaptured the magic of the first book. This feeling lasted less than a chapter.

I will say that the stand out thing about this book was how the author attempted (..I say attempted because I do not think she succeeded...) in positioning Mariah as outside of the 'typical' black woman stereotype. I LOVED the fact that Mariah was on the Roller Derby team and I really enjoyed the scenes of practice and while they were in competition. I also liked the idea of Mariah being having tattoos, piercings, day-glo hair colors and loved to wear combat boots. But that is pretty much where my enjoyment of this character ends. The problem is that the book takes pains to beat us over the head with the idea that Mariah is so different from everyone, especially other black women. She wasn't 'black enough' for her friends because she liked rock and country music.

The problem intrinsic in this characterization is the underlying message is that black women are all the same and that the black female experience is monolithic and Mariah feels punished somehow for breaking out. And then there was the biggest irony of all. Mariah is so bitter throughout most of the book, that she actually becomes the most pervasive stereotype of them all: The Angry Black Woman. It was frustrating to see this character hold a mirror up to everyone else's supposed prejudices when in fact it was a reflection of her own.

But Mariah is not the only problem in this book. There are quite a few so much so that at around the 20% mark I contemplated not continuing the book. Same thing at the 39% and then again at the 44% mark. But I soldiered on figuring there had to be a point I would begin to like these people. But really both Mariah and to a lesser extent Adam annoyed me. How much did they annoy me? Let me count the ways...

1) She plays headgames. Not cool. He first meets her and not, knowing she is skates in a roller derby, he believes the black eye, bruises and hand-prints on her body are signs of domestic abuse. Does she laugh and reassure him that the bruises are the result of her sport? No. She decides to play a trick on him and let him think that she really is a victim of abuse. Har Har!

2) She is a bit mean-spirited. Mariah invites Adam to meet for drinks, deliberately stands him up and later publicly laughs about it with her friends.

3) He's twelve-years-old. He's pretty sure Mariah is more into him than he wants her to be so rather than telling her that he's not really wanting to get more involved, he passively-aggressively reveals that he's gone out with someone else.

4) She is too. She does this really juvenile thing where he has to win her friends' approval before they move on to the next phase of their relationship.

5) They don't communicate. At. all. They make assumptions a lot.

6) Adam chased her too much. Frankly, I thought it made him seem whipped.

The book finally does take a turn for the better at @70% when they begin to really work into a relationship and start to act like real adults, but by then I had spent too much time disliking both them and their dynamic.

Also, on a very, very shallow note -- I wasn't too impressed by the names of the Derby Girls. Only Mariah (aka Mariah Scary) and one other had the requisite clever and punny names. The rest were actually boring.

I can't recommend this book.