#BookReview: Running the Rift - Naomi Benaron #BP2W (Rwanda)

What if a civil war broke out between you and people that looked just like you? Can you imagine turning against a friend you've known all of your life simply because they were born into the "wrong" group?  For many Rwandans, this is the reality they lived with for decades, as the war between the Hutus and Tutsis raged.

Jean Patrick lives relatively unscathed by the ongoing rift between Hutus and Tutsis. He is a Tutsi, but several of his friends, and even his running coach, are Hutu.  To him, they are simply people.  And for the longest time, Hutu around him have felt the same way.

But while Jean Patrick is pursuing his dream of distance running in the Olympics, the world around him is crumbling.  Those that he formerly called friends now consider him their greatest enemy. To them, he is now the prey and they are his hunters.

An emotional read, I had to take on Running the Rift at a much slower pace than usual.  It was haunting to read of how easily Jean Patrick's Hutu classmates turned on their Tutsi counterparts.  It was just as disturbing to read about the UN envoys that came in, not to assist or rescue the Tutsi, but to help Americans and other westerners leave Rwanda.  This is a disturbing read, but well worth it.

365pp

Published: January 2012

Disclaimer: Copy of book received from publisher, opinions are my own.

In 1959, three years before independence from Belgium, the majority ethnic group, the Hutus, overthrew the ruling Tutsi king. Over the next several years, thousands of Tutsis were killed, and some 150,000 driven into exile in neighboring countries. The children of these exiles later formed a rebel group, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), and began a civil war in 1990. The war, along with several political and economic upheavals, exacerbated ethnic tensions, culminating in April 1994 in a state-orchestrated genocide, in which Rwandans killed up to a million of their fellow citizens, including approximately three-quarters of the Tutsi population. - CIA World Factbook

Location: Central Africa, east of Democratic Republic of the Congo
Size: 26,338 sq km; slightly smaller than Maryland
Ethnic groups: Hutu (Bantu) 84%, Tutsi (Hamitic) 15%, Twa (Pygmy) 1%
Languages: Kinyarwanda (official, universal Bantu vernacular), French (official), English (official), Kiswahili (Swahili, used in commercial centers)
Population: 11,689,696

Anthem: Rwanda nziza (Rwanda, Our Beautiful Country) 

#BookReview: Zenzele: A Letter for my Daughter - J. Nozipo Maraire #BP2W (Zimbabwe)

"When independence came, we celebrated with tears in our eyes.  We would continue the struggle to ensure that our children received every opportunity of Western privilege...There was nothing that our children asked for that we denied them.  We who had grown up knowing only deprivation, austerity and hard labor.  We wanted only the best for them.  We even sent them to the best private schools with plenty of whites... But it was all in vain.  They have neither respect nor gratitude....these modern children are culturally bleached."

As Zenzele announces her intentions to leave Harare, Zimbabwe for the halls of Harvard, her mother reflects on life lessons that her daughter must know before she leaves for the states.  As the eldest of five children raised by a widowed mother, Zenzele's mother, Shiri, never had the privilege of thinking about global warming or worrying about the starving in Ethiopia.  After all, Zenzele has grown up in Zimbabwe, not Rhodesia, as her mother had.  Shiri is impressed and in awe of this daughter that protests inhumane treatment of others and petitions foreign governments.

Through the letter her mother writes to her, readers are treated to a history of Rhodesia and the fight for independence that resulted in Zimbabwe.  Interesting to note is Shiri's lament that what was envisioned as successful post-colonial life was rooted mostly in material success.  In the rush to claim what colonialists had, the new Zimbabwe adapted the British culture and began to reject their own.

As the children of Zimbabwe go abroad to study, there's the fear that they won't return, as one of Shiri's cousins did, and if they do return, they will have completely forgotten their roots and culture.  The hope is always that they go out in the world and absorb what they can from other cultures and bring it back to their country and continent.  Though she's proud of her, Zenzele's leaving is Shiri's biggest dream and potential nightmare.

I loved this book because even though it was a history lesson, it didn't feel like one.  So many of the lessons that Shiri passes on to Zenzele, and so many of the experiences she speaks about, are similar to those that all mothers pass on their daughters.  Others are lessons that I recognize as those passed on to me, that seem race-specific as an African-American, that I've also passed on to my daughter.  Things such as how to react when you're mistaken for a store clerk when you're obviously not dressed in the store uniform or being talked down to because the assumption is that your skin color means you're intellectually inferior..

There are so many lovely features that shall make you conspicuous among the flock.  One of these is your color.  In our country, you are accustomed to every shade from caramel to charcoal.  Overseas, they do not have an eye for our rainbow.  To them, we are all one burdensome color: black...Let no one define you or your country.

I could go on and on about all of the great nuggets of wisdom that Shiri imparts on Zenzele, but I'm really hoping you'll pick this up and give it a read for yourself.  I can promise you that you won't be disappointed.  And as Bill Cosby used to say on Fat Albert, "You just might learn something."

208pp
Published: April 1997

The UK annexed Southern Rhodesia from the [British] South Africa Company in 1923. A 1961 constitution was formulated that favored whites in power. In 1965 the government unilaterally declared its independence, but the UK did not recognize the act and demanded more complete voting rights for the black African majority in the country (then called Rhodesia). UN sanctions and a guerrilla uprising finally led to free elections in 1979 and independence (as Zimbabwe) in 1980. Robert Mugabe, the nation's first prime minister, has been the country's only ruler (as president since 1987) and has dominated the country's political system since independence. - CIA World Factbook

Location: Southern Africa, between South Africa and Zambia
Size: 390,757 sq km, slightly larger than Montana
Population: 12,619,600
Ethnic groups: African 98% (Shona, 82%, Ndebele 14%, other 2%), mixed and Asian 1%, white less than 1%
Languages: English (official), Shona, Sindebele, numerous but other minor tribal dialects

Theme: Blessed Be the Land of Zimbabwe

Books: Passports to the World

It's a little early to announce reading challenges for next year, but it requires a little planning and I need your help.  I've created the Books: Passports to the World challenge, where the goal is to read a book a week set in a different country.  There are just under 200 recognized countries in the world today, my plan is to come up with books set in 52 of those places.  Why 52? There are 52 weeks in a year, so each week I'll be posting a review of a book from one of the countries.

Here's where I need your help.  I've created a list, and come up with a good number of books so far, but I'm hoping that you've read a book set in a country that I've not already found a book for and will share it with me.  The list of countries and books can be found here.  Please take a look and submit your suggestions for books that should be added to the list below.  And don't worry, sign ups for the challenge are coming soon.

#BookReview: HALF OF A YELLOW SUN by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Set in the late 1960s, Half of a Yellow Sun looks at southeastern Nigeria before, during and after the Biafran war.  Through the eyes of Ugwu, a 13 year old houseboy; Odenigbo, a university professor; and Olanna, the professor's fiancee', readers are given an up close glimpse of the affects of war.  To a lesser degree, we see them through the eyes of Kainene, Olanna's twin sister, and Richard, an English writer who's in love with Kainene.

When Nigeria's, which gained its independence from Britain in 1960, boundaries were initially created, Great Britain failed to take into account the 300 different cultural and ethnic groups comprised of 60 million people.  It was almost inevitable that groups would clash.  For economic reasons and cultural, ethnic and religious tensions, the mostly Igbo inhabited, oil rich area of southeastern Nigeria chose to secede and create their own state of Biafra.  The result of this secession was the Nigerian-Biafran war.

While Odenigbo is most involved in the call for revolution, backed by Olanna, it is really Ugwu that observes and notes the changes that the household goes through over the course of three years.  He serves as a witness to Odenigbo's gatherings of other intellectuals to discuss the state of Nigeria.  He witnesses the arrival of Baby in an already tumultuous household.  And he serves in the Biafran army, giving a firsthand account of the atrocities of war.

As a British expatriate, Richard stays in Nigeria to do research for a book and because of Kainene.  Though Olanna is seen as the beautiful and intelligent twin, Kainene is the ambitious and business savvy twin.  Richard loves her direct way of speaking and falls hard for the sharp-tongued woman.  To a degree, their lives are less affected by the war, but affected nonetheless.

Through her writing, Adichie portrays every facet of emotion in her characters.  From the fall and rise of Odenigbo to the meltdown of the long suffering Olanna, the new found humanity of Kainene and the steadfastness of Ugwu, Half of a Yellow Sun is not just the story of Biafra, it's the story of her people.

448pp
Listening time: 19 hours
Published: September 2006

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#BookReview: Powder Necklace - Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond

Sending your daughter away from London, the only home she's ever known, to your native country of Ghana, may seem extreme to some.  But that's just what Lila's mother does when she suspects her 14 year old daughter is becoming too wild and loose.  Telling her that they're going to visit her Auntie Flora, Lila's mother instead takes her to the airport and puts her on a flight to Kumasi.

Just as she's adjusted to life with Auntie Irene, for what she believes is a short visit, Lila learns that her mother intends for her to stay in Ghana for the duration of the school year.  At the Dadaba Girls' Secondary School, Lila is forced to endure water shortages, harassment because of her British accent, and finally learns the real reason her mother sent her away.  She needed time for herself.  WHAT? I almost threw this book across the room when I read that.  Lila's father lived in United States. He was perfectly willing to have Lila come live with him, but her mother sent her to Ghana because she needed time to herself AND to spite him? Ugh.

Eventually Lila's  mother brings her back to England.  In the six months that Lila has been gone, her mother has managed to get engaged to a man with a daughter Lila's age and they all live together.  Ma'am, you couldn't deal with your own child, who by all accounts was a good kid, but you're parenting someone else's child while yours is living in less than favorable conditions for months?

When her mother again decides she can't deal with Lila, she tells her she's going to visit her father for the summer in New York.  Look, I don't know why this woman wasn't just upfront with her daughter each time she shipped her off.  And I don't know why Lila kept falling for the okey doke, because by this time I already knew her mother was sending her there permanently.

Lila is much more optimistic than I am though.  Even after getting shuttled from house to house, continent to continent, she was able to find the good in the situation.  I would have been really interested in reading this story from the mother's point of view.  Without hearing her side of the story, she just comes across as extremely self-centered and uncaring.  That made it difficult to enjoy the book.  While Brew-Hammond has been compared to Edwidge Danticat and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, I have to say she's not even close to being in their league.

280pp
Published: April 2010

Theme: Unconditional Love by Donna Summer & Musical Youth

#BookReview: On Black Sisters Street - Chika Unigwe

Often when we read of women that work in the sex industry, they're there because they've been tricked or forced into it.  But, for the most part, the women of On Black Sisters Street left their homes in Nigeria for Belgium willingly.  In her sophomore novel, Chika Unigwe tells their stories skillfully.

Joyce, Ama, Efe and Sisi work in the red light district of Antwerp, while living under the same roof.  Though the women are polite to each other, as flat mates are, they are really just acquaintances, not friends.  Joined together by their profession, for whom they work and from where they've come, they only know of each other the little that is shared.  All of that changes the day Sisi goes missing.

As the women grieve for their departed friend, each begins to tell her story.  One came to Antwerp to make money to send back home for the child she had with a married man; another came because even with a degree from university, she could not find a job and she was tired of disappointing her parents who believed that a degree would surely lift them out of poverty.  Still another comes because her mother has chosen between her and the father that raped her for years and another because she felt she had no other choice.

Intertwined with the women's stories is Sisi's story.  While the author does not go into detail about the lives of the other women outside of the house, we can imagine that it's much like Sisi's, whose story is told from the past and present perspectives.  Each of the women pays the gentleman that brought them over from Nigeria, as well as the madam of their house, so that little is left over for them.  Yet each woman dreams of the day her debt is repaid and she can begin the life that she has imagined for herself.  The hopelessness that comes with the realization that you may never repay your debt might be enough for you to walk away from it all.  And if you do, do you tell your flat mates, or do you let them believe otherwise?

I bought On Black Sisters Street earlier this year while @Litfangrl was in town and we were leisurely perusing the used book section of Left Bank Books.  While the book had been on my to be read list on Goodreads for awhile, I hadn't made much effort to purchase it.  I could kick myself for waiting so long.  I was intrigued by each woman's story and I'm dying to read more from Unigwe.  Her first book, The Phoenix, has yet to be published in the states, but  I can't wait to dig into her new novel, Night Dancer.

272pp
Published: April 2011

Four Women by Simone, Lizz Wright & Dianne Reeves

#BookReview: I Do Not Come To You By Chance - Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani

When Augustina meets the engineer, Paulinus, it is indeed a fortuitous occasion.  While most men of their time and place would frown on a woman attending university, including Augustina's own father, Paulinus encourages it.  With their engagement depending upon her getting a degree, Augustina applies to study clothing and textile.  Together, she and Paulinus plan to raise a brood of future engineers, doctors, lawyers and scientists.

Armed with master's degrees, Augustina and Paulinus settle into opening a tailoring shop and working for the Ministry of Works and Transport, respectively.  But, things being as they are, their plans for financial success are short lived.  Paulinus' diabetes, and wages as a civil servant, put a strain on the families already strained finances.  Though the family is not financially successful, they are successful in that they've managed to instill a love for learning in their children.

Oldest son, Kingsley, has a degree in chemical engineering, yet can't find a job in Umuahia.  Having been put on notice that he stands to lose his fiancee if he cannot find a suitable position, Kingsley asks his parent's permission to look for work in Lagos, where his Uncle Boniface owns a home.  The only problem is Paulinus detests Boniface.

Known as Cash Daddy outside of the family, rich Uncle Boniface heads up one of the largest 419 operations in Lagos. You know the email that shows up in your spam box saying you've won money and need to send a fee to collect all of it?  They tend to be in all caps with misspelled words and poorly worded sentences.  There's someone like Cash Daddy behind scams just like that.  So it's no wonder that Paulinus is disgusted by the mere thought of him.

But when Paulinus falls sick and Augustina needs money for his hospital stay, she sends Kingsley to find her brother.  What she fails to realize is that she's setting Kingsley up for a life as Cash Daddy's protege.  While Kingsley is hesitant to step into the role, he quickly becomes accustomed to the perks of being associated with Cash Daddy and the money.  Ultimately Kingsley will have to decide whether or not he is morally corrupt enough to keep scamming money from greedy foreigners or if he still has a thread of the moral fiber instilled in him by his parents buried deep inside.

I ran across this book while looking for another.  Like so many, I've received the scam email before and always wondered who was foolish enough to fall for them.  It was interesting to read about how the emails are crafted and how the 419ers reel their prey in.  This was a very quick read, even though it's a little over 400 pages, so if you're even slightly interested in knowing what goes on behind the scenes of these kinds of operations, definitely give it a read.

416pp
Published: April 2009

Theme: Look At Me Now by Chris Brown featuring Busta Rhymes & Lil Wayne

#BookReview: The Limpopo Academy of Private Detection - Alexander McCall Smith

Mma Ramotswe and her sidekick, Grace Makutsi, are back for another adventure in Gaborone, Botswana.  Unlike other books where mysteries have come to them from outsiders, each story to be solved this time around comes from those close to them.  And they're still as entertaining as they've always been.

Mma Makutsi married furniture store owner Phuti Radiphuti in 2011's  The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party.  The two have decided that it's time to build their own home instead of living in Phuti's family home.  Grace is immediately suspicious of the builder, who won't directly address her, only Phuti, and with good reason.  He's a flim flam artist and it's up to her to prove it to her husband.

Of the two mechanics that work in J.L.B. Matekoni's Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors, readers are most familiar with Charlie because he stays in trouble.  The lesser known Fanwell finally gets his chance in the spotlight in the latest from McCall Smith, but not because he's done something well.  In fact, Fanwell has been arrested for illegally working on cars.  At the insistence of the same guy that bullied him in school, Fanwell gets caught up in a scheme that he has problems getting out of by himself.

Mma Potokwane, the matron of the orphanage from where Mma Ramotswe and J.L.B. Matekoni have adopted their children, has been fired from her post, one that she's held for years and planned to hold until she retired.  A conflict with a new board member have left the matron without a job and without any hope.  Mma Ramotswe will stop at nothing to see her friend restored to her position.

While these three cases might seem like a lot for the ladies to handle, they have help this time around in the form of Clovis Andersen, the author of a book that has been like their Bible for detecting, The Principles of Private Detection.  While Clovis is quick to point out that he's not the great detective that the ladies think he is, he does serve as a sounding board for them to bounce ideas off of and by the end of the story, you know that he respects them just as much as they respect him.

With this latest book, there are no big surprises and no big changes.  It's the same steady story lines that readers have come to love and expect from McCall Smith. 

272pp
Published: April 2012

 

Theme: Don't You Worry 'Bout A Thing by Lionel Hampton featuring Tito Puente

#BookReview: Purple Hibiscus - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

I come late to her fan club, but Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's work is truly worthy of all the accolades it receives.  In Purple Hibiscus, she skillfully combines a coming of age story with a military coup and domestic abuse.  Each of these topics could have been difficult to handle, but Adichie manages to write about each of them in a way that doesn't overwhelm the reader.

Fifteen year old Kambili and her older brother, Jaja, live a good life in Enugu, Nigeria.  Their father, Eugene, is a big man, meaning wealthy and well-connected, so they enjoy privileges that their classmates and friends do not.  But because their father is a big man, no one suspects that he rules his family with an iron fist in the name of religion.  So strict in his faith is Eugene, that has renounced his own father, who has not converted to Catholicism, and limits the children's time with him to 15 minutes during the Christmas holiday.

It's not until Kambili and Jaja get to visit their Aunt Ifeoma and cousins that they learn that everyone does not live by a daily schedule.  Every aspect of their lives, from the time they wake up until they go to bed is dictated by schedules their father has created for them. In Aunt Ifeoma's house, children are encouraged to have a voice and actually use it.  At home, speaking out of turn or acting independently without guidance from their father is a cause for immediate disciplinary action.  In Aunt Ifeoma's home, there is laughter and open emotion, things that have been stifled in Kambili and Jaja's home.

At one point, Eugene boasts that his Kambili and Jaja are “not like those loud children people are raising these days, with no home training and no fear of God;” to which Ade Coker replies: “Imagine what the standard would be if we were all quiet.”  This conversation really hit on so many things for me. The children and their mother's silence has enabled Eugene to keep them living in constant fear of his punishment, should one of them step out of line.  The voices of the students and faculty at the university where Aunty Ifeoma teaches have been raised, resulting in a military coup and the persecution of those that have spoken up.

Forced to leave Nigeria as a result of the coup, Aunty Ifeoma moves to the United States to teach.  Though her daughter, Amaka, always saw the U.S. as the promised land, she soon begins to believe that though times were sometimes hard in Nigeria, there was a freer sense of self and others there than in her new home.

 “There has never been a power outage and hot water runs from a tap, but we don’t laugh anymore . . . because we no longer have the time to laugh, because we don’t even see one another.”

By the end of this book, I was drained.  While I was hoping for a happy ending, instead I got a,, "okay, this is life, make the best of it" ending.  And I'm okay with that.  I just wanted better for characters that I became deeply invested in during the course of my listening.

I do have to point out that I didn't care for the narrator's voice, so I was tempted to stop listening and read the book instead.  The problem I had with it is the story is told from the point of view of Kambili, a fifteen year old Igbo girl from Nigeria.  The narrator was significantly older and sounded nothing like I would imagine Kambili to sound.  I was so thrown by her voice that I actually looked her up.  I understand that she's narrated several of the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency books, but since I've never listened to them, I wasn't familiar with her voice.  Much like I like my female characters voiced by women and not men, I like my characters to sound more like the actual character than a distinctly older person.

307pp
Listening time: 11 hours
Published: October 2003

Theme: Sorrow, Tears & Blood by Fela Kuti   

#BookReview: The Hairdresser of Harare - Tendai Huchu

I think I mentioned in a post a few weeks ago that I'd read about this book on an author's blog and was frustrated that it didn't have a US publisher and wasn't scheduled to be released in the states.  The author of the book saw my comment and reached out to me with an offer to send me a copy.  It arrived a few weeks ago and let me tell you, I read it from start to finish in a little under two hours and loved it!

The Hairdresser of Harare by Tendai Huchu is the story of what can happen when you refuse to see what's right in front of you.  Vimbai is a single mother raising a child that's the result of an affair with a married man.  Working in Mrs. Khumalo's salon, she's the best hairdresser in Harare.  All of that changes the day Dumisani appears.

Though male hairdressers are unheard of in Harare, Dumi's charming ways with both Mrs. Khumalo and the customers immediately makes him the star of the salon.  Feeling put off by this, Vimbai avoids him.  However, the need for extra income prompts her to offer him a room in her house when she learns that he has no place to stay.

Both are cut off from their families, though for different reasons, and, as a result, become quite close.  Dumi sends confusing messages to Vimbai when he invites her to attend a family wedding with him.  His family is immediately drawn to her and embraces both her and her daughter.  I really feel that Vimbai and Dumi use each other to legitimize themselves to others.

Earlier when I talked about not seeing what's in front of you, I was referring to Vimbai's refusal to acknowledge that perhaps there was something Dumi was hiding.  As a reader going in knowing the back story, it was obvious by what the family was saying that there was something about Dumisani that he hadn't shared with Vimbai.  However, I think even without knowing what the family was referring to or why, had she been paying attention, there were plenty of hints and signs for Vimbai to see.

When Vimbai is finally confronted with the truth, her reaction is such that she outs Dumi to those that intend to do him harm.  Ultimately he must leave Harare and Zimbabwe altogether. It's not until she realizes that she will lose every aspect of him that she truly grasps the consequences of her actions.

What did you like about this book?
I loved the author's use of words and their flow.  He does a wonderful job of describing not only the characters, but their surroundings.

What didn't you like about this book?
Honestly the only thing that I can find wrong is that it's not available to a wider audience of readers.

What can the author do to improve this book?
Find a publisher in the states!  This is definitely a story that needs to be told.

189pp
Published September 2010



Theme: The Jackal by Ronnie Jordan

#BookReview: Sankofa - Rita Kusi

Beware of wolves in sheep’s clothing and beware of book synopsis’ that say one thing, but give you another. From reading the synopsis on the back of the book, I was under the assumption that Sankofa would be the story of four friends returning to their roots in Ghana to rediscover themselves.

“…four friends whose families won the Diversity Lotto Program in the late 1980’s and traveled from the tropical climate of Ghana, West Africa to New York City. No one said life in a new world was going to be easy, but no one also said it was going to be tricky either. How do you adapt to a new way of life while remaining true to the old? 

Take the journey with the main character, Kimberly Akosua Mensah, as she makes the trip back home and attempts to reclaim her past to move forward to adulthood.” 

Based on that, I was ready to read the story of perhaps these young girls making the initial adjustments as children and then skipping ahead to perhaps their teen or adult years. I was looking for conversations and interaction with family members more firmly rooted in the culture and the conflict that can come from becoming Americanized while your family remains Ghanian. What I got was fooled into reading a book with pretty cover and an African title believing it would be enlightening when, in reality, it turned out to be street lit.

The four friends (and this term is used far too loosely in this book) are Kimberly, the narrator; Trish, the hustler who will use anyone or anything to get ahead; Staci, a new mother; and Courtney, the good girl that keeps picking bad boys. When Trish sleeps with Courtney’s boyfriend, the friends take sides and Kimberly is left out in the cold. Eventually the friends reconnect and Kimberly goes back to Ghana to visit her grandmother. That’s it, end of story.

This book bothered me on so many levels. At one point in the story the friends head for the annual Ghanian picnic, with Staci’s baby in tow, and proceed to drink the entire time. The author justified it by saying the baby was too young to know what was happening. Never mind that it’s illegal to drink and drive and you’re putting people in harm’s way. Promoted as a reclamation of her past, the main character does not even return to Ghana until the last two chapters of the book. The first 137 pages of the 158 page book are spent talking about complete and utter foolishness.

Beyond the ridiculousness of the story line, the editing was absolutely awful. At times I found myself re-reading sentences several times trying to make sense of them, only to realize that there were actually three sentences combined into one, with absolutely no punctuation. The author also struggled to stay consistent with the voice of the narrator. In several instances the paragraph would start with Kimberly narrating in third person and by the second or third sentence, it would become one of the other women speaking in first person and then switch back to Kimberly’s narration.

The story line, the improper editing and the annoying narration all made this very short read a difficult and tedious one.

What did you like about this book? 
The cover is colorful.

What did you dislike about this book? 
The story line, the improper editing and the annoying narration.

What could the author do to improve this book? 
Not everyone is meant to be a writer and this book is clearly an indication of that. If writing is her passion, then she would be well served to find a real editor. There were far too many grammatical and structural mistakes made. A good proofreader and/or editor would have never allowed this book to be published in its current state.

158pp
Published September 2009

Theme song: Ghetto by Sticky Fingaz