Book Review of "I Didn't Work This Hard Just to Get Married: Successful Single Black Women Speak Out" by Nika C. Beamon

Book Review of "I Didn't Work This Hard Just to Get Married: Successful Single Black Women Speak Out" by Nika C. Beamon 

I'll be honest: I was a bit underwhelmed by this book. It was mainly a collection of personal stories from different women, which was nice, but it got to be a bit repetitive, confusing and didn't fit my expectations. After a while, it was hard to tell the stories apart. The stories were each categorized into areas that were elaborated with statistics and explanations from Beamon, but it felt a little 'college essay' to me. I know that sounds really harsh, but it seemed like the author was providing quotes from the women (she never explained how she obtained their stories) and writing text to go around the quotes to make her points.

I guess I was also turned off because the viewpoints of some of these women were not very close to my own. A number of the women were childfree, like me, but others also said they would look to adoption if they didn't find a spouse eventually. I'm glad that they would turn to adoption, of course, as these women are all great examples for anyone, especially children. The women learned to understand who they are and expressed, most of them, that being married isn't for everyone. Some women voiced an opinion that we are meant to find a mate, which is not my opinion on the matter.

I guess the truth of this book is that single people are very diverse and not all of us can reach a consensus on each aspect of it. I would recommend this book because it is a quick read, because of the intriguing statistics and for the chance to hear more stories about successful single women. If anything, you will learn a little more about your own thoughts when reacting to the opinions of the women in the book.