Review of "Bitch Is the New Black" by Helena Andrews

BITCH IS THE NEW BLACK

A Memoir

By Helena Andrews. Harper. 244 pp. $24.99

It takes guts to write a memoir before the age of 30 -- and Helena Andrews certainly has plenty. "I'm such a badass. I am literally the baddest bitch on the planet," she tells us in the first chapter of "Bitch Is the New Black," her memoir-in-essays. "If there was a bitch contest between me and every other heartbroken, hissing, red-eyed, puffy-faced woman in the world, I would defeat every last one of them -- handily." Andrews's exploration of what it's like to be young, black and single in Washington, D.C., is at times cringingly frank. Still, any young professional woman, regardless of color, will relate.

Despite her youth, Andrews, a journalist who has written for the New York Times and Politico, has quite a story to tell. With honesty and wit, she describes growing up with a nomadic lesbian mother, being the only black kid on Catalina Island, getting cyber-stalked by an ex-boyfriend and getting over the suicide of a sorority sister. She's not afraid to reveal anything, even her bra size.

Ultimately, though, her book tries to answer one vexing question: Does being a successful, well-educated woman scare men away? Given the title, you can guess the answer. But why should it even matter to Andrews? Her book has already been optioned for a film. Maybe scaring off a few men wasn't such a bad thing after all.

-- Nancy Trejos