What Brothers Think, What Sistahs Know

February 1, 1999
Coauthored by the creator of The Sistah's Rules and her husband, a reporter, this volume offers a fresh, often funny perspective on African-American relationships. Millner and Chiles probe each other's views on dating, sex and marriage in a fast-paced, sassy dialogue that both pokes fun at and illuminates the differences between male and female perspectives on love. What's wrong with taking the "slow route to the sheets?" Millner demands. "Men," retorts Chiles, with a candor that is one of the book's hallmarks, will go "fast, slow, medium--whatever's necessary to get into the panties." Some chapters address specifically issues of African-American relationships. One deals with the appeal of white women to the black "brother," for example, while another ponders why so many black women seem angry to black men. Other chapters reprise the universal themes of every relationship guide since the beginning of time. Such material can seem so basic it's banal: Do we really need such a clued-in pair to tell us that the best way to be asked out on a second date is to be yourself? Still underneath the street smarts and the slang so hip some readers will need a glossary, Chiles and Millner are warm, straightforward, down-to-earth mentors. One of the book's great pleasures is the chance to eavesdrop on their blunt but affectionate banter, which models just the kind of male-female honesty extolled by experts of all colors.