Customer Reviews

No Girl Needs a Husband Seven Days a Week

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The title, No Girl Needs a Husband Seven Days a Week by Nina Foxx was enough to draw this reader in. However, the interesting and connected storylines kept me reading. Maria, Mai and Kennedy are best friends and have been for years. They think they share everything but they are all going to find out they do not know as much about the others lives as they may think.

Maria is in pharmaceutical sales: she is married to her stay-at home husband, Louis, and together they have two children. While away from home, she feels a little `flirting' is harmless. Her girlfriends disagree with her actions, but she turns a deaf ear to them. The question is how would she feel if good, old, reliable Louis did a little flirting of his own?
Mai is married to Calvin, who provides well for his wife and three children, while Mai runs things at home like superwoman. No one, not even her friends know what is really going and what it takes for Mai to get through the day, keeping up a perfect family façade. What she and Calvin have together is not always what it seems. Kennedy was once hurt by man she loved and is convinced men are only good for one thing. Besides, she is focused on her successful marketing career and the care of her ailing father. Is it possible that she can be open to love when she meets Troy , or will he turn out to be even worse than the others?

Nina Foxx has written a well-paced novel about friendship, relationships and family connections. She allows the reader to peek into her characters lives, seeing that rarely are things exactly what they seem. I recommend this novel to readers who enjoy contemporary novels about relationship drama.

Angelia Menchan
APOOO BookClub

This novel explores the everyday lives of three strong female characters, Kennedy, Maria and Mai. Kennedy is an attractive and successful executive that is disillusioned with love and does not want to start any new relationships. But Troy is looking for much more than a one-night-stand and will seriously threaten the carefully laid out plans. Marie is a stay-at-home mom who does not use her professional qualifications and is happy with the life she is living. This bliss is shattered when she gets a call from her husband from halfway across the country asking her to bail him out of jail. Mai has a successful career while her husband stays home with the kids, and she likes to meet new men when she travels for her business.

The book starts out strong, with a nice pace, but then, the author tries to twist the plot way too much and ends up damaging the story. If you like those soap operas in which there are secrets galore and don't care too much about how believable the story is, you will probably have a great time with this novel. If this kind of situation bothers you, then you will probably find it entertaining, but lacking, as I did.

The book also includes Extras, in which we get two pieces of completely different quality. In the first one, the author shares a story about the possibility of being in a reality show and uses this fact to disguisedly tell us that she is much better than every other wife and mother out there. As you can imagine, this is the piece of dreadful quality. The other piece has to do with a funny story about an emergency situation. Although some of it is a little over the top, I had a good time with this one.

We selected this book for our annual Girl's Retreat selection. Each lady read the book prior to our retreat in San Antonio. Everyone loved it! It is a great selection for a "girls night out" or "ladies only" themed event. Our theme this year was "No Men, Amen", and we really enjoyed the lively discussion generated by this book.

Meet best friends Mai, Marie and Kennedy. They share many things, particularly tidbits about their individual lives as they meet on Girls' Night. They do, however, have very differing views on what is needed in a man. Mai is the stay-at-home mom who cooks, cleans, tends to the kids, pays the bills, participates in charity functions and performs like a sex kitten in the bedroom when daddy's home. She is the ultimate super mom who handles all the problems as they arise. In fact, her husband is an outsider to the household with very little to do. How does Mai manage it all? With Mai holding it down at home, they appear to be living the perfect American life. A closer inspection reveals a few chinks in the armor that get exposed with a phone call from prison.

Marie has a wonderful job. She works long hours and travels several times a month. She has no worries about her husband and children at home for he takes care of them while she brings in the bacon. This is such a great setup for Marie that she feels she can do a little eye-candy looking and participate in what she feels is harmless flirting. Her husband, on the other hand, feels a little neglected and unappreciated until a tenant crosses the line. What happens when he thinks about a little harmless flirting?

Kennedy is the single one in the group. She has been burnt in a relationship before and has no desire to have one that lasts longer than a night. She thinks a man is only good for one thing anyway, if he knows his way around the bedroom. If you have this on lock, then what do you need a husband for? Then she meets Troy, who's determined to be more than a one-night stand.

In NO GIRL NEEDS A HUSBAND SEVEN DAYS A WEEK, Nina Foxx takes readers on a whirlwind ride of discovery to teach a relationship needs two people working together to sustain it. Foxx's wit and candor makes this a very enjoyable and, at times, painful read on how we sometimes box ourselves and our mates into certain modes that serve only to chip away at the foundation of our relationships. Men have relationship needs just like women do. I enjoyed Foxx's characters and thought she did a great job of showing there is more to a relationship than meets the eye.

Reviewed by Brenda Lisbon
of The RAWSISTAZ(tm) Reviewers

Although their outlooks on life especially relationships with men are radically different, Marie, Mai and Kennedy remain close friends. The trio agrees a husband can be a good companion, but not half as good as each other. They also agree that a spouse can be good at home repairs, but you can always hire someone to do it right the first time. Finally a husband can be a good lover (hopefully that is), but so can a boyfriend and you do not need either seven days a week trysting.

However they each have specific differing requirements for what they expect of a mate. Marie prefers a househusband to clean the house, make the meals, and take care of their children while she brings in the money. Mai prefers being a trophy wife of an affluent corporate executive. Kennedy the executive believes no husband makes the best spouse; her itch will be handled by her hunk of the moment. That is fine but what will the prospective husband have to say to each of these females.

This African American chick lit tale is a delightful look at relationships from the perspective of the three fully developed protagonists. The story line combines humor especially the discussions between the ladies re the life in the men in their lives; yet also provides a deep look at modern issues that cripple marriages like cheating and taking for granted you partner. Nina Foxx writes a profound contemporary tale that makes the case a girl needs a caring, faithful and dependable mate 24/7 or either get a dog or not at all.

Harriet Klausner

Marie need her man at home and a boy toy for the road. But Marie forgot that it's always someone ready to light the fire at home when you are away. Marie get a wake up call at home and away.
Kenndy believe a man is only good for a one night then off he goes. Kenndy's wake up call comes in the form of a man who is not going anywhere. Troy turns out to be more then a one night stand.
Mia is the perfect housewife and everyone want to know how she keep it together. Then a call from her husband in jail change everything. With the help of her family and friends Mia find her true self.
This book is a great read about love, life, and friendship. How well do we know our friends and do they tell us everything is what you will be asking yourself at the end of this story.

If you're just looking for something to read, then this is a book for you. The plot wasn't that engaging. The characters were so-so. It was a good book to read just to have something to read.

The poor quality of this piece of work was disappointing, to say the least. The dialogues and actions of the characters are not credible, which creates cardboard characters you really can't relate to. Of all the characters in the novel, the ones that were the most developed were Kennedy and Lishelle; more effort should have been put into the development of the rest of the characters. The flow of the story seems forced--as if Foxx is trying way too hard to make something unnatural seem natural. The plot is cliched, which could have still worked if it was showcased in a fresh, new light and gave you something to really think about--but no original thought here. Besides all these points, what really annoyed me were the technical problems with this book. The author comes across as an amateur, not being able to keep her writing clear and consistent. The narrating voice jumps from character to character without warning, and often you're left confused about which "he" or "she" Foxx is referring to. And whoever proofread this book should really consider another career, because I have found countless errors that no book should go to press with. All in all, this novel is a fair attempt, but needs major, major improvement in order to be taken seriously.

I picked this book up in the clearance bin at Borders, read the book description and decided to give it a whirl.

Well, now I know why it was in the clearance bin. This is, by far, one of the most disjointed books I have read in quite some time. First, the author fails to build the characters and the setting sufficiently. It took forever to figure out they lived in Texas, fortunately I guessed correctly SAPD referenced San Antonio PD, for all I knew it could have been San Angelo, another place in Texas... We get very little character building and jump right into the story line which fails to offer insight or back-story about the characters subsequently discussed.

While I have to applaud the author for writing the book as no book is entirely bad in that it offers readers the chance to round themselves out via the written word, hence the two stars, it was a flawed text deserving little more than that.

Aside from the lopsided writing, in her next outing, should there be one, Miss Foxx should employ an editor or, at a minimum, the spell checker. There were a number of instances where the writing was grammatically incorrect or the word usage was incorrect. For example, on page 152 she uses the term "bourgie" to refer to upper crust behaviors and mannerisms, I assume. If that is the case the term is actually bourgeoisie, which has been loosely translated to mean the same thing. There were so many issues being addressed in the text it was difficult for the reader, let alone the author,to aptly deal with them. Issues of mistrust, infidelity, drug abuse, misguided children, caring for the aging parent was just too much.

There were a number of other missteps taken with the book that I won't detail here but it was a very disappointing, unsatisfying, disjointed read.

This book was a very slow read. It is one of the slowest reads I have read in a long time. I don't usually write reviews but this one was bothering me. She left open ended chapters and left the reader to speculate what happened. The plot was ok but the ending sucked. I was just dissappointed all around.