Book Review: Who Can You Trust? (The Family Ain't S?!T Anthology) by Octavia Grant

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The following review is unsponsored. These are my feelings about the book and its contents, not the author themselves although background information about them may be included. This review may include profanity. This book review will also include my Amazon affiliate links which, if you choose to purchase from said links, I will earn a small commission at no extra cost to you!


Rating system:
⭐️ = Did not finish/ hate it
⭐️ ⭐️ = I did not like it, would throw tomatoes
⭐️⭐️⭐️ = I like it, probably wouldn’t double back
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ = I would recommend this
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ = my soul has healed, I'm enlightened, 10s all across the board!

 
For updates on what I’m currently reading, follow my StoryGraph! Find other resources like 50 Black Authors to Diversify your Library or Schae's To Be Read List 2024 within the rest of my book blog.

 

Who Can You Trust? (The Family Ain't S?!T Anthology)

by Octavia Grant

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Kindle Unlimited ✅ | Amazon

 

Tags: urban fiction, ghetto love story, black author, raunchy

Let me hold your hand when I say this...this one is not going to be for everybody.

 

The most I can say is "wow" upon coming to the end of each book!

This was so dark, strange, and left no crumbs.
There were plenty of times I had to stop and think, "Did I really just read that?" and then remembered this is a fictional story and the mess continues to get messier! Each one was very fast paced and was not shy on the spicy moments...

Book 2: Sleeping with my Cousin's Grandmother may have been my favorite. The twist was super unexpected, and the epilogue left my mouth hanging wide open! Urban fiction is one of my favorite genres, and to discover Octavia Grant with this title was a miracle just falling into my lap. It got me out of a reading slump; the drama stoops to levels that I feel like could only come from Tyler Perry television. You hate all the characters and you're not quite sure who deserves one but there's one thing for sure:

These families ain't shit.

So let's dissect each of the three books, shall we? This section may contain spoilers! 

 Book 1: He Should've Known Better: My Baby Daddy's Betrayal

 This was short and sweet (not sweet at all actually) at only 4 chapters of chaos. Candi and Dante share a toxic co-parent situation that many can relate to. This fast paced, spicy, messy interaction between them is a recipe for disaster! 


"He was so exhausted that he didn't even see me grab my phone from the end table and turn the camera off."

Clearly there is some unresolved beef brewing these two from things we don't know that leads to an ULTIMATE BETRAYAL. When Dante goes low, oh boy, Candi absolutely goes lower. I don't want to ruin the surprise, but the epilogue was EPIC!

 

Book 2: Sleeping With My Cousin's Grandmother

(Schae's favorite)

Yes, I was also thrown off by the title! The power of Ms. Cat reminds me of Ms. Vernita in Old Thot Next Door where she stands her ground, sets boundaries and ultimately does whatever she wants...how can you not respect that?

Now Antoine definitely has a couple screws loose. As her grandson and a married man with children he has no business being mischievous and odd for Ms. Cat! His confessions for his undying love towards her is what makes their relationship so...strange and inhumane. She was obviously grooming him as a child which is definitely gross and unnecessary, but luckily it doesn't get too deep into his childhood within the pages.


"Boy, I knew I should've never gave you no pussy. This meat tent between my legs has fucked plenty of nigga's heads up."


Sometimes it seems like Ms. Cat has common sense. She's very straightforward but always leaves the door open for anything - that's messy! In addition to sleeping with her grandson, she was also actively sleeping with his dad. Their infidelity caused that marriage to go sour, but it did not stop the cycle of nastiness that continued down the road...

There are many curveballs that I don't want to spoil - plus reading it for the first time you will have a nice handful of "what the fuck was that about?" moments throughout the entirety...

The epilogue will leave you in shambles!

 

Book 3: Sleeping With My Aunt's Husband

 The level of disrespect is so high in this one. There's a lot more intentional pain being inflicted; Aunt Queen gets the worst of it the entire way through. We don't learn a whole about her besides that everyone she's loved has betrayed her.

Ivy, her blood niece that she raised since birth, commits the ultimate act of disrespect by sleeping with Aunt Queens second husband Calvin. 


"There was no way I could tell her that I fucked him every day and that he kept me high on coke to get my body to miscarry our baby. Which wasn't working because I was still 3 months pregnant."

...crickets.

Obviously Calvin is a terrible influence on Ivy and their relationship leads to the demise of many. Even though Ivy's close companion Nadia is constantly trying to help keep her head on straight, Ivy never listens! And their relationship is ...odd as well. 

This final book in the anthology is probably the most dramatic and maybe a little heart breaking. Like the others, the epilogue leaves you wanting to throw the book across the room and requesting the last few hours of your time back!!!! 

 

 

Do you see yourself adding this to your TBR? Let us know in the comments! 


This book was so wild, we also featured it in our recent blog post: Books That Got Me Out of a Reading Slump!
Thanks for tuning in!

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