Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Life, January 16, 2004
The truth of living a hard life as a woman: Shannon Holmes novel Bad Girlz says it all. He takes you in the life of three woman that all have something in common...pretty faces, tight bodies, and a major need for survival. Although these girls differ they are all struggling trying to make it. Kat, Goldie, and Tonya find a life of survival on the strip scene. The need for money only brought them a higher need for money. Never in their wildest dreams would they realize the potential their bodies could make. Kat, raised by a mother that was no stranger to the streets led her to follow in her mother footsteps; wanting to live above her means. Kat was coldhearted but strong-minded, she realized early on in life that she didn't need a pimp. She knew that she wasn't laying on her back giving her all up to strangers to take care of someone else. She found more pride in her self than that, yet she preyed upon the weak. Kat was out on the prowl always looking for a pretty face and the right body. Yes, she was a pimpstress, slick and cunning, she was hell on hills. Goldie, a Latina girl brought up by her immigrant mother had no family after devastation took her mother away. Living on the streets was tough for this young girl until Kat saved her. Goldie, always trying to run from her past found a love in money. She knew there was no such thing as survival with out finance. For Goldie life only got worse, she continued to fight for survival until she had no fight left. She was spiritual in her own way but not even that could keep her from the drugs she used to exonerate her soul from pain. Tonya the youngest of the young, fresh and ripe was thrown into a life of hell. She had no choice than to turn to the streets. Her mother's live in had raped her and her mother turned her back on her. She tried to turn to family members but her mother made it sound as if it was all Tonya's fault. Family members weren't willing to take the risk of a young very developed girl in their house around their men. Tonya's main purpose was to use her body as a stepping-stone. Shannon Holmes does a wonderful job of bring the strip club and placing it in your hands. Once you get passed the dialect that the characters use you have the real deal of highs and lows of the day and a life of a whore. For all the young girls of the ghetto I would say this is a must read, to keep you focus of what a rough life the streets have to offer. Stacy
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17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Kat was not a Bad Birl, she was EVIL., July 18, 2005
Tonya was being raised by a single mother who did not seem to like her. She looked too much like the father who broke her heart. Tonya is being raised in the toughest part of North Philly known as Badlands. Plagued by poverty, drugs and violence. The story opens with her mother giving Tonya a harsh, harsh beating for having a hickey on her neck. The beating was very disturbing to read. Vernonica did not want her child to follow in her footsteps. Ending up pregnant, and alone. Vernonica had a live-in boyfriend who managed to stop the beating. Pete is a drunk who decides to take advantage of Tonya while she was vulnerable. He gives her some PCP, that she thinks is weed, and he rapes her. When her mother Vernonica comes home she starts beats on Tonya again for sleeping with her man. Tonya comes home one night to find her mother gone. She just up and left her own child. Tonya has no where to go, not even other family members. Veronica has told other family members that Tonya will go after their men, and they won't risk her staying with them. The few times she has been able to stay with family the male family members tried to molest her. So she finds herself on her own trying to figure out how she will survive the badlands.
She ends up selling her body for a meal and places to lay her head. One guy actually feels sorry for her and hooks Tonya up with his stripper cousin Katrina. Tonya knew stripping was wrong, but she was desperate. Her body which is considered a burden will be her money maker. Katrina (Kat) is an opportunist. Any opportunity to take advantage of someone, and get that money she will do. She does not care who she hurts as long as she sees as much money as possible. When Kat brings Tonya home, Kat's born again sister named Jackie tries to talk to them about finding something else for Tonya to do, but Kat tells Jackie to go home and mind her business.
Living with Kat is Gloria (Goldie). Goldie is a tormented soul. She hates stripping, but does not know anything else. She is a spiritual woman, who is haunted with the memory of her mother dying in a horrible explosion. She feels bad about betraying her mother for a man who did not really love her like she thought. She moves in with her thug boyfriend and he becomes abusive. Causing Gloria (Goldie) to lose her unborn child. She leaves him, and is "discovered" by Kat. Tonya will use the performance name of Tender. Her first night at Wild Things is an eye opening experience, but she makes a lot of money. Tonya wants to make enough money to eventually open beauty salon of her own and get out of the game. If Kat has anything to do with it, Tender will be her money maker without even knowing it.
Kat was simply horrible. I did not like her character at all. She was a pimpette. Kat's motto was "Better to be the user than to be used." I had not read the reviews for this book wanting to form my own opinion. I could not help but think Player's Club while reading this book. Kat reminded me of Ronnie. Kat was all talk and no action, and I was too happy when Tender gave Kat the major beat down she did. I felt terrible for Goldie. Kat pretty much fed her to the wolves in NY, and the girl Goldie took up with in NY seemed just as bad as Kat.
"Desperation breeds a lot of things in the street." That is a true sentence because it seemed everyone was desperate for something in this book. Goldie was desperate for forgiveness, and redemption. Tender for love, and Kat, desperate for that money, and willing to hurt anyone to get it!!! She was a greedy woman!!!
I don't understand why Goldie and Tender did not get their own place. They got along so well, they could have gotten a place together, getting away from Kat. I was so angry how Tender would easily believe Kat about money situations and would hand over all that money or let her "hold" her money. Tender showed how gullible she could be at times. Kat pimped Tender and Goldie hard while they were in Miami. She was collecting the money, and Tender and Goldie did all the work.
The book was gritty and very much urban. This is the first book I've read by Shannon Holmes. The way these characters spoke was annoying after a while. I also had a hard time believing they could go on a shopping spree and only spend $2,000 for 8 designer suits. Not the name brands they were speaking of. I'm also upset that Pete got away with what he did. I wanted to see him get his!!!
This book did help me see the whole stripper game in a different light. Maybe some of the young ladies will read this book, and not think it's so glamorous. This was a good read, but it's not one I would want to own. I could not see myself reading this novel over and over again.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Over the top and unbelievable, July 16, 2004
Bad Girlz really turned me off. This is the 2nd book I read by Mr. Holmes, and it's not that the story is so bad, it's that they are so unbelievable. Everything in the story is just too much, always some male that rapes the young girl, she then "does what she has to do" to make it. Okay I'll give it that. But I can't believe how absolutely ridiculous some of the sex scenes were (quite gratuitious, and basically nasty for no reason), always over the top on what everyone was doing. And then Kat, what was she doing wandering around in bus stations and what not finding these girls? It's all too convenient, and her being a pimpette or whatever, and no one really saying anything. That's not to say this doesn't happen, but the 3 characters are not portrayed that way. The seem like people hard on their luck, but not completely stupid. I think my overall issue is that Mr. Holmes tries to take every possible situation and stick it in one book, within the first 100 pages. Slow it down, give some character development (real) and don't try to take everything over the top. The designer clothes, superfly rides, all that...yep it's in the ghetto, that's what we usually do with our money. But these girls are making $1500 a week, they can't buy D&G clothing, Prada bags, Gucci this and that. One scene they bought about 8 designers for only $1500, please. I'm college eduacated and make more than $1500 a week and even I can't do that! That's what I mean by over the top...it's not that it can't be done, it's that Mr. Holmes tries to flash everything without consistency or reality. I admire that he has come this far with his books, the whole ebonics thing works my last nerve. I would love to see him progress, but if this is what he's offering, I'll have to take a pass and support brothers and sisters that are actually writing about something that makes sense.
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