The Golden Hustla: A Novel by Wahida ClarkMy rating: 2 of 5 stars
The Golden Hustla was a book I thought I would like...the beginning was fun, but then the name Cream stopped me in my tracks...and it went downhill from there. Nina is a hustla through and through. But seeing her best friend Michelle and her brother (whose name I've totally forgotten) got shot by the Bloods, she calls up her friend, tells him to get the 10 kilos of coke that's in the back of her car, give it to someone he knows, and she can leave and get out of Jersey, which she does, leaving her children.
Years later, she's working in Atlanta at a place called WMM...and my god, I would've upped and quit the moment Rinaldo starts to demand and take up to 1,000 from me because I didn't show up and make a sale. Basically, where she's working is a scam place, and all they're doing is getting money from people. Well before she could even come to work, Nina went to the police station and was offered to rat out Rinaldo, but she vehemently said no, muttering to herself that "Nina isn't a snitch".
The story does go back to when she first came to Atlanta and was looking for a job, and somehow, magically, Cream (I really disliked this man) appeared and told her that he could pull some strings to get her a job...working on the phones. Selling people American Eagle gold coins and other business things that they need to keep the money going. I felt like they were scamming people, and on top of that, they got busted TWICE, and Rinaldo's like, "We're going back to work tomorrow, I want everyone there, no ifs ands or butts about it."
...sorry, what? When your lawyers told you to SHUT THE WHOLE OPERATION DOWN?!
Yeah, nah, I definitely would've quit IMMEDIATELY when he said that.
But they went back, and they got busted AGAIN-but Nina wasn't there, especially when she refused to get pimped out by Rinaldo (good for her), but the others did it. To me, this whole entire book was just stupid people making stupid decisions, even when Nina started dating a cop and thought that he was a biker named King. Also, Rinaldo's wife was cheating on him with Shawn, and when Nina went back to get her kids and learned what a pastor did to her daughter....and had slapped her dear mother for what happened, then turned around and killed the poor pastor, who swore he didn't do it...
Okay, bro, anyway...
I did enjoy it from the beginning, but then I found that I really didn't like the book as much as I thought, which is very sad because I was enjoying this book. 2.25 stars for me.
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