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by: Asha Bandele
List Price: $23.99Amazon.com's Price: $16.31 You Save: $7.68 (32%)Prices subject to change. Availability: Not yet published
Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 920
EAN: 9780061710377
ISBN: 0061710377
Label: Collins
Manufacturer: Collins
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 208
Publication Date: February 01, 2009
Publisher: Collins
Release Date: January 27, 2009
Sales Rank: 510545
Studio: Collins
Editorial Review:
Product Description:
From the author of The Prisoner's Wife, a poetic, passionate, and powerful memoir about the hard realities of single motherhood
When Asha Bandele, a young poet, fell in love with a prisoner serving a twenty-to-life sentence and became pregnant with his daughter, she had reason to hope they would live together as a family. Rashid was a model prisoner, and expected to be paroled soon. But soon after Nisa was born, Asha's dreams were shattered. Rashid was denied parole, and told he'd be deported to his native Guyana once released. Asha became a statistic: a single, black mother in New York City.
On the outside, Asha kept it together. She had a great job at a high-profile magazine and a beautiful daughter whom she adored. But inside, she was falling apart. She began drinking and smoking and eventually stumbled into another relationship, one that opened new wounds. This lyrical, astonishingly honest memoir tells of her descent into depression when her life should have been filled with love and joy. Something Like Beautiful is not only Asha's story, but the story of thousands of women who struggle daily with little help and much against them, and who believe they have no right to acknowledge their pain. Ultimately, drawing inspiration from her daughter, Asha takes account of her life and envisions for herself what she believes is possible for all mothers who thought there was no way out--and then discovered there was.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating: - BEAUTIFUL AND UPLIFTING........
This is a memoir that is quite simply a celebration of motherhood..even more specifically, single motherhood....and the bond, unlike any other, between a mother and her child. Asha Bandele is a struggling writer and sometime activist, who on a journalistic assignment to interview prison inmates meets the man who would become both her husband and the father of her child. Rashid appears to be nothing less than her soulmate, and in the constant planning for their future life together--with their baby, ... Read More
Rating:  - This book is the reason ...
why I love to read. I am glad to report that this is the first book of 2009 that I read and I read it in two hours. It is of elegant prose and beautiful but haunting story of a single mother reflecting on how she got to this point of her journey.
I am not an African woman nor am I a single mother, but even so, I am haunted by Bandele's story. I relate to her struggles as a mother simply because I am a mother, though of different circumstances. What we share together is our love for our children, ... Read More
Rating: - Lovely memoir.
This was a strong, honest memoir, where the author (Asha Bandele) pulls no punches. She writes about her poor relationship choices, her depression, abuse, prison, but most of all about her daughter, for whom she pulls herself out of her depression and seeks to improve their circumstances. The only reason I give this book four stars instead of five was that at times her stream-of-consciousness style felt slightly jerky to me, and I felt that a few things could've been fleshed out better. But overall I was highly ... Read More
Rating: - Up Close and Personal with asha bandele
asha bandele has given readers another wonderful book with Something Beautiful but be forewarned. Something Beautiful is a raw and up-close-and-personal look at bandele's life as the wife of a prisoner and a married yet `single mother.' She told her story very matter-of-factly, and with honestly that might make some flinch and others wonder `how could she be so open.' On the surface, she appeared to be very naïve and almost too casual regarding her affairs. Most of the time, the book while lyrically written, ... Read More
Rating: - The Struggles Of A Single Mother
asha bandele allows readers to enter into her world of being a single mother. Readers first introduced to bandele in The Prisoner's Wife. She met and feel in love with a prisoner who was serving a life sentence. However, holding on the faith that sice he was a model inmate, he would be released and they would live happily ever after. Real life is not all the simple. bandele's life was shattered when he was denied parole and he was deported to his native country. bandele had to face realization that she had to ... Read More
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