Trilogy of My life...

I have always loved to read. I have loved books since I learned to read. Reading allows me to be completely immersed in another world. When I am reading, I imagine the setting, the characters and the things they say and do. It is my favorite thing to do outside of writing. I will never forget a particular series of book that I read some years ago. I have actually read it again and listened to it on audiobook. It is a set of three books. The first one is God Don't Like Ugly. The second book is God STILL Don't Like Ugly. The last book is God Don't Play. The series focuses on a little black girl. The reader follows her through life across the three novels. The girl ends up fatherless and being raised by a struggling single mother. This is the first thing i can relate to here: being a struggling single mother. The father leaves the family because he falls in love with a white woman. Her race important because this was during the time that interracial couples were taboo, even outlawed in some places. The father is the breadwinner for the family. They were already poor with him working, so when he left, things got worse very fast.

Fast forward a little bit, the mother decides to move them to another state. Mom has a friend that has invited them. We are introduced to a black prostitute called Scary Mary. Scary Mary owns a boarding house in addition to being a lady of the night. Mom gets a job cleaning white people's home. Daughter stays at Scary Mary's house when she isn't at school and Mary doesn't have a client. Nothing too out of the ordinary about this story so far. As I was reading the first time, I imagined the series would be about the girl and her mom rising up from the ground and living happily ever after, you know, the usual story of resilience and such.

Scary Mary gets a new boarder. This border is a well-known member of the local society. He is an older gentleman named Mr. Boatwright. He seems nice and helpful, and a God-fearing man. Looks can be deceiving. He molests the young daughter. In typical predator fashion, he threatens her life and makes her believe that it is her fault and that if the molestation comes out, she will be the one in trouble. The molestations continue and increase in frequency. She is molested into her teenage years. One day, daughter meets a girl named Jade. They would become best friends. After some time, daughter tells Jade about the abuse she suffers at the hands of old Mr. Boatwright. Jade decides this is unacceptable. During a visit to the house with daughter, Jade smothers Mr. Boatwright while he is sleeping. The abuse ends. Mr. Boatwright's death is ruled a heart attack due to old age.

I took many things away from this series. I took quite a few things from this first novel that I just described. I was able to relate to the single mom struggle as an older adult. I also learned that I am not the only person in the world that has experienced childhood assault. I learned that by saying something, things would change. Silence is not always golden. For some, silence is suffering. I did say something! I am now a mother of two girls. I will scorch the Earth and rain down fire from the sky if I found out that something had happened to my girls. The more you know...