Newsletter #4

Thank God our Creative Director (Shanica) is back on the job...she forgot about us for a minute, but it's ok we still luv your crazy antics.

So here's the scoop below, ENJOY!!

EVERYONE GETCHA FIRST AID KITS OUT!

Well, it's that time again! I'm so happy that we all finally got our schedules together so that we could meet up and have some gurl time! First, I would like to thank everyone for working together around my working schedule. It has not been easy to work, take care of home and all the activities for the summer and then plan the book club meeting. So, thanks so much for being patient:) Now, lets get down to business…….
Keep the Faith by Faith Evans was the book that was picked for our third meeting. This book made me realize some things. First, that Faith portrayed herself as a hoe. Why in the world would you want to continue sleeping with someone when you caught a venerial disease from them? Second, let me back up and start from the beginning. Faith was raised as a good church going young lady who had a wonderful voice. Early on she discovered her love for music, and her talent in the church was something spectacular! I was most interested in her early life; even though she didn't live with her mom because her mom couldn't take care of her, her pretend grandparents were doing a pretty good job at raising her. They also had many kids that didn't have homes come and live with them. It was a curse and a blessing. When she decided to go into the direction of music, as many solo artist do, she started singing groups that didn't make it far. But she believed in herself and pressed on to do music her way. After moving on from boyfriend to boyfriend, she finally got the opportunity to sing for a big name producer named Teddy Reilly. Although, she didn't think much about him signing her, she had high hopes. When that failed, she then moved on to the next boyfriend who was abusive and made her afraid to talk to anyone of the opposite sex. Then she ran into a long time friend who was making music, and when she really wasn't paying any attention to him or his business, that's when she got the opportunity to sing for Sean "Puffy" Combs. From there, it was the start of her career. Signing with Bad Boy Records, meeting the Notorious BIG, having a few kids, and finding out about her estranged husbands other women to his success and to his murder that shocked the hip hop nation. And let's not forget the West Coast/East Coast - Tupac drama. From beginning to end, we thought the book was full of contradictions that lead us to question: Did Faith lie in her own autobigraphy?? Was this book worth the read? You be the judge.......

Member Rating (5 star scale):

Sharletha - 2.5 stars

Marrena - 3 stars

Shanica - 2 stars

Remy - 3 stars...(lol, subject to change, and we all know why)

Newsletters #3

Thank God our Creative Director (Shanica) is back on the job...she forgot about us for a minute, but it's ok we still luv your crazy antics.
So here's the scoop below, ENJOY!!

EVERYONE GETCHA FIRST AID KITS OUT!

The Help was a great book. Based in the 1960, it was about three ordinary women who take one extraordinary step for womankind. Skeeter a young white Journalist, Aibeleen & Minny - black maids to wealthy white families in Mississippi. As different from one another as can be, these women came together for a clandestine project that will put them all at risk. And why? Because they are suffocating within the lines that define their town and their times. And sometimes lines are made to be crossed.
Now I know that everyone knows that I don't like slavery books, but this book turned out to be a really good read. I have to classify it as a slavery book because it truely reminded me of that time. The book is about women taking back what's theirs……..Dignity! We all know that slavery was a degrading thing to go through, and the hardships after that time was nothing more than a daily struggle of racism, not to mention sexism. I personally could have never lived back then because they would have literally hung a sistah. But this book showed a way for all the black women to come together as one to humiliate the hell outta their slave masters/employers.

Skeeter returned home from college to persue a career in journalism. Only to find out that although she was the right color, she wasn't the right sex. The only opportunity available for a writer who happend to be a woman, was writing a House Cleaning column for the city paper. Of course she was not content in this position, but it ended up being a starting point for her to put together the stories of every black maid that she could think of. Aibileen, a black maid and the catalyst for gathering every maid she knew to tell these stories. The stories alone would be the ones' to put this book on the map. Including the most critical story from her best friend Minny. From the shitty pie to the demons that haunted Aibileen when her son died, these stories would end up being put in a book discussed on a nationwide TV show. This is something they never thought would happen and they didn't know what would happened if they were to ever find out it was all the maids from Mississippi that told the stories about their bosses. This was definitely a good read and it was intriguing from start to finish. Was it that way for u 2?

Character Identification
Sharletha - Aibileen
Remy - Skeeter
Shanica - Minny
Marrena - Yule Mae

Look for it in theatres next year!!