Bitch Is the New Black: A Memoir

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. After just reading the first chapter, I cleared my schedule to allow me to finish it within a week. This is the true story, as I know it firsthand, of a 20-something black girl. THIS is the story that I have lived. With so much in the media and our world that attempts to define Black women with stereotypes and labels of everything we are often not, this story is one of the few that comes closest to getting our experience right. This book mirrors how me and my girls lived/survived college and the years after. The men, the work, the struggle, the grind, the WTF-moments, the epiphanies, and the conversations/support that kept us moving each other forward. All of it. It is written how we talked, it is written how we write (IM, text, and all). And mostly, it is written in the essence of all the chaos that surrounds us young women during the years that we are out here 'fighting for our lives'. It is a story that only one can tell effectively if they've lived it, and judging by some of the Amazon comments, it is also a story that may be hard to understand by those who haven't. Maybe it isn't for everybody, but it is for me. And my girls. And their girls. Who one by one, like a ripple, have read the book and passed along the word of "girl, you gotta read this!". It is our story.When I was in college, I read "The Broke Diaries" by Angela Nissel. That book helped to validate my existence, at the time, as a broke college undergraduate on the verge of quitting it all. It helped me to smile and laugh and realize that "this isht isn't just happening to me". This book is my "Broke Diaries" of today. Just as timely, while I am still yet pushing forward to etch out my path in this world, it helps to validate my current reality as a 28-year old Black woman in that "THIS ISHT ISN'T JUST HAPPENING TO ME", these dudes aren't just out to get me only, and the craziness of this world is not just mine to suffer alone. Via twitter, I thanked Helena Andrews personally for writing this book. And I'm sure when you're done, you'll want to thank her too.

The book is not at all what I expected. I imagined it to be somewhat of an exposé, blowing the lid off of what we (Black 20 somethings) really go through, a revolutionary tool in the single black girl version of the Million (Wo)man March if you will. But it wasn't, and honestly I think it was a better book for it. Instead it's a hilarious, painfully true peek into Helena Andrews' world, which is one that mirrors the majority of us Bright Light, Big City, Masters Degree'd up, Black Chicks. The irony is in the fact that this story is actually for everyone. It's for the overbearing Black mom who wants her late twenties daughter to hurry up and have kids. It's for the Black guy who doesn't get why Black women are so difficult to understand. And it's for every non-Black girl in her twenties who lives her life thinking WWCBD (What Would Carrie Bradshaw Do?). The book is comical and easy to relate to. The only reason that I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 is because as a writer, I think Ms. Andrews has some ways to go. The stories didn't always gel together and I often found myself getting to the end of a chapter and thinking, "well what was the point?" Perhaps it read too much like a diary and not enough like a memoir. Still I look forward to growing with her as a reader and a fan.

This is the wittiest and most entertaining book I have read of the year. It started out a little slow for me and then I realized how she was telling the story and adjusted to her story telling. And then it started to sound much like my early 20s to my current age of 32. I felt like she was telling the stories from my undergraduate years, challenges in dating losers, 1st jobs, sucky bosses and experiencing it all with my good friends. I could relate to so many of her experiences and if her life is anything like mine she has tons of other stories to fill another book.

The name of the book was more interesting than the contents. Maybe because it was so relate-able or I've heard this story before.

i went into this book not knowing what to expect, thinking it may have only been about dating/the shortage of black men/etc. (which i still would have enjoyed anyway)..and it was soooo much more than i expected. i always read it right before bed, and helena's stories had me dying laughing and rereading the same paragraph/line several times, or simply crying like a baby (there were some DEEP chapters in her book -- suicide, domestic violence, abortion, to name a few). i loved every bit of it and was pissed when it was over, lol. i adore the relationship between helena and her mom, and most importantly, i sooo appreciated her honesty and candidness throughout the stories. i am so excited to see her work transformed into a film. i'm hoping she has a lot of creative control because her voice is powerful!i promise you -- this book won't disappoint. dammit, i want her to hurry up and turn 50 or something so i can get a part 2!

I was somewhat familiar w/the author and had high hopes for this book. Her demographic being very similar to my own, I thought it would be like reading a transcript from a convo w/a friend. It definitely had its likable, funny and relatable moments but its randomness made it difficult for me to stay interested. I am a fan of stream of consciousness writing but I'm not even sure if that is what this is. The best way I can describe it is "patchy".Overall, I think Andrews is a very interesting person w/a great story to tell but I think the way this book was written left a little to be desired (and I believe she is capable of better given her professional accomplishments as a journalist). As a reader, I do not need a book to have a pretty, definitive ending wrapped in a bow but I do like to feel that I have some sense of who the main character is and what the future may hold for her/him.I would still recommend this to someone who is interested in the genre but would not recommend it for a book club.

A real self-absorbed, look-how-clever-I-am absolute zero, but the rating system doesn't accommodate that. I'm not sure why this book was published. I'm fairly certain whatever it was had nothing to do with the author's work.