Is my time back to read something else

Ok, so Moore Campbell's What you Owe Me...

So, Hosanna (a black woman) and Gilda (a Holocaust survivor) meet in an LA hotel where they're both maids. Hosanna's suprised to see a white woman with troubles similair to her own (such as thee fact that Hosanna's family's land in Texas was taken by some white guys in a fairly sketchy way. They have the deed and proof that the land is rightfully theirs, but can't get it back. Gilda has the bankbook for her family's Swiss Bank Account, but the authorities won't let her get the money that her murdered parents set aside when they saw the writing on the wall)... they start a cosmetics company together and then one day, poof! Gilda and the money are gone. Hosanna is bitter bitter bitter (understandably) then Gilda reappears with her own costmetics company that is much more successful than Hosanna's. Hosanna is bitter bitter bitter (understandably) and passes this bitterness onto her children, mainly Matriece, who wants to own her own cosmetics empire one day and forsakes everything else for this dream and ends up working for Gilda bum bum bum! Which sets the stage for "a tale of classic revenge"


But instead of "classic revenge" you just really get shallow characters not learning anything and bumbling along and knifing each other in the back haphazardly and it magically turns out all right in the end. Ugh.

I did not enjoy it. I don't think the characters learned much. Well, maybe the *dead* ones did, but fat lot of good that does 'em.

It also really rubbed me the wrong way. I felt like the message of the book was "All a white person wants to do is screw over the black man, and Jews are the worst of all".

I also got the feeling that the book was trying to say that black people have suffered more than Jewish people, but the Jewish people get all the "credit". Maybe in the US, but there's a broader picture here.

I think it might have tried to tackle issues that were bigger than it and then didn't fully address them.

On the other hand, it's a little over 500 pages and many of the reviews on Amazon (both published and reader-generated) have comments in the vein of "don't let the length scare you!". It's a little over 500 pages in mass market paperback. Maybe I'm not the intended audience.

A more detailed review. (Warning! I will give away the ending here!)