August 1998 Reviews


Nothing But The Rent
by
Sharon Mitchell

The two best things about this book are that: it has a cover that features the actual faces of black women and that it fell into my lap at just the right time: in this case, a trip to visit my husband's family in New Hampshire, including a day amidst the sun, surf, and overly friendly seagulls of Hampton Beach. And inspite of the antics of my husband and other children who were not my responsibility and the aforementioned seagulls, it was there that I polished off Sharon Mitchell's Nothing But The Rent in one sitting.

I'd like to tell you that I breezed through this novel so quickly because it was a proverbial page-turner, but regretfully my speed-reading came because the content of the book was a perfect match for it's title: there was nothin' goin' on but the rent in this one. While the latter half of the book showed some promise, Nothing was for the most part just another designer-label name-dropping gotta-get-a-man story: great for a day at the beach where the water is too cold and working on your tan is a bit redundant, but otherwise more of the same old same old with nothing fun or innovative to lift it out of the realm of your typical "girlfriend" book.