Urban Fiction Annotation

Diary of a Mistress by Miasha

Publication Date:  2006

Number of Pages: 182

Setting:  Present-Day

Time Period: Contemporary

SYNOPSIS
Angela Washington has had her share of bad relationships.  She’s only made it worse by hooking up with married men.  When Angela meets Carlos, a married man, she’s convinced he’s going to leave his wife and spend the rest of his life with her.  When things don’t go as planned, she decides to risk it all.  After a botched suicide attempt, her therapist suggests she writes a diary to keep track of her feelings and heal her wounds.

Monica Vasquez, Carlos’ wife, is living the dream. She has a perfect husband, a good job, adorable twin sons, and a great best friend.  All is well until the day she finds a diary in the mail…

The diary of a mistress.

Diary of a Mistress is a book full of twists and turns that clearly sends the message that things are not always what they seem.  While action-packed and emotionally-charged throughout, the best part is the explosive ending that will leave the reader wanting more.

ELEMENTS OF URBAN FICTION:

“Also called ‘urban fiction,’ ‘hip-hop lit,’ ‘hood lit,’ ‘gangsta lit,’ and a few other names, the set of books now called street lit is a unique genre that rose to widespread popularity in the late 1990s and has been growing ever since” (Honig ix).

Pacing

Honig notes that “the vast majority of action in street novels is external, happening between characters rather than within one character’s mind” (xi).  This structure of back and forth typically results in fast dialogue and pushes events forward at a fast pace.

Character

Characters are typically African Americans, but can be any individuals immersed in the urban culture.  Typically characters are familiar with “Elements of hip-hop culture, including rap music, street fashion, and an emphasis on brand name clothes and cars” (Honig x).  Character backgrounds are varied including those that are family-oriented or single, straight, gay or bisexual, and everything in between.

Setting

As the name implies, the settings are usually urban areas.  Focus is often on metropolitan areas but can also include “less prominent cities, including Gary, Indiana; Richmond, Virginia; and even Waterloo, Iowa” (Honig x).

Point of View

The point of view is often first person and allows the reader to really get into the mind of the main character or characters.  POV’s can sometimes switch between multiple characters.

Mood

The mood can range, but “making choices on getting their basic needs met…[and] Drug dealing, sex work, and violent crime are frequently seen as paths to getting one’s needs met” (Honig xi).  Urban fiction tends to be gritty due to these basic themes.

Language and Style

Most urban fiction titles use “street slang, nonstandard grammar, and curse words in narration” (Honig x).  This stylistic choice is used to help further the realism of the setting and shape the characters.

READ-A-LIKES:

Caught in the Mix by Candice Dow

Burn by Crystal Hubbard

My Invisible Husband by Sheila M. Goss

The Price of Passion by Evelyn Palfrey

MY THOUGHTS

I wasn’t sure that I was going to like this book.  There was quite a bit of foul language and I was convinced that this was going to turn into a ‘husband is a dirty cheater’ story.

Boy, was I wrong.  I won’t give away anything, but I found myself unable to put the book down.  The language and violence of the book stopped bothering me and actually engrossed me in the story.  As I mentioned in the synopsis, the twists and turns just kept coming.  I found myself loving and hating each and every character at different intervals in the story.  Just when I thought that the story had reached a resolution, the author snuck in an explosive ending that had my mouth hanging open.  This story wasn’t like anything I had read before.  It was action packed and I could visualize the entire thing like I was watching a movie.

Highly recommended.

5 out of 5 stars.

Works Cited

Honig, Megan.  Urban Grit: A Guide to Street Lit.  Santa Barbara:  Libraries Unlimited, 2011.  Print.