Raising Fences: A Black Man's Love Story (Today Show Book Club #4)

Rating:
Summary: TOUCHING and Engrossing!
Review: REVIEW
FEBRUARY 2005

Michael Datcher, Michael Datcher!

Although this book has exceptionally high reviews, I am still amazed at how much this book affected me. Michael not only bares his soul, his passions, disappointments and dreams with the world but it is such a fascinating and well-crafted story that you forget that it's true. After all, how many of us have a story that is so insightful and inspirational much less be able to tell it so beautifully?

The raw honesty of the book combined with Michael's obvious passion for all things literary is what completely inspired me. After two years of not writing, I immediately picked up a pen and started several poems. He just draws that out of you, like a therapeutic energy. As he took his path of healing, you began to take yours too.

On one last note, the way he revealed the African American culture was honest without being hard, heartbreaking without being depressing, and truly reflective of the realities of black culture, right down to where you feel like he knows the same people you do.




Rating:
Summary: Loved it!
Review: This was one of the best comtemporary African American based books I've read in a long time. My hat goes off to Michael for writing such a powerful, suspenseful, evocative and moving account of his life. I could not wait to read chapter after next. I think his technique of flipping from past to present and then eventually merging the two was effective--it kept me on the edge of my seat waiting to see what happened next. The first 2/3rds of the book was completely intriguing.

I loved the style of language he used-- so powerful, punchy and raw. I loved that he kept ot real all the way, not holding back any punches on himself. This was an introspective, deeply soulful and emotional account. And totally relatable to our generation.

I agree with some of the reviewers about the budensome poetry-that's why it gets 4 not 5 stars from me. At the end it was just too top heavy and some excerpts just weren't that good. And it just made the last 1/3 of the book just drag too much. In addition the end meandered a bit too much--I understand why--he wanted to give Jenoyne her fair share--but it took away some from the energy and momentum of the first section.

My dream is to write my own memoir within 10 years--if I do even as half a good a job as Mr Dacther does here I would be proud of myself.

I'm waiting for Part 2 of this story!!

A huge fan.

Rating:
Summary: Michael Datcher do ur thang!!!
Review: I thought Raising Fences was nothing but humourous, poetic and reflective. I'm proud of Michael Datcher for writing such a strong realistic book which other people can relate to. In my opinion if you've read the book and didn't like it, that's you but don't hate on a brotha trying to succeed! Michael keep doing your thang brotha because through my eyes you've already succeeded!
And that's my review!!!

Rating:
Summary: What happened?
Review: The first part of the story was really well put together. I was excited to learn about a man's take on abortion and how he deals with unwanted children, etc. Camille was interesting to read about from the male perspective. But then when she disappeared, the story went downhill, like the poetry. Whew, I didn't like one poem in the whole book and dropped my head every time I had to read another one. I lost so much respect for the character when his white buddy got beat up, but it was even WORSE when he didn't even stand up to his friend. I'm supposed to sympathesize with this cat, who was supposedly so gangsta when he was younger, who's as soft as a pillow now. On top of that, characters (especially his friends) were introduced but had no depth. But then they did amazingly wild things and I was supposed to be shocked, but instead it was like watching it on the news. I didn't really know these characters towards the end, so to find out that they were doing these things was just like "So what?" instead of "He did that? Oh! I don't believe this!" Jenoyne was kinda thrown into the plot and I still don't really know who she was besides religious and having wavy hair and light skin. The first part was five stars, the last part was no stars...this book felt like a rush job.