Queen Pin BOOK REVIEW AND GIVEAWAY {CLOSED}

Title:  Queen Pin
Author:  Jemeker Thompson-Hairston, David Ritz, Geoff Martin
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing, a division of Hachette Books
Publish Date;  6/22/2010
Paperback, 224 pages
ISBN: 9780446542883

From the publisher's website:

Jemeker Thompson-Hairston paid a heavy price for her involvement in the drug game. Learning from her sources of a federal investigation, Jemeker went on the run. It was love for her young son that brought her back to Los Angeles, even though she knew she would be arrested. A subsequent 12-year sentence would cost her not only her legitimate business and the fortune she'd amassed through the drug trade, but the most precious thing of all: time with her child. But not all was lost. Fortunately, while Thompson-Hairston was serving out her sentence, one pivotal moment helped her turn her life around, setting her on a path to help and inspire others like her.

My Take:   It's always been interesting to me to see how people choose to live their lives and to figure out what makes people take a certain path.

This book attempts to describe the life of someone who finds herself drawn into the world of drugs and money.  NOT because she had no other choice, but because she was vain and money-hungry, really.

I felt no sympathy at all for her - she chose to live a certain life, and even when that voice inside was telling her to quit, she kept doing it.  And she paid a heavy price for it. losing the rest of her son's growing up years in prison.

Although this seems as though it could have been a great memoir, it was all surface to me. There was not enough detail to make anyone seem drawn to life, even though it is an autobiography.  The writing was rather detached and clinical, and, as such, I felt as though I were reading a newspaper account.  There is no real lesson in the book either.  No real moralizing on how wrong the path taken was, no real true-blue shaking of the faith, either. For me, this was a dry, rather lackluster account of snippets of someone's life that somehow didn't seem very cohesive or tied together.

A friend of mine, on the other hand, LOVED this book and blew through it, giving it back to me the day after I gave it to her.

This is why I say that my rating system is based on my OWN enjoyment of a book.  What's good for one may not be as good for the next reader.  Maybe it's because most memoirs (with exceptions, most notably "All Souls") all feel to me as though the person narrating is not actually the person who lived that life (in this case, with ghost writers, it's true).

You can read a bit for yourself:

QUOTES:

Soon as it was over, Muh'Dear pulled me aside.  "Don't you ever speak out against family, Meechee."  She looked me in my eyes and said, "Friends come and go but your family is forever, You don't go against your family, no matter what."                


"Remember me?" I asked, tapping her on the shoulder.  From the look on her face, I didn't think she did. But it didn't matter.  I knew who she was and as I threw the first punch I let her know who I was.   I was Daff's wife.


I could and would be the queen of anything I set my mind to.

Book Rating:  3 out of 5 stars

About the author

BUY IT:  From the publisher's website, through Amazon, and at other on and offline booksellers.

WIN IT:  Thanks to Anna at Hachette, I have up to 3 copies to give to you, my loyal readers! 

Note that I said UP to 3 books?  For every 15 unique entrants, I will add one book to the giveaway.   That means that in order to giveaway 3 books, I will need 45 unique entrants!

MANDATORY ENTRY:  Help me like memoirs more!  Have you read one that you really really liked?  What was it and what was it about?

IMPORTANT NOTE:  If you have already received this title for review from Hachette or already won a copy, per their review/giveaway guidelines, please do not enter this giveaway!!!

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ALL ENTRIES:  Please leave your email in your comments: Like this: imacrazedmommy at whydidihavekids dot com OR like this imacrazedmommy(at)whydidihavekids(dot)com to avoid the spam bots.  If I can't reach you, you can't win!

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Eligibility: US and Canada, 18 and older.  These books will ship directly from the publisher, so no P.O. Boxes, please!

End date:  September 12, 2010 at 11:59 PM EST

I will pick the winner(s) using Random.org.  I will post the winner(s) on the site AND send an email to the email address used to enter.  The winner will then have 48 hours to reply with their mailing information; otherwise, a new winner will be picked.  The email will be easy to spot; the subject line will begin "You WON on Knitting and Sundries"

Disclosure:  I received a complimentary copy of this title from Hachette to objectively review.  No other form of compensation was received for this post, and I am not required to post a positive review.