What you Owe Me full review/ rant
Gilda didn't really steal the money. Her husband did. He also beat her. Yet, no one cares. Gilda still gets screwed in the end. She admits that although she tried to find Hosanna and make things right she didn't look hard enough because she couldn't be successful if her business partner was a black woman (it's 1950 this is *true* sad, but true) and she had suffered enough in her life (she's a survivor!) But oh! she didn't want to find Hosanna! So she's a bad bad bad dirty Jew.
No one really cares that on the last page Hosanna admits that she never confronted Gilda because it was easier to be angry and bitter and ruining her children's lives than to get the truth and work things out.
Also, no one seems to care that NONE of these women has any agency whatsoever, except Gilda.
Matriece wants to confront Gilda on her own terms. She starts sensing that maybe there's more to the story than her mother's side allowed. But NO! She's staling! Here come the old boy triumvirate of Meeks, Monty, and Mooney (her old boss, her boyfriend's father, her godfather/her mother's lover. Also the 3 richest/most powerful black men in LA) to do it on their terms. Matriece is just taken along for the ride. The fact that she gets anything out of it is a personal curtesy.
Why does no one think that the person who most deserves to have the contract that proves Gilda owes Hosanna money is Hosanna's daughter?
But really, this book borders on anti-semitic. Poor Matriece. Her momma was poor because of this Jew. She's had a hard life and worked really hard to get where she is, running this random meeting and here's Rachel! Gilda's daughter playing with her diamond-encrusted Star of David at a meeting she doesn't want to be at but it's mom's company so she has a job she doesn't have to do anything for... page after page after page of this.
But really, no one learns anything about themselves in the end.
The characters are really underdeveloped. Most of them are just flat.
I only finished it because a friend lent it to me.
No one really cares that on the last page Hosanna admits that she never confronted Gilda because it was easier to be angry and bitter and ruining her children's lives than to get the truth and work things out.
Also, no one seems to care that NONE of these women has any agency whatsoever, except Gilda.
Matriece wants to confront Gilda on her own terms. She starts sensing that maybe there's more to the story than her mother's side allowed. But NO! She's staling! Here come the old boy triumvirate of Meeks, Monty, and Mooney (her old boss, her boyfriend's father, her godfather/her mother's lover. Also the 3 richest/most powerful black men in LA) to do it on their terms. Matriece is just taken along for the ride. The fact that she gets anything out of it is a personal curtesy.
Why does no one think that the person who most deserves to have the contract that proves Gilda owes Hosanna money is Hosanna's daughter?
But really, this book borders on anti-semitic. Poor Matriece. Her momma was poor because of this Jew. She's had a hard life and worked really hard to get where she is, running this random meeting and here's Rachel! Gilda's daughter playing with her diamond-encrusted Star of David at a meeting she doesn't want to be at but it's mom's company so she has a job she doesn't have to do anything for... page after page after page of this.
But really, no one learns anything about themselves in the end.
The characters are really underdeveloped. Most of them are just flat.
I only finished it because a friend lent it to me.
posted by Jennie at 8:28 AM
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