Hood Rich

Crystal Stell Perkins

Crystell Publications 2004

Pages 299 - $15.95 US

ISBN: 0-9740705-0-5

Reviewed by: Yolanda M. Johnson

Literary Wonders!

www.literarywonders.com

3/27/2005

Rating: 3 Stars

            In this street lit title, Hood Rich, DeMarques Prince was an average American teenager growing up in the mean streets of a Michigan ghetto.  With a mother who was tagged as M.I.A., and a father he has never met, “Prince” as he was so affectionately called, idolized his big brother Ant.  Even at a young age, he experiences what most don’t experience in a life-time. 

            Prince looks up to his big brother Ant and idolizes him.  With not knowing his father, and a mother who cared more for her junkie and abusive boyfriend, Prince had no where to look but to his big brother. 

            Bean, Prince’s mother is described as M.I.A. by many in her family, because even though they shared the same home, she hardly made it her place to be a part of her children’s life, and Ant made sure that he kept Prince protected at all cost. 

            Young minds and stupid mistakes land Prince in some compromising positions when he finds out his first serious girlfriend is pregnant with his child.  Although still a child himself, Prince decides even though he will still have his fun, he was going to be the father to Asia that he never had, but he didn’t want to be with Asia’s mother.

            Through the pages of Hood Rich, Prince takes complicated twists and turns as he gets his big brother more involved in his life and things start to go wrong.  Staying alive suddenly became a fight and a delicacy. 

            It wasn’t until Prince decides to become his brother’s keeper that he ends up in the Michigan Department of Corrections at the age of sixteen, life begins to get even more complicated for DeMarques Prince. 

While trying to prove his innocence and become a free man, Prince learns life inside the “walls” are  much tougher than the outside and he has to protect his manhood at all cost.  Visits from his mother, his daughter and Carrington keep him above water.

            During his journey from one housing center to the next, Prince learns that his brother Ant is mysteriously killed and he vows to find out who is responsible and seek vengeance.  During his bout of musical chairs, Prince unravels pieces to the puzzle that he just can’t seem to put together.

            Knowing his innocence his grandfather Daddy Ruenae gives Prince the spiritual guidance that he needs to keep from going crazy.  Daddy Ruenae believes in Prince, and although Prince doesn’t know it yet, Daddy Ruenae knows exactly what Prince is up to.  Shortly after a jailhouse visit, Daddy Ruenae passes, but not before giving Prince his last words of spiritual advice and instruction.

            Enduring the lost of his two “kings” Prince makes it his mission to work getting his appeal heard and getting out before he has lost anyone else in his family.  Years pass Prince by as everything around him grows and changes, he feels helpless and hopeless.  And to make matters worse, Prince gets news of yet another death in his family. This one, too much for him to bear. This one tears his heart to shreds.  Finally upon his last allowable appeal, thing begin to change for the Prince as he juggles with the decision to avenge his brother’s death and stay out of D.O.C. 

            Pieces of the puzzle suddenly start to come clearer to Prince, as he suddenly unveils a secret that no one saw coming.

            Hood Rich proves not to be just another “book about the ghetto” and sends you on a turbulent ride through surviving the ghetto. What you think is reality is on a not as it seems.  Crystal Perkins-Stell does a great job at telling the story though the eyes of an African-American man who is bamboozled by the judicial system.