Payback Ain’t Enough by Wahida Clark Book Review
Book Title: Payback Ain’t Enough Book Review
Author(s): Wahida Clark
Book Pages: 335 pages
Publisher: Cash Money Content
SoHood.com Reviewed by: Edwin Diaz
Pen Game Book Report Rating: 3 out of 5
Book Cover Rating: 4 out of 5
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Review: “Payback Ain’t Enough” is the follow up to Wahida Clark’s bestselling urban fiction title “Payback With Ya Life” (2008). Released in 2006, “Payback Is A Mutha” was one of the few urban fiction novels to appear on the New York Times Extended Bestseller’s list!
On Wahida Clark’s latest third installment novel of Payback Ain’t Enough, she begins the story with a prison inmate named Darnell aka Dark who murders his once close handicapped wheel-chairing friend named Forever. Dark was told to kill Forever by a mysterious person. Just before Forever is murdered, he asked Dark to at least tell him the name who was gutless enough to kill a man in a wheelchair. But Dark never opened his mouth to give up the name. Forever’s wife Nyla later found out that he was murdered in prison. She quickly blamed Forever’s brother named Calvin aka Briggen for perhaps having some involvement of murdering his own flesh and blood.
We then catch up with Dark whose in the streets and ready to take over everything. But first, Dark enlists his female cousin Sharia for her help on information regarding the big time drug dealers that are running it in the streets of Detroit. Sharia serves her purpose by letting Dark know about Cisco. After Cisco and Dark link up and form a good rapport, things then go down south when later on they start to get envious at one another.
Meanwhile, we then have a subplot side story of a female character named Janay whose asked by her Uncle Boomer to take over her daddy’s drug operation. But then there’s another subplot side story where Briggen’s baby mama Shan ends up with two duffel bags that contained money and drugs from Cisco’s crew. How did Shan wind up with the duffel bags? Well, Shan’s car got hit from behind by Cisco’s boys in a van and in the process, it knocked off her license plate onto the road. Later on, her car’s license plate comes back to her and Briggen. Cisco finds out that Briggen has stolen from him.
Long story short, I’m not going to spoil the ending. By the way guys, I didn’t mention the other characters in this novel but I’ll say that everyone in this book are somehow related or connected to each other. For the reader: The two subplot side stories of Janay and Shan will make a lot of sense towards the end.
What I liked about Payback Ain’t Enough Novel: It had its moments of action and drama. There was some sexual humor that I found funny. A lot of these characters I can relate to cause I’m from the housing projects, so I know how the mentality is. Wahida does a fine job of getting the reader to relate to them.
What I disliked about Payback Ain’t Enough Novel: Honestly, I read this book in spurts. The developing of the story had me bored at times. The story really picks up after 145 pages. I kept waiting for things to get better, and luckily it did. If I or anybody wasn’t a fan of Wahida, I truly think they’d have probably stopped reading after 25 pages. I say this cause I kept wanting to know — Who killed Forever? But then the story went away from it, and into two other subplot side stories involving Janay and Shan.
What the reader should know about Payback Ain’t Enough Novel: It’s not Wahida’s best work, and I’m saying this as a fan, I’ve read much better material from her and this latest effort was simply disappointing to me. But besides that, I’m still a loyal fan cause I’ll still read her next book and because she knows how to keep it raw and interesting.
Best Chapter of the book: Chapter 20: Cisco’s wife Joy enters the story and makes things interesting.
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