Flesh and the Devil

Rating:
Summary: KOLA BOOF IS MAGICAL!
Review: AS THE NEW YEAR IS UPON US, I OFFICIALLY OFFER YOU MY LIST OF THE 10 BEST BOOKS THAT I'VE READ IN 2004. THIS IS OUT OF ABOUT 84 BOOKS THAT I'VE READ THIS YEAR. EVERY SINGLE BOOK ON THIS LIST IS A MASTERPIECE WORTH BUYING. YOU WON'T BE DISAPPOINTED WITH GREAT LITERATURE LIKE THE FOLLOWING:

"THE DARKEST CHILD"--Delores Phillips

The finest, most dramatic debut I've read in years. Top notch and gut-wrenching. This is by far the best book of 2004.

"BRICK LANE"--Monica Ali

Superb entry into a world foreign yet all too familiar. Flawless, beautiful writing.

"HOTTENTOT VENUS"--Barbara Chase Riboud

A True Story. Which makes this book all the more shocking and tragic. By now you've heard of the kidnapped and dehumanized South African woman paraded in the 1800's Europe as a "freak" because of her huge posterior and the apron over her genitals. Chase Riboud chronicles the tale perfectly and makes it far more interesting than just history. The fact that "Sarah" was like a Pop Superstar of her day makes it all the more chilling in my opinion. A definite Must-Read.

"FLESH AND THE DEVIL"--Kola Boof

Totally original, unexpected black love story. Chock full of African history, U.S. black history, fantastic plot twists, pulsating sex, equally dazzling "lovemaking", brilliant observations about race, color and sexism and plenty of risk-taking by the sensational Sudanese-born Kola Boof, truly a NEW STAR in the "epic" sense. Fabulous!

"DOUGLASS' WOMEN"--Jewel Parker Rhodes

If ever a fictionalized story of a real person's life/real events makes you totally believe inch and detail of the fiction writer's imagination--this one is it!! Jewel Parker Rhodes is turning out to be one of our most ardent writers of historical fiction, her brevity and flair for honest human emotion making her just a little BETTER, in my opinion, than the queen of historical black fiction--Barbara Chase Riboud. You can't go wrong with "DOUGLASS' WOMEN", it's sensational.

"ERASURE"---Percival Everett

I know. I'm late reading this one. But it's classic, fantastic, the greatest book ever written about being a "black" writer today. SUPERB. 10 Stars.

"A DISTANT SHORE"--Caryl Phillips

Great novel about "human beings" ripped apart in their own world and then thrown together in new equally dreadful surroundings. A black man and a white woman are juxtaposed in England with terribly beautiful insight by the writer. It's a hard book to explain, except that it's about human beings finding their real true minds. Superb!!!! I give this one 10 stars.

"DRINKING COFFEE ELSEWHERE"--Z.Z. Packer

The breakout debut of the new Alice Walker and Toni Morrison rolled into one. Z.Z. Packer is outrageously talented and brilliant. These sparse, witty, intelligent, insightful short stories will bring you to tears, make you laugh and truly astonish you.

"THE KNOWN WORLD"--Edward P. Jones

This book starts off kind of "slow", but once you get into it, it's quite shocking, easily one of the most important stories told in a decade. Jones deserves all the accolades and awards he's received for this masterful masterpiece of the new century.

"LOVE"--Toni Morrison

Still the undisputable greatest writer writing. Toni Morrison offers up one of her very best novels, the most underrated and overlooked novel of the year. Absolutely meszmerizing, a bute.


Rating:
Summary: I Never Heard of KOLA BOOF before
Review: At the beginning of the world, the Sky and Sea have a war that creates land and the first two people on earth, GOD (man) and Ajowa (goddess of love). From there--ITS ON. The nation of Africa rises up from their love and two powerful empires are formed that set the base for a Romeo and Juliet set of "moon" crossed lovers who actually have to fight against the MOON itself, who is raping women and killing people. It's a trip, but it's really really good. Then after all the exciting love, drama and grand history of Africa--the book and the characters switch to modern Washington D.C. where the African Prince and Princess are now African-Americans and married to white people. By a twist of fate they meet at work and begin having unbearable desire for each other (the SEXLOVESEXLOVESEX in this book is off the hook!). Shane's wife is not just white, she's a real demon in a beautiful body and she uncovers her true face while trying to do everything to stop RooAmber from taking her husband. It's not as "soap-opery" as it sounds, though. A lot of the book deals with major political issues and I got the feeling that there is the underlying theme of "skin color" and "shade" prejudice running all through the book. The GOOD THING is that every shade of black beauty is covered in this amazing book from the darkest black African princess to RooAmber who is persecuted for having green eyes and yellow skin--by her "lightskinned" Mama no less!!! The book is really a surprise to me, mainly because I had never heard of Kola Boof until one of my Professors at Spelman was talking about her work. I read the reviews at Amazon and quickly ordered this book. I am just too impressed. It was worth every penny and I hope the rumor is true that Beyonce is going to star in a movie based on this book with Angela Bassett playing Queen Ambi, because that would be the greatest love story every made and the black community--both male and female-- could really get into this.

This is a tie with J.California Cooper's book "Some Place, Some Other People" for the Best Book of 2004.

I put everything on that.


Rating:
Summary: Black Love Without Apology
Review: BLACK LOVE....without apology.

This novel is so beautifully written, full of surprises and emotionally involving that I just had to give it the whole 5 stars.

This book is like a Lauryn Hill love jamm turned into a novel.

On the surface it's an African love story between Shane and RooAmber through thousands of years. Their souls are joined by passion, sex (lots of sex), time, place and eternity. But they also have to live through some MAJOR eratic, crazy drama as well. Namely Shane's white wife who's determined not to lose her black man to a black woman--at any cost. Even murder.

Without pause, this book makes a pretty strong statement about the identity and worth of black women. The speech given by Sula Jones at the end of the book should be read aloud by black women in the streets!! I read that speech every day now before I leave the house for work. I love it!

I cannot say enough to express how fantastic this book is.

This novel is like a Lauryn Hill CD in book form. It's just off the hook 4 Real. It says EVERYTHING that I have been DYING INSIDE to say.

Kola Boof is my new favorite writer. I will be reading everything she puts out.

IsisNambi



Rating:
Summary: AWESOME, POWERFUL,UNIQUE
Review: FLESH AND THE DEVIL
A Novel By Kola Boof/Reviewed by Patrick Wolmar
(*****) FIVE STARS

[...]
The story begins as the planet earth is being created by a war between the Sea and the Sky and in order to create land, so that they can "touch"--the Sky and Sea throw one of the two moons down to earth and out of that comes Africa and our eternal lovers, Shango Ogun and Princess Ife Ife.

The author brilliantly weaves their journey through thousands of years of passionate love and tragic circumstances as they battle to be together and to overcome the forces of a curse that the moon has put on mankind. What I loved about the story was that the Moon was such a believable villain (raping Namibia and making her pregnant with the first WHITE baby). The twists and turns of the African portion of the novel, the first half, were my favorite because Boof writes so beautifully and poetically about life, love and tragedy in Africa. She also sets up this historical novel's powerful storyline by showing you exactly what led to "slavery" and how the Africans both fought against it and sold out to it. Kofi Hoodi (a King) and King Katanga (who opposes slavery) are brilliantly etched portraits that set the stage for Queen Ambi (keeper of the bees) to camp it up and be a symbol of black women's strength, beauty and earthiness. I L-O-V-E-ed me some Queen Ambi, especially when she led her people into battle against the whites.

The sad part that was hard to get through was the slavery scenes when the Europeans tricked the coastal Africans and took over their lands. This had some gut-wrenching scenes that made me cry, especially the enslavement of Mother Iyanla and her grandson.

Skip to 1993

The book picks up as all the Africans from the first half are now African Americans, mostly living in Washington, D.C.

The ill fated African lovers, Shane and RooAmber, who were both jet black chocolate in the first half---are now light brite yellow and struggling with racial identity. Both are married to white people (although a secret later on reveals that one of them aint so white as we thought). The writing in this portion becomes slicker and more commercial or let me put it this way---reading the first half of the novel was like reading Gloria Naylor or Toni Morrison, but the second half is like reading Terry McMillan AT HER VERY BEST. Shane's white wife Rosaria is especially off the hook. A superior, colorstruck "Puerto Rican" CAUCASIAN (OK???), but Kola Boof is such a good writer that she still makes you feel and care about Rosaria, because some major tragedy strikes and she can't stand losing her husband to a black woman (RooAmber, who turns his world upside down, even though she tried to resist cheating on her White husband).

The second half sounds like a soap opera, but it's not. The social issues that Boof raises and the powerful way inwhich her characters come to grips with love, heritage and responsibility is rich enough--but when SULA JONES'S character takes off at the end and presents a vision of the future for black people and black love, the book becomes pure masterpiece IMO. I loved it. It's the kind of book that makes you believe in love again, it makes you proud to be black, and for those of us who are "GAY", there's even a strong gay presence in the book, both in ancient Africa and in the present, culminating at the end with a "gay wedding". THAT groundbreaking fact is why I gave Miss Kola the whole five stars, because she definitely takes risks with this story and when it comes to a passionate, hot, sexy BLACK love story---she delivers big time.

I got nothing but praise for this book. It's totally unpredictable and totally beautiful.



Rating:
Summary: Mexican Brother Loving This Book!
Review: I had the pleasure of listening to Kola Boof's interview on KPFK radio in Los Angeles yesterday and I went down to ESO WON books and bought a copy of "Flesh and the Devil" and read it in one night. It's sublime.

I was not familiar with West African culture to this extent previously, but after reading this book and after hearing Queen Kola talk about her life, I consider myself truly intrigued and infatuated with her. The book does have some grammatical errors in the text that I thought were too large to overlook, so I gave it four stars for that reason. However, this novel about Shane and RooAmber is a riveting and beautiful story about black lovers and about the beauty and worth of Africans and African-Americans as a people in general. I enjoyed the way Kola Boof writes her "love scenes" in particular and I thought she is very bold the way she writes about men. The color complex was touched on unsparingly and I applaud her for being brave enough to do that. I look forward to more of Kola Boof's work.



Rating:
Summary: This book was good wonderful!
Review: I have to say that this book was one of the best books that I have read in a long time. Not only were her words powerful, but her over all abilty to pull you into the story. This book is only for people who are willing to know the truth.

Rating:
Summary: Spectacular tale of Love
Review: I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The form in which it was written, the woven tale of African-American history coupled with a everlasting love story made for a magnificent and satisfying experience. It was colorful, and soothing, enraging and dynamic. A beautiful and sad tale, that must be heard, read and felt. Thank you Kola...and i look forward to many more works.

Rating:
Summary: Don't Believe the Hype
Review: I was fooled into thinking that Kola Boof was the "next big thing" when I read all the positive reviews on this site so I purchased this book. What a mistake. Now that I think about it, I find it odd that nearly all of the glowing reviews of this book are from "readers" who only have one review to their name. It leads me to wonder if many of the reviews here are being written by the same person.

"Flesh and the Devil" showed a lot of promise at the beginning but the story starts to fall apart almost immediately. Kola Boof had a very good idea with this novel of two Afrians whose love trancends many generations but she just doesn't have the talent to properly execute the idea into a coherent enjoyable story. To be perfectly honest, by the time the story got to modern day America, I had completely lost interest. The characters are one dimensional and the plot is just plain silly. The longer it goes on the more unreadable it becomes.


Rating:
Summary: Shane, RooAmber and some SERIOUS Issues
Review: O.K. Now this is what I call a good book. It's a love story, basically, but inside the pages is a whole avalanche more stuff than just the basic boy meets girl story. This book has the nerve to cover 26,000 years! LOL

But it's a piece of cake for the author, Kola Boof, because this is one fiery, poetic, politically poised African sister with loads of talent, sharp wit and at last--something to say! Kola Boof does not hold back. This book made me laugh, it made me cry, it made me debate politics with the characters and it made me seriously think--mainly about my race and what that means to me and to others if anything.

The plot is about Shane and RooAmber meeting at the creation of the earth and creating Africa together, then being ripped apart and transplanted by American slavery and then meeting in the present modern times and trying to ignore this this thing that's bigger than the both of them while married to white man and white woman--it sounds easy but it's not.

You just have to get the book and see what I mean, because this is one book that you cannot predict. Just when you think you know where it's going--it does a turn and brings you to some other hallowed world.

Excellent. Excellent writing!





Rating:
Summary: 10, 9, 8, 7...."Take a Deep Breath"
Review: REVIEW/5 stars
FLESH AND THE DEVIL by KOLA BOOF

Shaking my head. Astounded.

I didn't expect to like this book after I saw the author TOPLESS on the back cover. Maybe, I have to admitt, I am not used to African type images like that. But the minute I started reading the book, I was just blown away.

This book is so hard to describe. It's a ROMANCE love story covering thousands of years and it's extremely rare, because it convincingly depicts a Black Man and a Black Woman being DEEPLY in love. Their relationship is nothing like what we have here in America TWEEN brothers and sisters. The book also makes you think of "dark black" beauty in a whole new way, because it magically describes the way black people's hair, noses, lips and bodies look to African people without WHITE MEDIA conditioning.

For that alone, I would like to see every black person in America read this book. The story was good, the writing is very poetic and unpredictable, the author is more interesting in real life than any of her books and the book actually has a happy ending--although I didn't like the ending.

I give it 5 stars for just literally blowing me away. Kola Boof also has a book called "Long Train to the Redeeming Sin" and a poetry collection called "Nile River Woman". I have not read them all the way through, but I have read enough of them to know that she is like--TOTALLY MAJOR in the next generation. She is so much more than just a writer. She is like an activist who is speaking for the Black Women of the world, especially the DARK SKINNED dark women.