Girls from da' Hood [Paperback]

Nikki Turner (Author), Chunichi (Author), Roy Glenn (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 296 pages
• Publisher: Urban Books (September 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0974702528
• ISBN-13: 978-0974702520
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 6.7 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,267,585 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Bringing the Hood to Life, February 5, 2005

By 

The RAWSISTAZ Reviewers (RAWSISTAZ.com and BlackBookReviews.net) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Girls from da' Hood (Paperback)

When Lil Wayne proclaimed he needed a hoodrat chick in one of his songs a few years ago, he was rapping about Unique, Nina, and Anyeh. These names represent the titles of the three stories in this anthology. I commend authors Nikki Turner, Chunichi and Roy Glenn for their candid depiction of life in the ghetto fabulous streets. These stories are a new soap opera ala urban style. Revenge is the major theme throughout all three tales.

The coarse and cool style of the authors is reminiscent of Donald Goines, the king of gangster tales from the hood. These new authors spin dramatic violent gritty glimpses of how drugs, sex, greed, and crime are as common as week day rush hour for the gainfully employed citizens.

Despite the brutal acquaintances and constant struggle to survive Virginia's hoods, the girls find time to love their men. You will need to read each story to discover whether their men are worthy of love; or even if the girls are capable of committing and loving beyond lust and gold digging.

I found each tale to be fast-paced, disturbing, and absorbing enough to digest the entire book within a day.
The authors blend together in a hip- hop- rhythm- writing style which flows together like a good concert. Each writer's voice has the same beat, giving the reader a comfort zone between stories, almost as if one writer had penned all three treats.

These talented three have marked their territory in the urban genre and I look forward to reading more from them. I must point out that Roy Glenn's Nina, ended by paving the way for a complete novel in which to finish her drama. The tales of Anyeh and Unique are complete, but of course the authors could always do readers a favor and pen more escapades involving these characters or their crew.

Reviewed by Jaize
of The RAWSISTAZ™ Reviewers

14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Girls From Da Hood, November 20, 2004

By 

Ms Toni "Readinista Extraordinaire" (Midwest - USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Girls from da' Hood (Paperback)

I give this book 3 1/2 stars. It's a step up from okay (3 stars) but not quite I like it material (4 stars). Don't know what I was expecting, but maybe something a little more based on their previous work.

Nikki Turner - Unique is the stereotypical drug dealer's girlfriend. All she does is shop and spend his money. When her boyfriend Took has to do a bid, Unique is up the creek without a paddle. Does she get a job and try to better herself? No, of course not! It's on to the next man or next hustle. On her way up, or down depending on how you look at it, she's made her share of enemies. And like every dog, she has her day. Nikki does a good job portraying a "certified hood rat."

Roy Glenn - Nina Thomas is a recent college graduate who puts her life on hold once she rekindles a relationship with her first boyfriend Lorenzo after five years.. Things are good, but as always that doesn't last. Nina finds herself in a position where she needs to make some serious decisions - decisions that she may have to suffer the consequences for. This was my favorite of the three. I liked the tie-in of his previous novel Is It A Crime.

Chunichi - Anyeh has a plan. A plan to bring down the great Diablo James using her feminine wiles. But she never planned to fall for him herself. And how will this affect her plan? This was my least favorite of the three. It was all over with the twists, turns and inconsistencies. There's a little bit of everything - from the mysterious "my baby," an anonymous person Anyeh gives updates of her progress with Diablo, to lesbian lovers, to a jealous sister, to an addicted mother, to an African potion.

Not a bad book, but by no means the greatest. Could have been better. I recommend it on the strength of the authors.

Readers get a bonus with a short story by Carl Weber entitled He Makes Love Like A Woman.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Keeping it "Real"?, March 23, 2006

By 

Colleen McMahon ""Omnivorous Reader"" (Atlanta, GA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Girls from da' Hood (Paperback)

This is outside the stuff I normally read but these "ghetto lit" books, published by small African-American indie publishers and advertised as real stories of "hood life" by insiders, are tremendously popular right now and have become a subgenre unto themselves, so I've been wondering what it's all about.

I picked up Girls From Da Hood because I knew Nikki Turner as one of the originators of the form, and Chunichi is also a well known name. With three novellas in the book I had a chance to sample 3 different tales from the genre.

"Unique" is Nikki Turner's contribution and it was the strongest for me. Unique is fascinating, a completely conscience-less (and conscious-less) hustling female who works with her friend Strolla to work every scam she can to keep the bills paid once her drug-dealer boyfriend is jailed for a long stretch. The ins and outs of her socializing and perpetrating were fascinating, although Unique and Strolla are never likeable characters. It's more the fascination of watching a train wreck that carries the reader through rather than any sympathy for the characters.

"Nina" by Roy Glenn is the story of one woman's descent from almost-made-it-out (at the beginning of the story Nina has just graduated from college with a degree in business) to in-over-her-head and facing a murder charge. On her first day back in town after graduation, with vague plans to find a job and start a career, Nina runs into her old highschool flame, who still carries a torch for her and is now quite successful in the drug game. She falls hard for him all over again and enjoys the high life with him for a time but things go terribly wrong and Nina is left to decide whether to get her life back on the straight and narrow or continue in the ghetto world. I had a hard time sympathizing with Nina because she had other options and threw them away; in fact I found her even less sympathetic than Unique because Unique never had a chance to be in any other world than that of the hustlin' hood. Nina chooses to remain there over and over again.

"Anyeh" is Chunichi's entry and while the plot strung me along and kept me reading, ultimately the twists and turns stopped making sense and became unbelievable. Anyeh is beholden to a mysterious cell phone caller she knows only as "my baby" and is collaborating with "my baby" to take down the biggest hustler in Virginia, Diablo. Will Diablo be fooled? Will his scheming sister explose Anyeh? Or will Anyeh herself mess up and fall for the one she is supposed to be leading to destruction? There is some suspense but the payoff was somewhat lacking.

However, all three stories were page turners in the end, easy and fast to read and wall to wall with comtemporary slang. They read like a window into a world you suspect lays out there but don't necessarily want to live in yourself--are they only portraying the "real world" or are they creating another layer of glamorous, decadent and violent fantasy that has the same appeal as gangster rap for those who don't actually live "the life"? It's hard to say but I can see why these books are so popular--they go down fast and easy and certainly come off as realistic. I felt vaguely like I'd eaten a big helping of unhealthy food after I finished, but I enjoyed it along the way and would be tempted to go back for another helping.