"Bitch Is the New Black"A Memoir
by Helena Andrews
Harper Books
Hardcover, $24.99
244 pages
ISBN: 978-0-06-177882-7
“I’m such a badass. I am literally the baddest bitch on the planet. If there was a bitch contest between me and every other heartbroken, hissing, red-eyed, puffy-faced woman in the world, I would defeat every last one of them--handily… I’m a bitch, but I swear I don’t want to be. Really, I think I have to be.”
-- Excerpted from Chapter One (pg. 4)
Normally, I’d say it takes a lot of nerve to publish your memoirs before you even turn 30, but in the case of Helena Andrews I have to concede that it turns out to be totally warranted. For this fiery young sister not only already has a lot of life experiences under her belt, literally and figuratively, but has cultivated a wealth of wisdom to share well beyond her years. And, perhaps most importantly, she has a most beguiling way with words which keep you intrigued with what’s coming out of her mouth next in this shockingly-frank autobiography.
“Since the dawn of the hip-hop era in the 1970s, Black people have become increasingly freer and freer as individuals, with a wider range of possibilities spread out before us now than at any time in our past. Yet the circumstances of our collective life have degenerated in direct contrast to this fact, with a more impoverished vision of what it means to be Black today than ever before. If these exciting new circumstances we now find ourselves in, of which our president is the apotheosis, are to mean anything of lasting value, the zeitgeist… is going to have to change, too—permanently…
“I’ve tried to … penetrate the myth in order to answer the eternal question: What’s she really like? In the process, I found a remarkable woman, hugely complicated and contradictory. Sometimes generous, magnanimous, and deeply caring. Sometimes petty, small-minded, and self-centered. 
“If you’re walking down the right path and you’re willing to keep walking, eventually you’ll make progress.” – President Barack Obama
