Operation Summer Reading: BITNB

This morning I finished Helena Andrews' book "Bitch Is The New Black," as has been said and as has been written it's a delightful and charming book about a young woman growing up, living life, and coming into her own. While Andrews has said in past interviews that she doesn't want her work being labeled as a black version of "Sex and the City" she succeeds in convincing me that her story is about more than sex in the city. Yes, there are stories about her flings and rememberances of those encounters that she wished could have been more, but the totality of her work is quite substantive.

Her memoir is it's own unique story about coming of age in a time when her generation, my generation has been told it can go through experiencing the turmoil which sometimes accompanies living life, finding and then losing love, and trying to sustain relationships, and still in the end have hope that we will find contentment. I might have to steal a page from her playbook which she says worked, "Mentally fast-forwarding through all the boring stuff in order to one day get to the good parts helped some." I mean I have to cope right. We've been told once and again such contradictory things as you can have it all, and no you really cannot have it all, because you want what you want all at once. Andrews reminds me that growing into adulthood will be about more than my "full-time job" and my "part-time life." Yes, please tell me there's more to moving further away from 21 and closer to the rest of my life than that.

The book I only learned was a collection of essays once I started reading it, but in the end it was story which explored the complicated and complex life it talked about in such a refreshing way. And yes while reading a memoir sometimes makes one feel like a voyeur, Helena (I can call her that now) invites us into her world willingly and makes us feel as though we can be right at home being her friend.

And, if you're still wondering what a young black man can get from a book that will be the beach read for a gazillion little Ms.'s this summer true stories, good stories break through those seen and unseen barriers. We can all learn life lessons from stories which talk about successes, failures, getting up and falling down, and ultimately enjoying who the hell we are.