What can I say about Abiola Abrams’s DARE? I mean, aside from the fact that I thoroughly enjoyed it? The seductive world of hip-hop and long money, rubbing elbows with industry ballers and eventually becoming a baller herself, turns shy, quiet, tree-hugging Mya Hope into someone no one recognizes. She ends up in the spotlight by sheer coincidence, but once she’s there her evolution begins.

Abrams uses the mystery, bling and, oft times, violence of the hip-hop world – the rapper’s delight, if you will – as a backdrop for a strangely twisted coming of age story. Sometimes lovers, both old and new, don’t know what to make of a caterpillar’s transformation into a butterfly. Neither do friends, for that matter. But what happens when a woman looks around, finds herself hiding in a corner, and coaxes herself out to play? Now that’s the stuff good books are made of. Taking a DARE doesn’t get any more enlightening than this.

Reviewed by T. Shelly B.
of The RAWSISTAZ™ Reviewers