No one challenges traditional roles and stereotypes more than Arlether Wilson. After spending more than ten years in foster care she moved back to Fifth Ward, a poverty stricken community in Houston, Texas where no one was expected to excel. While her life story is similar to many African American women, it is surprisingly distinctive. Arlether has always been an achiever and attributes her drive, determination and will to survive to her unyielding faith. As the oldest of three children she was expected to grow up fast and relinquish much of her childhood. Then just when she thought the generational cycle of teen pregnancy was broken she became pregnant and was forced to drop out of school during her senior year. Read more.

Title: Rewriting the Script

Genre: Autobiography

257 Pages

ISBN: 978-0-9797627-0-3

Publisher: Jerant Publishing

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Arlether's debut novel, Rewriting the Script is not just another story about a girl surviving life in the streets. It's much more than that. It is a soul stirring and motivational story of a girl abandoned and abused in the foster care system. After being placed back into a community plagued by crime, drugs, violence, and prostitution she decided to choose a different path. Life was difficult. However, she was determined not just to survive, but to change the course of her family's history. Rewriting The Script is a heartwarming story of desperation, grief and triumph. This courageous girl's story confirms that it is possible for anyone to Rewrite Their Life's Script.

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BOOK REVIEWS

It’s unconceivable to the mind, devastating to the heart, and a T-K-O to the body.

Rewriting the Script will have you flipping the script! A page-turner that’s guaranteed to make you do two out of three things: Throw the book, rip up the book or cry through the book. If you never read a novel that made you call out Jesus name, prepare yourself, for all there is left to say is “JESUS”.

This poignant novel is a heart breaking riveting life story that begins for a young girl at the tender age of five. Can you imagine a five-year-old saying, “He shoved it deeply down my throat.”?
Can you imagine being forced to drink a concoction of dead roaches in some form of liquid? These incidents don’t even touch the surface beholding in this novel.

The story grips at the core of your imagination vividly of the inhuman characters responsible for the incessant turmoil of emotional and physical damages penetrating the young girls life. As the author chronicles the story, she depicts the demons that plagued her life in such detail that you feel her fear, anxiety and struggles from within those pages. Several times you will cry out, “no more, dear Lord, she can’t take no more, please help her!

From within the author, this novel serves as a living witness that you can survive against the threatening obstacles of life’s cruelty that steals your self – worth. This novel serves as a walking testimony of faith and strength defying the “generational curses.” This novel offers HOPE. A hope that you will succumb to Rewriting your Script as you hopes it to be, not as life circumstances depicts.

I applaud the author; Arlether Wilson for her courageous willingness to expose her life of violence, sexual abuse, abandonment, devastating deaths, incest, & deceit that are now hurdles of victories.

Once you finish reading this novel, you will be compelled to never complain against another thing in your life.
The novel is shocking, its powerful, its heartfelt and it’s A Must READ!!

The rating for Rewriting the Script on a scale of 1-5 is a 5+++!!!

Sidne Kingston
United Book Club of America

Sometimes she ate. Sometimes she slept but rarely alone. Sometimes she was beaten for no apparent reason... and sometimes she even felt a little loved. In Arlether Wilson's memoir, Rewriting the Script, she allows you to travel back to times when her life was barely livable. Back to when she was a five year-old who understood survival.

Arlether endured all types of abuse; verbal, physical, mental, and sexual at an age when most children were starting kindergarten and at the hands of people who were suppose to love and protect her. When calls were made to social services regarding her mother's, Maggie, neglect, Arlether and her brother, Paul, were placed into foster care. The vicious cycle began again when they were returned to Maggie, only to eventually be surrendered back to the system and endure the same mistreatment from others.

Through it all, Arlether maintained hope. She wanted to overcome her past and seemed to find the key when she immersed herself in high school studies and extracurricular activities. She was smart, pretty, popular, and eventually pregnant. Arlether knew that motherhood could not be a part of her equation and had a decision to make. If she kept the baby, how would she care for it? Was it not hard enough fending for herself? How much of a future could she have being a teenage mother with no support and a past like hers?

Rewriting the Script is a story that shows the true meaning of motivation and faith. Wilson takes you deep into her world in a very detailed, very intimate way. It forced me to face the realities of victimized children. Oftentimes when reading memoirs, I get a general picture of what the author went through and I am left to my own feelings about the events. This memoir pushed the envelope and not only painted pictures, but evoked emotions. It is not an easy story to digest and it should not be. The only flaws in Rewriting the Script were the editing and pacing. The pacing toward the end of the book seemed a little rushed. Even so, I recommend Rewriting the Script to individuals who like emotional and empowering reads.

Reviewed by Darnetta Frazier
APOOO BookClub

Want to read more reviews? Click here.

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EVENT DATES

Resurrection of Me Domestic Violence Conference
May 2-3, 2008
8:00 AM - 4:00 PM
Brooklyn, New York

Conference Call (Book Discussion)
Tonya Blount
May 10, 2008

Career Day Presentation
Jewell Houston Academy
2:00 PM
May 16, 2008
Houston, Texas

Houston Black Expo
George R. Brown Convention Center
May 17-18, 2008
8:00 AM - 4:00 PM
Houston, Texas

Sister Circle Hour
Host Domestic Violence Call/Book Discussion
May 19, 2008

Southeastern Virginia Arts Association
May 25-26, 2008
9:00 AM
Norfolk, Virginia

Women in Action Retreat
May 30-31, 2008
7:00 PM
Houston, Texas

Black Writers Reunion & Conference
June 19-21, 2008
8:00 AM
Tampa, Florida

Shrine of the Black Madonna
Exact Date TBA
Houston, Texas

Reading Rendezvous
July 6, 2007
6:00 PM
Chicago, Illinois

Mocha Sisters Organization 2008 National Conference
Double Tree Hotel
8:00 AM
August 7-10, 2008
Augusta, Georgia

Brother 2 Brother Literary Symposium
Texas Southern University
October 3-4, 2008
9:00 AM
Houston, Texas

Click here to view a complete list of event dates for Rewriting the Script.

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