"The Other Side of the Pillow" by Zane

3 of 5 stars

The Basics: This book follows Jemistry and Tevin as they navigate love. Jemistry is a successful high-school principal who has bitter feelings toward men because of her past relationships. She hasn't allowed a man to have a relationship with her because of the way men in her past have treated her. She is Ok with having casual sex with two men, one in which wants a deeper relationship with her.
After a poetry reading she runs into Tevin, a successful doctor, who is intrigued by her bitterness. He seeks to prove to her that not all men are the same.  After letting Tevin in, their romance goes through ups and downs and Jemistry learns that love can be kind, caring, faithful, and dedicated.

My Thoughts: Ok, so when I started the book I absolutely loved it. I thought, "This is going to be a great love story", but my mind quickly changed. This was my issue. Zane keeps interjecting her two-cents on all of life's issues and I'm thinking, "Shut up already and just write the story, stop breaking up the plot with your political and social views!!!" This just ruined it for me. Zane put in her opinion about the state of education, which was Ok since the main character is a principal. Then she talks about single moms and how they treat their sons like their spouse, then she talks about President Obama and present racism, then she talks about the filth of tv shows like Jerry Springer, and there was so much more...the opinions bog down the story and it just kept irritating me.
Either way, this book could have been something good but it fell short for me. At the end of the book Zane gives her commentary that this book serves as an extended conversation piece for relationships. That's great but I think she makes so many generalizations and sticks to stereotypes that I am kind of put off by the whole thing. I know she is reflecting on some of the letters and e-mails she gets but again you can't make generalizations about a group of people based solely on the e-mails you receive. You can address the issues but don't accept those individual issues as the norm for a group of people. Either way, I could say so much more but I'm going to save my opinions because I really feel like Zane tried to do what she does best (write) based off of the issues she wanted to address.

Remember, teachers read fun stuff too!