Wednesday, June 5, 2019

The Sexy Nerd's #Book #Review Black Beauty by Constance Burris A #Fivestar #Goodread



At Vista Apartment Complex, life drastically changes for four of its residents when they decide to do business with Crazy Jade—the supposed voodoo witch that can grant your wish for a price. 

Shemeya wants the confidence to stand up against the girls bullying her at school, but she soon has to choose between keeping her dreadlocs or living a normal life. After catching her boyfriend cheating, Latreece just wants to have the same curves as all the other girls. Ashley will do whatever she can to have “White Girl Flow”, but takes her pursuit too far when she steals from Crazy Jade. 

Everyone who comes into contact with Crazy Jade soon learns the true price of her magic—and how horribly wrong it can go.


The Sexy Nerd ‘Revue’

If you were able to tell someone your personal deepest secrets, without strings attached, would you? If something is too good to be true, is it? If you heard rumors in your neighborhood about a strange tenant living among you, would you befriend that person? Those questions were on the minds of three tenants living at the Vista Apartment Complex. Each of them seemingly with his or her own set of circumstances, trying to make a way in this life.

Jade, better known as Crazy Jade, was known to the Vista Apartments as a voodoo queen. There were all sorts of rumors flying around the neighborhood about what Crazy Jade could do to you, if prompted. Thing is, Shemeya was warned to stay away from Jade, but she babysat her son, Coal, and didn’t think she was that bad of a person to deal with. After all, rumor and speculation were just that, so what did that have to do with her? Jade paid her good money to watch after Coal, so people could say what they wanted. Jade had a way of knowing things about a person. Call it woman’s intuition or just plain luck, she knew Shemeya enough to know she wasn’t her usual bubbly self. Turns out Shemeya was being bullied by some mean girls in school. Shemeya mentioned to Jade the teens teased her and called her names. One name in particular, “Medusa” because of her dreadlocks. 

Latreece was your typical smart eleck teenager going through the motions of school and one in particular was her body image. As a black girl, she knew black boys enjoyed girls with big breasts and a large bodacious ass—none of which Latreece possessed. She wanted to gain more weight and thicken up. With her bean pole stature, that wasn’t going to attract any of the boys she desired. Her grandmother tried to tell her she was beautiful as she was, but that wasn’t enough for Latreece. So, Latreece confides in Jade about wanting to have a curvy body.

Ashley was a young woman handling business, but one thing she couldn’t handle was her hair. Apparently, Ashley didn’t know she’s not her hair, but you couldn’t tell her that. Even though she was half white and half black, she didn’t luck up and have the type of hair that flowed like the Caucasian DNA that flowed through her blood. Unfortunately, Ashley fell more on her African-American roots. Her hair was nappy as people in the black community called it. She wanted her hair to flow like white girls. Hmm, someone in the hood told her that Jade could hook her hair up, in which she did, but when Jade wasn’t looking, Ashley came across a book written in a language that Ashley wasn’t familiar with, but she could make out a recipe for the stuff that Jade put in her hair to make it silky, smooth and flowing. Hell, Jade wasn’t going to need this book. Ashley stole it, and that, readers is where our story gets rather interesting. 

Each of these individuals had their own share of problems, and Jade was the common denominator that bound them all. Shemeya’s dreadlocks turn into snakes; Latreece eats a special root and her body is banging; and Ashley has beautiful hair, but she looks like a vampire has been sucking the blood from her body. Was this all in their minds? Were they imagining these things? Other strange occurrences begin to happen to other victims at Vista Apartments. It seems Jade is at the center of all these happenings, or is she? You’ll have to read to find out.

I have to say, I was shocked by the content of this story. I had this book on my shelf for so long, I didn’t really know what it was about and nor did I bother to read the synopsis to find out. It was Black History Month and I try to read as many books as I can by my people, and I loved the cover and decided to check it out. Boy, was I pleasantly surprised. This was a great story! I truly enjoyed it and couldn’t wait to find out how much more strange things would happen. The only drawback to the story would be it’s a cliffhanger and I absolutely hate that. You have to read the rest of the series to find out what happens to some of the characters, but even though it cliffed me, I still loved the story.

The Sexy Nerd gives Black Beauty five fists pointing to the sky. If you like suspense, you’ll enjoy this story. It’s very short, direct and to the point. The characters and story line were very interesting. I’m positive you’ll enjoy the story.


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