God Don't Play

GOD DON'T PLAY is the latest in Mary Monroe's "God Don't" series. Trouble lands at the feet of debt collector Annette Goode just when she thinks her life can't get any better. This highly stylized novel about a contemporary African-American woman grabs our attention with its emotional complexity and cleverly drawn characters. But the reason this production is such a treasure comes down to one person--Patricia R. Floyd. She gives each character a distinctive voice and a palpable personality. The conversations between the middle-aged heroine and her best friend's 16-year-old daughter about sex are by themselves worth the cost of the recording. P.R. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine

June 5, 2006
In this third novel in Monroe's bestselling God Don't series, Annette Goode finally has it all: a sexy husband who adores her, a beautiful young daughter, a comfy house, a good job and a perfect best friend. But why is someone suddenly sending her anonymous hate mail? As the poison pen letters and threatening phone calls become more ugly and violent, Annette takes her friend Rhoda's advice and sets out to discover and expose the culprit. Along the way, she is forced to dust off some of the skeletons in her closet—including childhood poverty and sexual abuse, a brief stint turning tricks as a teenager, and being an accessory to murder. Annette also confronts gnawing insecurity: obese and unfashionable, she wonders how long she can hang onto a husband who, according to gossip from the local beauty parlor, still has his name tattooed on the buttocks of Annette's prime suspect, the town femme fatale. Monroe squeezes everything she can from this novel's melodramatic plot, but it never feels as ominous as it should, nor does the tidiness of the conclusion enhance the book's already-faint sense of verisimilitude. What was interesting about Annette is covered in the earlier books.