Rating: 
Summary: A Very Touching, Moving, REAL Love Story
Review: I have never read a book that so moved me to tears. Ms. Bandele has taken her life experience and weaved it beautifully, honestly and lyrically into a story that will touch anyone who reads it. If you have ever loved a prisoner, or ever been the wife a prisoner - this book will touch so many areas of you the you will be left with an empty box of Kleenex. If you have never loved a prisoner, her story will prove to you that love comes in all forms and you never know where you will be when it enters your life. From the wife of a prisoner (in New York State, also) - Thank you Asha - you have helped me start the process of healing so many wounds.
Rating: 
Summary: thank you
Review: This is less a commentary about the book than it is a a very sincere (albeit stream of consciouness) thank you to all the women and men who have read the book and found the time to reach out to me and say that the story helped them, acknowledged in some useful way, their struggles, made them feel less isolated, less crazy. Your kind words, your outreach in turn, validated me / my story / my way of telling my story. I want to say that I was so scared to tell the story the way I told it and that anxiety disrupted what should have been my joy at having it published. but as people began to tell me what I had to say was something of importance in the world, slowly my anxiety is beginning to fall away. Thank you for that. Thank you for reminding me, as Audre Lorde said, that "when we speak we are afraid / our words will not be heard / nor welcomed / but when we are silent / we are still afraid / so it is better to speak / remembering / we were never meant to survive I did a series of writing workshops in a high school, the theme of which was "writing ourselves into existence." We looked at many things including why many of us chose silence over speaking, and later, one student said to my friend (the teacher/facilitator) that in her house she had been told to shut up so many times, she just did it automatically now. I want to say to that young woman, and to the piece of her who lives inside all of us, that we have the ability to build a new house where voices can be heard, respected, challenged, and learned from. And I say this even as I know that we may not be sure of our individual skills, or energy levels, or available time. But Franz Fanon said that when we use language "we bear the responsiblity of a civilization". And so collectively we must cobble together what we do have in order to manifest a civilization which is not twisted, truncated, as this one is, by greed and shortsidedness and violence. If in some way this book encourages other books, better books, better ideas, a useful dialogue, i will feel that it did it's work. Asante sana (thanks very much) for everyone who reads, thinks, speaks, struggles.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful and thought-provoking.
Review: This book really blew me away. bandele's gift for language is as apparent here as it is in her earlier book of poems; her language is rich, evocative and beautiful. But what's really remarkable about this book is bandele's story: how she fell in love with Rashid, what it is like to be married to a prisoner, the impossibly difficult task of creating love and trust behind prison walls. As the book says, this is a love story -- but it's a love story unlike any other I've ever read. bandele makes the old slogan, "the personal is political," come alive: now that I've read this memoir, I can't stop thinking about people in prison, what their lives are like, how they are dehumanized. This is worth reading again and again.
Rating:
Summary: a remarkable book
Review: this poetess has done it once again by capturing the audience with her unigue gift for storytelling. This books welcomes you into a world most people never experience-the world of being in love with a prisoner. Asha makes this relationship beautiful, even through the constant scrutiny of correctional officers and sometimes her own peers....buy this book, if you choose only one book to read this month, make it THE PRISONERS WIFE, well done asha.
Rating:
Summary: The Prisoner's Wife
Review: Bandele's creative voice reverberates in my mind. She is the quintessential lover, sparkling, faceted; she emerges from the pages of "The Prisoner's Wife" as an emotional heroine. Her relationship with Rashid reveals a heart strong enough and brave enough to stand on the surface of the Sun without melting. Bandele's capacity to love is her protective covering. The garment of love enables her to traverse love's dangerous places unscathed. She is a woman schooled inherently by dictates of a love that is unfailing. Bandele is the clean breath of a heart unblemished by life's challenges. Reading her books, "Daughter" is her latest novel, is to share her journey; sharing her journey helps one appreciate the complexity and grandeur of loving steadfastly and bravely. Bandele taps into her reader's feelings with the free expression of he own feelings.
Rating:
Summary: This book read my heart, my soul was there in it'zs pages
Review: I just finished "The Prisoner's Wife", my tears have not yet dried. I felt immediately compelled to search the internet for an address to write to Ms. Bandele, and that brought me here. Now i am compelled to add my voice to the others who understand and were touched by her words, but more her feelings...emotions...the core of her. I too love a man in prison, but he is in prison for life. I pray for Asha and Rashid, that they will someday know total bliss and completetion of soul everyday, all day, rather than for small inadequate moments of time. I pray it for myself as well. I feel her pain because i live it, and i have just begun. The most important thing for me to say is this; Thank You Asha, for giving my pain a voice in the world, and for helping me to feel just a little less alone. ** a sister of the heart.... "this is a love story"
Rating: 
Summary: Whose chains were they?
Review: The visuals Asha Bandele describes on page 39 of her book
"I see our love in pastels bordered with brash dark oils" for me became a metaphor of her emotional life, for herself, and for their future. It evokes an image of a prison; joyful affect imprisoned, a stifling imprisonment of herself, her growth, and her creativity. His prison is actually hers, his prison is a metaphor for her own.
Admittedly I approached reading this book with the usual/typical stereotypes about prison inmates. Despite the fact that I have had an 11 year correspondence along with a whole internet connected community with a brother imprisoned in France, Barry Braimah...share in my husband's friendship with a man who served 5 years and a beginning collegial friendship (and very cautious) with a brother recently released who was serving time for murder. Based on my own limited experience with people who hae served time, despite their good and humane qualities ...the stereotypes exist because there is some truth to them. I cannot say Rashid is any different. From the beginning I questioned her motives and her sanity..afterall what personal limitations did she have that a severely truncated relationship/romance was so tempting? ..and likewise questioned his motives. Part of me wondered if this whole "romance" was a manipulation on his part, an event which served his purpose too, to bolster the appeal process for him? Did he really love her? And was his love as unselfish as she would make it seem?
It took awhile to "suspend judgement" and just take in what she wanted to say. It is her love story and I don't doubt that for her this was a truly meaningful and impactful experience. It just not one that I would want to aspire to. Later on page 89 she talks about "the part of her that wants to make what is ugly somehow beautiful." Truthfully, there is a part of me that wonders "Is she doing that now?" Fortunately she does face, acknowledge and does come to grips with those aspects of the relationship that is less than wonderful.
After reading the entire book I saw how his chains, his imprisonment served a purpose for her. Asha, as a sexual abuse victim, being in a relationship with a man that was not sexualized gave her the emotional and psychological space to effect a healing of sorts; that and having some basic human needs met; i.e., to be heard, listened to, accepted and understood. What else did he have time to do? Prisoners are pretty desperate for human contact and connection...and he certainly was in no posiion to be judgemental. It's too bad that she did not find that kind of attentive caring with a healthy and whole person on the outside...and we really don't know how she has really fared. She is healing but has she really healed?
She appears to be healthier and to have moved forward from her own abusive past. This is evidenced by her growth in many areas outside of the personal intimacy arena. It also makes sense that with this new growth that she would desire a more fuller emotional and fully present intimate experience as suggested by the letter at the end of the book. Are they still together and are they still married?
Another reviewer wrote "You wonder if he ever got out [of prison], by the end of the book you wonder did she get out?"
Rating: 
Summary: Should have been a magazine article, not an entire book
Review: I listened to the audiobook of this. If I had had to actually read the book, I probably would have skimmed it or skipped over large parts of it. Why? Because it was extremely repetitive, beginning with the first few lines, and keeping up that repetitiveness throughout. The author has a definite gift for the English language, but despite her talent and the promising subject matter, I quickly grew weary of the author going on and on and on about the same few subjects, ad nauseum, and I'm sorry to say that I was relieved when the book was over. I really believe this book should have been a magazine article instead, resulting in the meat and emotion of the story, but without the repetition.
It was good that this book dealt with a subject I haven't heard much about (women involved with prisoners), but I felt the author seemed a bit self-absorbed (especially where she slept with other men and then told Rashid about it), and didn't seem to have learned much from her problems, many of which she brought on herself. I am curious to see if her relationship with Rashid will last beyond his being released from prison, because it seems like she became involved with him as impulsively as she seemed to have done almost everything else in her life (according to her own account of her life).
Rating: 
Summary: A different kind of love story
Review: I really wanted to love this book. I enjoyed her writing style and was pulled in by her unique and deeply honest experience, however, it got repetitive. I think it would make a great movie.
Rating:
Summary: What a love story
Review: I recommend this book - I enjoyed reading this love story mostly because it wasn't typical
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