People Who Love Good Books Review

          Title: A Woman’s Worth

          Author:  Tracy Price Thompson

          Publisher:  One-World/Ballantine Books

Release:  March 2004

288 pages

          Reviewer: Idrissa Uqdah

          October 2004

Being a Tracey Thompson fan since reading Chocolate Sangria, her sophomore novel; I was poised for a good read when her latest novel, A Woman’s Worth was released.   I was not disappointed at all.

A Woman’s Worth is an interesting and somewhat complicated novel that weaves a story that you do not expect.  The characters are well developed and intimate.  The settings are vividly set and you have no trouble falling in love with this book. The reader travels from the deep and dirty South of Alabama to the African country of Kenya.   I give Tracy an A-plus for literary style. 

Bishop Johnson is a man with a past.  He falls in love with Abeni Omorru, a beautiful and intelligent Kenyan woman who has a past that pretty much matches his.  Having grown up living abroad and exposed to a non-African world; she finds her African heritage somewhat of a burden as she remembers a childhood of tragic proportions.  As the two main characters; Bishop and Abeni are interesting enough to make you want to know more.  Both are tortured souls who find an attraction to one another that they cannot deny.

The supporting characters too, hold their own; Abeni’s African parents, Bishops parents and his adoptive family.  Thompson tells a really good story about murder, violence, drugs and prostitution that also convey the struggling human spirit.  The dialogue was crisp and the story kept me interested long after I closed the book.  A Woman’s Worth is a lovely and haunting love story from many angles.  The men in the book seemed to really love and appreciate the worth of a woman in their relationships.  It was good to read a book where men and women showed some love for one another. The story also shows the cultural differences between AfricanAmericans and Africans. The ending will surprise you, though.

I rate A Woman’s Worth a five star, must read selection.  It was entertaining and well written.  This novel moved me as an African-American woman because of the positive light that a woman’s worth was defined.