BY SANDY MBHELE
AUTHOR Jackie Phamotse
TITLE BARE- #TheBlessersGame #TheBreedingOfAnUnderdog
BARE: The Blesser’s Game, which has been highly recommended by many, shared multiple times and been the talk of the town this past year, for telling a story that we all know too well recently. Young women coming to Johannesburg from small towns wanting to fulfill their dreams in the city of gold.
The perspective of the book is that many of these young women are naive, easily find themselves in the world of sugar daddies, what we now call ‘blessers’.
Blessee- young woman involved with older wealthy men to live a ‘blessed’ life of luxury brands, cars and paid for apartments. The author, who herself has admitted that she lived this life, has a heavy moral question for us all, how much are we willing to sell our souls for money?
Bare, follows a story of Treasure a small town girl from Westonaria, her journey of growing up in an abusive household, witnessing her mother being a punching bag by the man she loves- Treasure’s father, learning that love is abusive. Treasure’s relationship with men is defined at this crucial stage of her childhood.
I will not spoil it for some who have not had the chance to read the book but she experiences numerous sexually abuse from many men she has encountered with or fell in love with. That trauma has caused Treasure to have this toxic relationships with men, as she is already broken when she eventually meets her blesser, Tim, whose twice her age.
In this relationship, we are taken to trips to Sandton, spa days, shopping sprees, we learn more how to act ‘classy’ than inner demons or struggles of the main character, which is one of the main reasons this book fails for me. I was left frustrated with the direction of book, focusing too much on her childhood, half way through the book we still reading about her boarding school days, and her sexuality. I would of liked to have seen a multi layered approach on why young women choose to basically sell themselves to live their best materialistic life.
We cannot all be naive, have abusive pasts, absence fathers and a toxic masculine world that we as women experience. Are our choices our own or are they influenced by many other factors?
I also could not ignore the poor grammar and grammatical errors that are littered in the book. How is it that we have books published in this day and age without being proof read??? Can we avoid A to B embarrassments?
However, if you looking for a book that will give a sneak peek into the lives of blessers, this is it for you, it is just a sneak peek. Overall I was disappointed, 4/10.
@SandyMbhele