My Daughter's Boyfriend: A Novel [Paperback]

cydney Rax (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 28, 2005

Tracey Davenport was only seventeen when she had her daughter, Lauren, and has proudly raised her as a single mom. Now that Lauren is seventeen herself, Tracey is pleased to see that her daughter has taken her advice to heart: Lauren wants to wait instead of having sex with Aaron, a college student and her first real boyfriend. But Lauren’s decision causes a chain reaction that no one could have anticipated. In a few chance encounters, sparks fly between thirtysomething Tracey and twentysomething Aaron. Coming off yet another disappointing relationship with a cheating bachelor her own age, Tracey is surprised to find that her daughter’s boyfriend is mature and understanding beyond his years, and Aaron discovers that his girlfriend’s mom is smart, womanly, and, well, very sexy. Eventually, what begins as a harmless flirtation turns into something much, much hotter. And that’s when things really get complicated . . .

Told in the alternating voices of the three lovers, My Daughter’s Boyfriend is the spicy tale of an impossibly tricky love triangle, full of sharp, lively observations about mothers and daughters, black men and women, and the truth about love and lust. Audacious and compelling, it’s the book everyone will be talking about.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The author of My Daughter's Boyfriend re-sifts and comes up with an irresistible title based on a cool-headed premise. Anya Meadows suffers from FSAD—Female Sexual Arousal Disorder ("a condition that affects 47 million women for a variety of reasons"). To keep her husband Neil ("a taller, thinner, less insane version of Mike Tyson") from leaving her and daughter Reese, she proposes a contract: find a girlfriend, sort of: oral sex only, encounters no more than twice a week, no falling in love. The book opens, alas, with Anya sitting at home, awaiting word on the birth of Neil's new son, Braxton, with Neil's contract-girlfriend (and co-worker) Danielle. Rax shifts the book's first person among the three principles fluidly: Anya loves her stay-at-home-mom lifestyle, dependent on Neil's job as a capital projects manager at a local Houston college. Trying-to-do-the-right-thing Neil loves Anya, but also cares for the few-class-tiers-lower Dani, who is (in her own words) "spirited, decent-looking, employed, fun-loving, supportive." But among other drama, Neil's boss finds it unacceptable that a married, "high-profile" member of the department is "openly having babies with someone else." Rax manages the fallout from her exaggerated plot with insight, zip and wit, and airs multiple conflicts within black middle-class life in compelling detail. (Nov.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Tracey Kendricks had her daughter, Lauren, when she was 17. She has instilled in Lauren the importance of waiting to have sex. Now that she is 17, Lauren is struggling to follow her mother's advice and maintain her relationship with her first boyfriend, Aaron. He is older, extremely handsome, and patient, yet he is anxious for their relationship to develop. Innocently, Aaron begins to flirt with Tracey, whom he finds smart and sexy. Reeling from another disappointing relationship and hurtful breakup with a man her own age, Tracey is caught off guard by her response to his advances. She discovers that, in spite of his youth, Aaron is quite mature and understanding. Tracey and Aaron become involved in a hot and secret affair that has immense consequences. When they are discovered, Tracey has to face up to her daughter in a way that is both painful and regretful. Tracey and Lauren attempt to heal and rebuild their mother-daughter relationship in a book that reads like an episode from Jerry Springer. Lillian Lewis
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Three Rivers Press (June 28, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400083133
• ISBN-13: 978-1400083138
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.7 x 7.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (72 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #575,246 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

My name is Cydney and I have a great love for African-American contemporary fiction (Niobia Bryant, Connie Briscoe, Electa Rome Parks, Cheryl Robinson, Marissa Monteilh, Margaret Johnson-Hodge, Terry McMillan, etc.), some good street novels (Shannon Holmes, Sister Souljah, K'wan, Erick S. Gray), suspense and thrillers by the masters: John Grisham and Sidney Sheldon, and superb, witty, humorous women's fiction (Jennifer Weiner, Jennifer Belle, Sophie Kinsella, Jackie Collins, Candace Bushnell, and the others).

I'm a writer too: my debut novel is the unforgettable story My Daughter's Boyfriend. The other novels, all published by Random House, are My Husband's Girlfriend, My Best Friend and My Man, My Sister's Ex, and Brothers and Wives. My stuff is emotional, controversial, dramatic, sexy, and thought-provoking and filled with characters that make you feel SOMETHING whether you want to or not.

You may also check out my work in two anthologies both published by Kensington Books: Crush, published in April 2011, also features Michele Green and Lutishia Lovely. The title of my novella is From One Lover to Another. The other anthology is Reckless, pub date 4/24/2012; this one features Niobia Bryant and Grace Octavia. This novella is called Desperate Housewife.

Feel free to contact me at [e-mail].

Check out my website at http://www.cydneyrax.com

Or Facebook http://www.facebook.com/cydney.rax

Thanks for the love!

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

31 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars I Can't Believe I Finished This...., July 6, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: My Daughter's Boyfriend: A Novel (Hardcover)

I can not understand how reviewers gave this book four and five stars. I do understand that this author has many friends in the African-American literary world so that may be a reason for so many good reviews. Just read her acknowledgments pages, I can't believe out of all the wonderful authors she named, no one had the guts to tell her to go back to the lab with this one. The subject of this novel accomplished what it set out to do, and that's make the audience curious. How would Tracey try to justify sleeping with her teenage daughter's boyfriend? That's where it ends, with that question. Once you start reading this book you'll have no definitive answers because the characters have no depth, you will not be sympathetic to their plight.

Tracey made me sick, she didn't have a lick of sense. She ran behind one man to the point of stalking and then took her daughter's man with absolutely no regard for her daughter's feelings whatsoever. How are we as readers supposed to empathize at all with this woman? The plot was long and drawn out with unbelievable situations. As dumb as Tracey and Aaron were with their so called "sneaking" around, someone would have found out about them much sooner.

The best character was Regis Collier and she's the reason I gave the book two stars instead of one. Unfortunately, you only got to read a little bit about her. I was able to stomach the "Lauren" chapters but whenever I saw "Tracey" or "Aaron" as the chapter headings I knew I would read really fast. I don't know how I finished this book but I did.

I can not in good conscience say buy this book, it's better off borrowed.

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Great Idea for a Book......BUT, June 22, 2004

By 

Simon Loves Books "simon-loves-books" (Brooklyn, NY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: My Daughter's Boyfriend: A Novel (Hardcover)

I was ready to really get into some serious character development with this one, but I was sadly mistaken. Yes the sex scene between the 30 something woman and 20 something man lived up to what you would expect. But nobody's character was well-defined enough to make me understand the whys behind the relationship. I didn't LIKE any particular character in this book. And at one point I was actually just wishing that the daughter would hurry up and find out so we could move on from the "made-up" drama. I thought this was a great idea for a book, but the dialogue, lack of character development and lack of a male/female relationship that you could actually root for just made me quickly read this book and put it in my "never to be touched again" category.

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Potential Not Realized, June 16, 2004

By 

Lisa Simms (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: My Daughter's Boyfriend: A Novel (Hardcover)

I thought this was a great storyline! The story of a mother sleeping with her daughter's boyfriend can be a juicy and sensational tale in the hands of the right writer. Unfortunately, for me at least, this author does not show that capability.

The problems to me began with the poor character development. It's difficult to believe and understand a mother actually doing this, but this is fiction. To make it believable in fiction, the mother's motivation or her thinking as to why should be shown. This was not the case. It wasn't shown why this mother would choose to do something uncharacteristic of a loving mother. Also, the mother's behavior seemed so juvenile. The boyfriend's character was very inconsistent. One moment he's wise beyond his years, the next moment he's calling the distraught daughter the B word and locking her outside in the rain. Just very inconsistent.

Some of the scenes were dragged out way to long, past the point of anything happening. And I got so tired of going through the daughter packing and going to the airport so many times. Made it seem like page fillers. And the author TELLS you everything that happens instead of allowing the readers to experience and discover. In a lot of places, settings are actually described in book report fashion as if there is no capability for bringing setting out through description or dialogue. This is usally typical of self-published writers.

In telling the story, the author tries too hard to be clever and a lot of the analogies and metaphores used just come off as corny and dumb. The story was choppy and did not have a smooth flow because it seemed like she was trying to write like someone else or for others rather than her own style. It just didn't flow. The dialogue was sometimes silly and very amateurish. For instance, the characters used each others names quite often when speaking and real conversation doesn't go that way. Personally, I find that annoying.

I'm slightly disappointed because the author is a reviewer and I enjoy her reviews and her site. But apparently, writing and crafting a good story isn't as easy as it seems. I would still support any book she puts out though because she's a great supporer of african american books. When writing reviews though, I have to be honest about what I really though regardless of who the author is.