Hood Life: A Bentley Manor Tale

The Hood Life....So True!

This was a great book! It is a great sequel to Desparate Hoodwives and Shameless Hoodwives. The pimp...he was someone serious! He had the life that just about any man would want the money, cars , houses, and all the sex that his heart desires. In the end though it falls true that everything that glitters isn't gold and you could lose it all in the blink of an eye. He lost everyone that he loved in the end and came face to face with his brother's killer in the end. The playa...always the pretty boy who thinks that he can pull any woman that he wants and control her every thought and feelings with his sex tool. After he killed a guy that was beefing with him over his girlfriend, "Big Butt Belinda", he convinces his girlfriend to take the rap for him in exchange for him marry her when she got out, but when he falls short on the deal after she gets locked up, she ends up telling the truth about the whole matter and he gets what he deserves in the end after he gets locked up for the crime...literally! The dealer...he was like any ordinary dealer wanted the fast money and the good life, but when he runs across his first true love his whole world turns around when he finds out that he has a son by her. He ends up taking a DNA test to make sure that the kid is his and when he finds out all he wants to do is get out of the game. His friend, Usher, has other plans for him though and tries to kill him and take over his spot as the king of the streets. He ends up getting killed before he can do that by Suga and Spyce, who in turns ends up getting killed themselves. In the end he ends up with his one true love and the family that he truly longs for. The killer...after he is released he tries to do right by his life and leave the lifestyle that he once knew behind him, but sometimes it is really hard. When one of his old friends show up one day and offer him a job so that he can take care of his soon to be family things turn ugly when he finds out that his so-called friend "took care" of his girl while he was locked up. When he kills him for the betrayal that he felt it is his first taste of the lifestyle he was so wanting to let go, but when he gets an offer that he can't refuse, one that will set him straight to be the man that he wants to be for his girl Zoey, he doesn't know it will be last time that he sees her and the light of day! This is a must read!

3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

Wow!!!! A must read....

I really enjoyed this book ... I just hope that there will be a sequel!! My felliw readers, please read....u won't put it down......

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Great book

Glad they told a story from the mans view.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

The return to THE HOOD brings out the worst and best of Atlanta with an overarching message of hope

The Hood Life
Meesha Mink and De¿nesha Diamond
Tochstone, Jan 2009
ISBN: 1416577092

Cleo and Ophelia have lived in the hood, the Bentley Manor Housing Project in Georgia for over four decades. They know there are many good residents trying to make an honest dollar and there are criminals who seek easy cash. The pair watches the neighborhood activities and at times intervenes.

Tavon "Sweet" Johnson is an amoral upscale pimp who has escaped the hood by selling sex at his clubs and at hi crib. However his idyll affluent life is shook to the core when a former girlfriend dumps at his mother¿s house a fifteen year old girl that she insists is his daughter. Sweet takes his offspring to his mansion where his wife Renee makes it clear the teen is unwanted.

Demarcus has just gotten out of prison and is haunted by his crime and needing to adhere to the Koran wants to go straight, but no one wants anything to do with an ex-con. With his girlfriend Zoey pregnant, he is offered a job that will take them out of the hood if he is not caught.

Kaseem runs drugs in the hood, but when his crackhead former girlfriend gives him his infant son to raise, he wants out of trafficking and Bentley Manor. A betrayal by his best friend forces him to react in a way that if caught he will spend his life behind bars.

Rhakmon is the smoothest playa in the hood. He can sell anything especially himself to any woman. When he kills someone he promises his girlfriend, Shaterica they will marry if she confesses to having committed the homicide. She does time while he does other women. Cleo and Ophelia deploy to clean up this scenario.

Living in the hood is not easy, but people have choices although sometimes the options are painful. The men select crime to include murder, pimping, drug peddling and more until revelations (mostly the next generation) makes each of them reconsider what they have done as others pay the price for their folly. As with DESPERATE HOODWIVES and SHAMELESS HOODWIVES, the return to THE HOOD brings out the worst and best of Atlanta with an overarching message of hope.

Harriet Klausner

1 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

Drama drama drama

! I liked this book . It was from a mans point of view . . Had a shocking ending. Did not know it was going end that way...

Love this book

This was a real page turner.

Loved it

I've been an avid reader of the Bentley Manor tales, and i love the drama that goes on with all of it, because it is a page turner, who wants a boring novel. But anyways, the characters were something else, I believe they all got what was deserved, but i am glad the Hustler survived along with his girl; and also glad the player got what he deserved. I felt bad for the pimp, becasue he obviosly had problems and the killer, I was actually rooting for him to stay on the str8 and narrow, but he got what he deserved as well. all in all it was a great book, and will be passing it along to friends and family

One of our Favorites

WE really enjoyed this book... It so happened I bought one and sent one to my husband over seas and we read it at the same time... It has a good story line and keeps you reading until the end.... Now even though the characters do have a lot going on, it makes the book really interesting... good work ladies!

It Was Ok

This was a pretty ok book, but I'm getting tired of all the different characters. Just too many to keep up with. Maybe I'm slow. I don't know. It took me longer than I wanted to read it too which meant it wasn't that much of a page turner, but it still was a decent read. I must admit, all of the main characters endings were not to my liking, but that still makes for a good book. I don't think this is the last of Bentley Manor.

Good book

Out of the all three books, this is the best. I enjoyed how the others sucked you into learning about Bentley manor, and somehow this book was written in the same fashion, but it had love in it, not just a bunch of ghetto-thug scandolous characters. I read it in a few days, and I was expecting the same ol, same ol "Bentley Manor tale", so I took my time. But as the book ended it was something I was once again sucked into and loved. I would recommend this book.

IF THE WALLS COULD TALK BENTLEY MANOR

The games that are played with peoples lives and emotions is unreal as well as the out come.

Good Plot

I liked how the author wrote a story on the men of the first two books that was very creative, although I just could not get into this book like the last two that I could not put down.

The Hood Life is All We Know

There is nothing as interesting as other people¿s lives, especially when it¿s filled with drama. And drama best describes Bentley Manor. In this Bentley Manor edition, the lives of four males are chronicled.

Pimping came naturally to Tavon ¿Sweet Diamondtrim¿ Johnson. Can the same be said for his parenting skills when he learns he has a teenage daughter?

Kaseem became the man after his best friend, Maleek (DESPERATE HOODWIVES), caught a federal bid. Is Kaseem built for the treachery and violence that comes with drug dealing?

With his gray eyes, good hair, rip body and big¿shut yo¿ mouth¿Rhakmon can talk any female out of her panties and her wallet. But when what goes around comes around, can Rhakmon handle it?

Demarcus ¿Killer¿ Jones did the crime and did the time. Home after ten years, he¿s a changed man. Or is he?

An ambitious project (a three-book series), this third book was the weakest. The drama was definitely there, but at times THE HOOD LIFE seems to be overreaching ¿ as if to live up to its title. That¿s not to say THE HOOD LIFE is not worth reading. There is a solid story, good pacing, melodrama, and a few twists. THE HOOD LIFE won¿t take your breath away, but it will take you on an interesting ride.

Reviewed by: Toni

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