Successful Women Think Differently: 9 Habits to Make You Happier, Healthier & More Resilient by Valorie Burton / 199 pages. Read in 15 days

This book is not only a quick read but also a smart read. In this book, you can learn more about yourself as a woman. The chapters in this book were actually labeled as habits. Clever idea by the author! In the introduction, you can find a comparison chart titled “Successful Women verses Unsuccessful Women” and what to expect from the stories you will read in the book. Those stories will come from women who have been in situations every other woman have found themselves stuck in when it comes to finding happiness and success. The most surprising thing is that these women express their happiness for where their life is currently. Next you will find a chapter titled “Seven Key Decisions” that women should apply to their thinking while reading this book. Outside of the introduction and conclusion, you will find nine habits that will divulge into your psyche and take your thinking to another level. You can find habits’ teaching women how to believe in themselves, get off the hedonic treadmill, letting go of fixing your weaknesses, preparing for life battles, toning down your overabundance of wanting it all right away, and how to collaborate as a successful woman. This book also includes a few bible quotes that can help to strengthen your spiritual thinking as well. At the end of the book you can also find a coaching guide that gives 8 tips on how to become healthier and happier than you have ever been.

Game Over by Winter Ramos / 248 pages. Read in 36 days via Nook

This book can be considered a “tell-all” like every other girl’s book in the world of love and hip hop but it wasn't  It was a story that kept getting interesting by the sections. The way Winter decided to tell her story was not by blasting those she slept with in the industry but more by telling how she honestly met these hip-hop moguls and became a natural breed of the hip-hop game. At the age of 16, Winter was a former house member of the now infamous “JR Mafia House” a place where you can see upcoming artist just hanging out on a daily basis. This house was located on Atlantic and Saint James in the heart of Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, NY and it became a very popular for some of the most famous artists like “Biggie, Lil Kim, Faith Evans, Foxy Brown, and Lil Cease”. Winter started off with trips and how she met so many people. Early in the book she revealed her true love for a local guy from around her way name Smiley. Smiley gave her the world and she looked forward to everything he did for her because she never loved anyone else like him. When she lost him, her world and meaning behind love became cold, like her name WINTER. As expressed through many chapters in the book, Winter never set out to date and love every person she met in the entertainment industry. However she did what most women do when the opportunity arises, she slept with them but after loosing Smiley, she was not into finding love during most of these sexcapades. Although she became well known throughout the hip-hop industry and have admitted to sleeping with Swizz Beats, Young Berg, Damon Dash, Rafer Alston, Ja Rule, Slim Thug, Jadakiss, Dorrell Wright, and more…she made it clear that she did not sleep with everyone that crossed her path. She even revealed how there was a time when Jay Z was interested in her but she chose Damon over him and admitted in her book that she always felt like she chose the wrong one and she could have been “The Beyonce” in Jay’s life now.

Besides spilling the juice on her personal relationships, Winter also went into details explaining how rocky her business relationship was with the rapper Fabulous. She revealed things from how he only paid her 300.00 a week, even when his career skyrocketed to the highest it had ever been to how she walked out on him during a video shoot due to some disagreement about him not bringing a change of clothes which ended their business relationship. The book ended with the details of her shaky relationship with Jadakiss and how he was not in support of her doing Love and Hip-Hop.

This book may be pegged as the next “tell-all” of a vixen but the difference is Winter had a real styling career and has been able to maintain that today. You can find her now working with on movie sets as a stylist. Her story will change your mind about her intentions for sure!

Real Wifeys: On the Grind by Meesha Mink / 257 pages. Read in 30 days

Kaeyla Dennis was born into poverty. All her life she dealt with being broke, wearing raggedy clothes and being the laughing stock at her school. When her mother left her with her grandmother, Mama Bit, life was far better than it was before but she still found herself to be poor, hungry, wearing old/torn clothes and shoes. There were times when she would have to avoid going to school by playing sick because of being teased or running into girls that talked about her at the bust stop in fear of her life. So the day she met Damion “Dyme” Gunners, 23 years her senior, her life changed and her name too. She became Goldie to him and many others for her gold highlights and eyes. Dyme became her world and for six years he laced her with everything she never believed she would have, including a car, clothes, jewels and a rent-free apartment in the same projects as Mama Bit’s. Mama Bit has been pissed when she first learned of the idea but now that she has passed on, Kaeyla somehow still feels that she disappointed her grandmother by sleeping with a married man and dropping out of school. Although Goldie dropped out of school, she still feels that she is doing way better than most 22 year olds. Through the six years she has been with Dyme, he has always promised Goldie that he would leave his wife and marry her and she believed this story for as long as she could until Dyme’s wife rolled up to her crib to prove otherwise. Dyme had just got finished proposing to Goldie and while they were in the middle of their love making session in her apartment, his wife Freida was honking the horn & screaming her husband’s name downstairs putting on a show in the middle of the winter in front of everyone in Goldie’s projects. With the snow on the ground, it did not stop Goldie from going out there with no shoes on to show her new engagement ring off. She thought finally this is the time to show Freida that Dyme is now her fiancé! Goldie figured just as Dyme was serious about saying he was leaving his wife for good this time, Goldie was serious too about making sure it happened with showing proof of her engagement ring. However, things took a turn when Dyme played the victim and decided to take his wife’s side and deny everything they had been through in the past few minutes to six years, the engagement, two abortions, etc… Goldie was pissed and decided to charged Dyme from the back, he immediately threw her off his back and she fell into the snow for everyone to see and laugh at while Dyme walked away with his wife.

After a few weeks of depression, Goldie decided to hustle at whatever she could. She became the “go-to” girl for movies, clothes, purses, CD’s, everything you can name. That lasted until a bad deal caused her partner to get arrested. Back at square one with all her money in the recent deal gone, she had to find yet another solution because she was determined not to go back to Dyme. She managed to do a few odd jobs but nothing lasted. Goldie eventually became successful again with starting a stripping business but things got even better for her when she was given the opportunity to take a few of her high end strippers on tour with her to do open acts for the rapper, Make$. But this too was over before it really got started and Goldie was violated but like all abused women, she still came out on top living in a high rise apartment in a new city. This book is one story you will always remember!

Ask Wendy by Wendy Williams / 287 pages.

Wendy Williams is a woman who holds nothing back! She speaks what she feels and she feels what she speaks! She is admired by many and hated by a few! Regardless she gives her fans what they look for on her daily talk show called “The Wendy Williams Show”. What her fans love the most are her true answers that are valued by her guests. Wendy can be asked anything and she will give it to you straight with no chaser. In this book, she enjoys answering her fans questions. Since there is no time limit on how much can be said in a few minutes, she takes time to allow her fans to ask just about anything! This book has been dubbed as a place where “No question is off-limits and no situation is too outrageous for her to take on”. Although some advice can he hard for those asking the questions to hear, she tells it to them the realest way she can without hurting their feelings. Wendy wanted to create something that could give her fans and readers advice to cover any dramatic situation everyone goes through. For example, some questions asked in the book are: “My husband is always commenting on how hot the babysitter is. Should I be worried?” or “Should You Forgive A Cheater?” Each chapter begins with Wendy’s personal story behind the chapter title. Each chapter includes the following but in different orders, following Wendy’s personal story, then it goes into a few questions from the fans with similar situations, the “Hot Topic” section where you can review other questions asked on the show; a “How You Doin” Quiz to help you remember points from that particular chapter and the answers to the quiz and an explanation for each answer. Lastly, there is “On No, He Didn’t” or a “Oh No, She Didn’t section and Wendy’s Final Word to make sure her audience and readers are understanding everything they could about that particular question and chapter.

This book has 13 chapters and a heartwarming conclusion to her readers. Her Chapter Titles vary from “Girlfriend/Kid/Family/Work Drama, Mama Drama to Between the Sheets Drama”. In her conclusion she explains that if everyone who reads her book does not agree with her, then don’t hate her because of that, she is simply just a woman from New Jersey who is not perfect. This book is good for anyone looking for answers to a lot of life questions!

Harlem On Lock by Karen Williams / 249 pages. Read in 48 days

This book was the best of the year thus far. Karen Williams knew what she was doing when she created yet another good read. The book was one that took days to read over and over because it was too graphic to be a quick read. There were days when the graphics was too real that a break was needed. This book introduces Harlem, a young 17 year old beauty who knows nothing but hard times. From the day she was born in Harlem New York her luck was shot. Things really got rough when she moved three days after she was born to California. She had no idea what her life was up against. From the moment they settled outside of Los Angeles in the projects, the drama began. Her mom Aja was a very talented jazz singer but her addiction to heroin won her life over. Her dad Earl wasn't any better. Their addiction has put Harlem in the hot seat many days and she was left to fend for herself. There were times when she would be forced to use her hands to please her landlord to keep them from getting kicked out. She even had to strip to pay back her parents debts to local dealers. Once her mother was lost her battle to heroin, her father took things to another level by raping her, then pinning her down to a bed for weeks while he charged the local’s to come in and have their way with her. This went on until the head honcho in the drug world, named Chief found out and took Harlem in for herself as his main boo. He started out showing that he wanted the best for her but eventually, power and drugs got the best of him and he begin to also take advantage and embarrass Harlem in front of everyone he knew. Chief tried his hardest to ruin Harlem and give her more hell than she was born into with her own parents. This lasted for years until Harlem finally stood up to Chief and made him pay for the misery with his life. In the end, Harlem walked away with her true love and learning about her real father.

Harlem On Lock was definitely a fulfilling read and worth taking the time to read!