Ruby

As a native New Yorker, and Harlemite, this book brings back so many fond memories of my growing up in Harlem, New York in the 1980s. I read this book for the first time when I was sixteen years old. I was in high school and as an only child, I'd often experienced the loneliness that Ruby felt. I immediately identified with her character. Daphne DuPrey is an intriguing character, someone that you would want to know and know about. You learn about Ruby as she learns more about herself and about Daphne as Ruby learns about her. It is a wonderful coming of age story. Though it deals with a lesbian romance, I don't think it's the primary focus of the book. The fact that it is a same-sex relationship, that is. I think it's more about a young woman coming to terms with who she is as a person and being free to be herself. I highly recommend it.

I have read the Friends another book from Rosa Guy which is mainly about Ruby's sister Phyillisa and her poor friend Edith Jackson .In that book Ruby was crazy about a boy named Orlando.This is one of the squels to The Friends before you even start Ruby YOU HAVE TO READ The Friends to find out what Ruby was really about.Now Ruby faces different choices and becomes gay because no one at home cared for her the way the her mother did before she past away Ruby turned to a girl named Daphne Duprey which is harshed to Ruby because Ruby repects her Father Clavin an old Fasion west indian man.Ruby runs after Daphne all the time and listens to everything Daphne has to say.Calvin hires someone called Miss.Effie to buy thier food and then perpare it for them.Miss.Effie likes Calvin so much but she just gets on Calvin's nerves it's a book you will never want to put down i am not going to give you anymore of the scoop on this book you are just going to go have to go it pick iit up yourself it's a book anyone can enjoy take it from me...

The personal is political, and vice versa. In clear and understandable language, Rosa Guy explores questions of race, class, gender, sexuality and what it means to be an activist. Most impressive of all, she does so with what to me seems an amazing amount of subtlety. The characters remain real people, despite the message the book is trying to send.

Rosa Guy's Ruby is an excellent piece of reading material. I myself have read it several times over and the intensity of the writing pulls the reader right in. The reader is made to understand all of Ruby's frustrations. I thoroughly enjoyed it. This book is a must read.

I'm still amazed by the emotional intensity of this book. I first read it about two years ago, and have read it again, beginning to end, more times than I can remember. This book passes no moral judgements on the characters, particularly the two protagonists -- it just tells their story as is, with all the power and confusion of a first love, especially one that doesn't fit with society's ideas of what love should be