My Time to Shine

Rating:
Summary: I want it all!
Review: "We wanted the best and were determined to get it at any cost." This sentence sums up the book, MY TIME TO SHINE. Dee, Junie, and Black are raised in a single parent home without the creature comforts that so many Americans take for granted. The brothers are tired of it. They want big cars, palatial houses, lots of jewelry, clothes and plenty of fine women and they make it their business to get those things. Education doesn't seem the way to go because it takes too long so they go the way of the streets. All three brothers know how dangerous it is, but do they really appreciate it?

In their own way, they are kind and considerate. They take care of their mother and auntie, who is also a single parent, first and then they deck themselves out. First come the cars, the clothes, the jewelry and then the houses. The women, looking for a way out themselves, aren't far behind. They know players when they see them and they latch on in spite of the treatment they receive from the men. They are referred to as hoes, bitches and hookers - no matter what their station is in life. Beatings are regular and expected. But the money is too good for them to leave.

Ed McNair has opened a doorway into a life many of us would have no way of knowing about unless someone told us. The book is an education about how poverty can force strange choices. I still have difficulty accepting murder, mutilation and anything-for-a-dollar as a way of life but he has created a page-turner that is hard to put down.

Reviewed by alice Holman
of The RAWSISTAZ Reviewers

Rating:
Summary: My Time to Shine
Review: I found this book extraordinary. If you have never lived the fast life, this is the book for you. You will no longer be naive to it. I found it fascinating that the characters could get away with so much under-handed activities. This would be a book that could easily become a movie, R-rated, mind you. This is not a book for people with weak stomachs. There is a lot of violence but also real to life street life. I cannot wait for his next novel.

Rating:
Summary: My Time to Shine
Review: I found this book extraordinary. If you have never lived the fast life, this is the book for you. You will no longer be naive to it. I found it fascinating that the characters could get away with so much under-handed activities. This would be a book that could easily become a movie, R-rated, mind you. This is not a book for people with weak stomachs. There is a lot of violence but also real to life street life. I cannot wait for his next novel.

Rating:
Summary: a tangled and twisted street tale
Review: The book starts out a little slow but gets a lot better. You can see a lot of real characters and it's different that this is coming from a guy's point of view, whereas most street books are narrated by females.

Rating:
Summary: can we pick up the pace a little
Review: This book moved too slow and it lost me in just a few chapters. I tried to stay with the story line but it is so hard when you keep yarning. where is the excitement.

Rating:
Summary: Brooklyn Gal
Review: This book started out with BLACK. The additional characters do not have chance to develop. I mean everytime I thought I knew someone they started to introduce someone new. Maybe it should've been a part one and part two. When I finished the book I could not wait to tell my book partner to quit reading while you still have time. The cover sells the book..the contents brings about regret.

Rating:
Summary: Brooklyn Gal
Review: This book was hot I believe that if you have a slow paced life you wouldn't understand this book. I think people that grew up in poverty stricken families with relatives on drugs and so on could relate to the need to get money by any means necessary. All the characters in the book were off the hook but i knew where they all were coming from. I think this man did his thing and i can't wait for the next one.

Rating:
Summary: Real life story
Review: This story was told with no regrets. You could feel each character. Everybody has a Black and a Dee in their family.
It takes you into the streets and into the mind of young cats trying to become major players. They come from a rough background, but through hustles, murders, and street schemes, they rose above all and shined. Black was a true hustler, Lo was treacherous and Dee was the man, he held it all down. kept me turning the pages. Finished it in a day.
Familiar schenes in New York and VA allowed me to be part of the story.

Please hurry, I need to read part II, it's got to be a sequel.