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Leaving Breezy Street
Told in an inimitable voice, Leaving Breezy Street is the stunning account of Brenda Myers-Powell’s brutal and beautiful life.
“Careful―don’t think prostitution is just about money. It’s never just the money. It’s about slipping in at all the wrong places. Getting into dangerous situations and getting out of them. That’s exciting. That’s what you want. But you want something else, too.”
What did Brenda Myers-Powell want? When she turned to prostitution at the age of fifteen, she wanted to support her two baby daughters and have a little money for herself. She was pretty and funny as hell, and although she called herself “Breezy,” she was also tough―a survivor in every sense of the word. Over the next twenty-five years, she would move across the country, finding new pimps, parties, drugs, and endless, profound heartache. And she would begin to want something else, something huge: a life of dignity, self-acceptance, and love. Astonishingly, she managed to find the strength to break from an unsparing world and save not only herself but also future Breezys.
We have no say into which worlds we are born. But sometimes we can find a way out.
“Careful―don’t think prostitution is just about money. It’s never just the money. It’s about slipping in at all the wrong places. Getting into dangerous situations and getting out of them. That’s exciting. That’s what you want. But you want something else, too.”
What did Brenda Myers-Powell want? When she turned to prostitution at the age of fifteen, she wanted to support her two baby daughters and have a little money for herself. She was pretty and funny as hell, and although she called herself “Breezy,” she was also tough―a survivor in every sense of the word. Over the next twenty-five years, she would move across the country, finding new pimps, parties, drugs, and endless, profound heartache. And she would begin to want something else, something huge: a life of dignity, self-acceptance, and love. Astonishingly, she managed to find the strength to break from an unsparing world and save not only herself but also future Breezys.
We have no say into which worlds we are born. But sometimes we can find a way out.
288 pages, Hardcover
First published June 29, 2021
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3385 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 95 reviews
February 4, 2021
Leaving Breezy Street is an eye-opening, but brutally difficult, read. The subject matter -- human trafficking -- will rip your heart out. However, author Brenda Myers-Powell relates her life story in a humorous and salty manner that will have the reader laughing and gasping in horror at the same time.
Myers-Powell gives us a memoir detailing her physically abusive childhood which led to a life of prostitution before she was thirteen years old. The obstacles that arise seem insurmountable, and the situation becomes even more dire when Myers-Powell develops a crack habit, cycles in and out of jail, experiences multiple health problems and is unable to raise her daughters. Abusive men play a starring role in her life as uncles, pimps and boyfriends. And the violence they perpetrate on Myers-Powell is very difficult to read.
However, the bright light in this book is Myers-Powell. With her faith in God and Divine Providence as her touchstone, she chronicles her escape from prostitution and drug addiction with the help of strong women, good recovery programs and devoted friends who loved her and always wanted the best for her.
Myers-Powell was finally able to leave this cycle of violence and start a non-profit called "Dreamcatchers" which provides counseling and refuge for children and young women between the ages of 12 and 24 who are victims of human trafficking. Her work with the cohort from which she came is miraculous and inspiring. Her superhero-like strength and resiliency is mind-boggling. Others who have endured such a lifetime of torture end up dead or mentally devastated. This woman is the definition of "survivor."
Although I thought the descriptions of life on the streets, and stories with the pimps and tricks was maybe a bit too extensive (story after story after story -- some could have been eliminated), Leaving Breezy Street is a testimony to the resiliency of the human spirit, forgiveness and the triumph of good over evil.
Trigger warning: the language is very graphic along with detailed descriptions of rape and other types of violence against women.
Many thanks to NetGalley and Henry Holt & Co. for the advance copy of #LeavingBreezyStreet
Myers-Powell gives us a memoir detailing her physically abusive childhood which led to a life of prostitution before she was thirteen years old. The obstacles that arise seem insurmountable, and the situation becomes even more dire when Myers-Powell develops a crack habit, cycles in and out of jail, experiences multiple health problems and is unable to raise her daughters. Abusive men play a starring role in her life as uncles, pimps and boyfriends. And the violence they perpetrate on Myers-Powell is very difficult to read.
However, the bright light in this book is Myers-Powell. With her faith in God and Divine Providence as her touchstone, she chronicles her escape from prostitution and drug addiction with the help of strong women, good recovery programs and devoted friends who loved her and always wanted the best for her.
Myers-Powell was finally able to leave this cycle of violence and start a non-profit called "Dreamcatchers" which provides counseling and refuge for children and young women between the ages of 12 and 24 who are victims of human trafficking. Her work with the cohort from which she came is miraculous and inspiring. Her superhero-like strength and resiliency is mind-boggling. Others who have endured such a lifetime of torture end up dead or mentally devastated. This woman is the definition of "survivor."
Although I thought the descriptions of life on the streets, and stories with the pimps and tricks was maybe a bit too extensive (story after story after story -- some could have been eliminated), Leaving Breezy Street is a testimony to the resiliency of the human spirit, forgiveness and the triumph of good over evil.
Trigger warning: the language is very graphic along with detailed descriptions of rape and other types of violence against women.
Many thanks to NetGalley and Henry Holt & Co. for the advance copy of #LeavingBreezyStreet
March 7, 2021
Brenda Myers-Powell's "Leaving Breezy Street" is a memoir about how events in the author's childhood led to a life of drugs, travel, and prostitution. The messages we receive as a society about people who grow up and become involved in drugs and prostitution neglect to mention the trauma that may lead to these choices. This book turns this incorrect narrative on its head through Myers-Powell's descriptions of the repetitive cycle of trauma in her life that started at a very young age and left her with few options. "Leaving Breezy Street" also highlights how human trafficking is very much present in our towns and cities and how difficult, or even impossible, it is for young girls and women to walk away. Myers-Powell is now dedicated to educating others about human trafficking in the United States and helping women find a new path."Leaving Breezy Street" can be hard to read but is really well-written and informative.
July 3, 2021
The autobiography ‘Leaving Breezy Street’ by Brenda Myers-Powell is both a terrible book and an educational book. I do not recommend it for those still suffering any kind of active PTSD currently, or those who are just beginning therapy because of trauma. However, it would be an instructive and validating book for those who are trying to escape prostitution and underworld companions. I also think therapists and friends of addicted loved ones might find the book enlightening, as well as the curious. She goes deep into the world of prostitution. Perhaps, gentle reader, you may find yourself motivated into doing volunteer work or getting a professional degree to help such people as Brenda was.
Myers-Powell explains in her autobiography, in brief but graphic vignettes, and factually, how through rape and constant molestation and physical abuse throughout her impoverished childhood, year by year, she became sexualized on several levels by age nine. Her relatives and peers were into sex and drinking and beatings, with fists and electrical cords, the same way people eat meals to satisfy hunger. She grew up as a Black child in a city, I believe Chicago, in a Black neighborhood. She skipped school a lot. She had two daughters by the time she was fifteen years old that she couldn’t take care of for most of their lives. As a result of becoming a prostitute, she also became an addict.
With the help of April Reynolds, she has put together her autobiography to educate and explain what happened to her as a child, and the choices she made as an adult. The book could be a difficult read for many readers, as Myers-Powell does not hold anything back. She writes, in simple terms and in cultural dialect (bitch this and bitch that, primarily - it is like the vocabulary of her oldest friends and family consist of 500 words or less, half of them derogatory curse words spoken in ‘affection’ - most of the time) of what happened to her, and the things she is responsible for. She includes her mental state of mind at the different ages things occurred. I think she was very undereducated and ignorant to put it mildly even as an adult! But she did go to school as an adult and got a nursing certificate. She was a good student. For awhile, she was a different kind of working girl, but she couldn’t stay away from those ghetto friends and lovers, and the drugs.
She tells of a childhood environment, Myers-Powell believes, was full of love as well as torture, rape and abuse. She enjoyed normal, if limited in quantity and quality, childhood pleasures. But she also committed a lot of juvenile and adult crimes. Everyone around her, children and adults, all committed crimes and many were convicted criminals. As an adult, she always chose a milieu of pimps, criminals, prostitutes, gangs and drug dealers - exactly as what people she knew as a child.
At times when a child, she left her grandmother’s house to live with other relatives who lived in neighborhoods that were better resourced and less violent than that of her main caretaker, her grandmother. However, I got the feeling Myers-Powell lived inside of an ignorant social vacuum with disinterested or unmotivated or pedophile adults surrounding her as a child. I think maybe she also chose to ignore better opportunities that did cross her path when a child or as an adult. But I also think she did not have what we have come to call social capital or any kind of educational background to grasp where a better choice could lead. In my opinion, she also had a huge craving for friends, lovers-and-criminal-protectors (very much the same thing) which superseded everything else, coloring every choice, including breaking out of the underclass and moving away from her protector-torturer-abuser ‘friends’. Just my opinion. She still loves her ne’er-do-well friends and family deeply and sincerely.
From her memoir, she seems to have resisted her abusers a lot - in her mind. But outside of her head? Not so much, in my opinion, unless bragging about how much torture, pain and self-abuse she could take without fear or breaking is about resisting. She actually was unable to change the trajectory of her life until a horrific encounter with a john at age thirty-nine - being dragged by a car which tore up her face - put an end to her career. After that she got, and wanted, help. This vignette is told early in the book - no spoilers.
Myers-Powell is a hero today. She is working hard to save others who have been sex-trafficked. She is an experienced public speaker. She has received many awards for her activism and her service. She is the cofounder and executive director of the Dreamcatcher Foundation since 1997 and has been on the board of many organizations involved with stopping sex trafficking.
In the present, she is apparently a hardcore Christian. She feels God made everything happen for a reason. She is very grateful to God, along with many other people who helped her get out of prostitution and addiction after she left the hospital.
While I completely believe her and trust her Truth, I wasn’t this kind of kid despite that I also had a home with some similarities to hers until I was old enough to escape my abusers at about age nine by becoming a loner and a reader. She did none - NONE - of the things I did. I lost myself in reading books. I hung out with my teachers at school and in the library, staying for the events for kids that were free. I stayed in school, doing my best to get A’s. I joined in on school opportunities, such as a book-reading contest, becoming a school-crossing guard, cleaning the blackboards and running errands for my teachers. I made friends with other elementary-school nerds and brains. We hung out at their safer homes and I never invited them into mine. When I got a used bike from one of them, we went biking, leaving my neighborhood for others with a lake, a zoo, a beach, tourist sites like the government locks to watch fish travel up a fish ladder. We went to the Seattle Center for kid shows. I went to museums and concerts, learned to drive, participated in sports, all sponsored by groups working with my mostly White, if working-class, schools.
I hated my dad. Full stop. My mother, who I pined for frequently, benignly ignored us except when she was drunk. They were married and stayed together, which was amazing, frankly. Neither was home much. Dad was working all of the time, thankfully, and my mom preferred to stay away getting drunk as much as she could get away with leaving me and my brother on my own. We were latch-key kids, taking care of ourselves at the age of five (my brother) and seven (me, in charge), except occasionally we went to a neighborhood lady’s home who babysat for a few hours, until we were eleven or so. We lived in the same house, never moved, for my entire childhood. I moved out when I was eighteen. I did not have any relatives near. No adults in the near neighborhood bothered with us.
Frankly, I only trusted myself anyway. I wanted to be safe more than I wanted friends or adults around me. I only reached out to others I felt safe with, the nerds and brains who were socially awkward or also more into studying and books than close friendships as I was. Or who were so self-involved, they never inquired or were curious about me and my home or my parents. Yes, I had a lot of friends like the latter! I also did not allow anyone to ever touch me, fearing abuse more than I wanted affection or love. I never reached out except to teachers. I never asked for the phone numbers of others, although they asked for mine. I guess I kept people away a few steps, not wanting intimacy. I was very curious about them, though. I was socialized through watching other people and TV and books.
In comparing Myers-Powell’s life with mine, there are crystal-clear differences. I was not Black. I had a White father and a Native-American mother, so I looked unidentifiably and vaguely ethnic. Both of my parents stayed together and lived in one house for forty years.
I went to an average neighborhood school with resources, and it wasn’t downtown but in the middle of a residential area. Parts of the area was middle-class, parts of it were lower-class and underclass, mixed together. School was my safe place and sanctuary. Teachers gave me the impression they cared about me to a degree. I loved school, but especially I loved learning, studying, reading.
People fascinated and amazed me, but I did not love people. Myers-Powell seems to me desperate for people, and for love, even if in all the wrong places and in all of the wrong ways. I know I never thought I could trust people further than I could throw them, so I tried to be social only as much as I needed to be, and snuck off when I could, hopefully without anyone noticing.
Kids noticed I got A’s, so that was a natural barrier between me and many of them. I did not miss being with them, I never wanted to be part of a gang or a club, I wasn’t a joiner, I hated beer (the number one alcoholic drink of choice), drugs made me violently ill and I also had convulsions sometimes (later I found out I had an erratic brain wave - mild epilepsy). I was lousy at sports and activities (later I found out I have joint hypermobility - EDS). Of course, I had to have glasses in the third grade. So. A lot of barriers in attracting the attention of ne’er-do-well kids, friendly and otherwise. I never had kids. It turns out my uterus was messed up from bad stuff that happened.
Being suspicious of all adults kept me out of their hands. I didn’t talk back, but I ran off instead of waiting obediently for an adult command to “come here”, or “I’m talking to you!” “I want to show you something”. I was afraid to run only from my dad.
As an adult, I always looked for exits no matter who I was with or where I was. I kept money in my shoe to get a taxi always, no matter who I was with or where. I was one of those people who seem to always keep their coat on, and their purse strapped across their body, even when friends made fun of me or demanded I make myself comfortable. I “just said no” - the only time I ever was on the same page with President Reagan’s administration.
I do not believe in a God who causes or allows (an understanding that depends on the religion) some children to become prostitutes for decades. I don’t believe in a God who permits little kids, from prepuberty into adulthood, to live in an ignorant unschooled underclass violent life where death could happen anytime. Apparently God permits this until He has decided to ‘rescue’ His Chosen Ones in one of the ways He mysteriously does. For example, by destroying their face by being dragged on pavement by a sadistic man - who punched her repeatedly before she jumped out of the moving car before dragging her.
I have heard such awful things happen because God is teaching a lesson to a parent or other adult or to you about personal responsibility or He wants to humiliate you into recognizing you are scum. Or He is teaching, apparently, through victimizing a child and giving it agony, hoping the adult will see the errors of their ways and come to Jesus, all forgiven, even if they have damaged a child beyond all repair or hope of life. Sort of a biblical Job moment, where God destroys all of Job’s wives, children and relatives to show the Devil Job will always love God no matter what tortures God does or how many innocent children, who will never live to grow up because their entire purpose was in being a tool to teach an adult. Or God is standing about, waiting, for one to ask him for help, which He is willing to provide, invisibly for sure, maybe, or not, depending on His mood. Myers-Powell and I certainly understand cause-and-effect entirely different. But getting religion is part of how she made the decision to get out of the underworld. I have NO idea of how that works since the logic or philosophy of believing is insane to me. So.
This book is a valuable resource for sociological study in any case, but I fear some people will not see it is the culture of generational poverty and abuse, ignorance and addictions which is the Evil. You know, those people who are conservatives and Republicans - at least those who can read.
Myers-Powell explains in her autobiography, in brief but graphic vignettes, and factually, how through rape and constant molestation and physical abuse throughout her impoverished childhood, year by year, she became sexualized on several levels by age nine. Her relatives and peers were into sex and drinking and beatings, with fists and electrical cords, the same way people eat meals to satisfy hunger. She grew up as a Black child in a city, I believe Chicago, in a Black neighborhood. She skipped school a lot. She had two daughters by the time she was fifteen years old that she couldn’t take care of for most of their lives. As a result of becoming a prostitute, she also became an addict.
With the help of April Reynolds, she has put together her autobiography to educate and explain what happened to her as a child, and the choices she made as an adult. The book could be a difficult read for many readers, as Myers-Powell does not hold anything back. She writes, in simple terms and in cultural dialect (bitch this and bitch that, primarily - it is like the vocabulary of her oldest friends and family consist of 500 words or less, half of them derogatory curse words spoken in ‘affection’ - most of the time) of what happened to her, and the things she is responsible for. She includes her mental state of mind at the different ages things occurred. I think she was very undereducated and ignorant to put it mildly even as an adult! But she did go to school as an adult and got a nursing certificate. She was a good student. For awhile, she was a different kind of working girl, but she couldn’t stay away from those ghetto friends and lovers, and the drugs.
She tells of a childhood environment, Myers-Powell believes, was full of love as well as torture, rape and abuse. She enjoyed normal, if limited in quantity and quality, childhood pleasures. But she also committed a lot of juvenile and adult crimes. Everyone around her, children and adults, all committed crimes and many were convicted criminals. As an adult, she always chose a milieu of pimps, criminals, prostitutes, gangs and drug dealers - exactly as what people she knew as a child.
At times when a child, she left her grandmother’s house to live with other relatives who lived in neighborhoods that were better resourced and less violent than that of her main caretaker, her grandmother. However, I got the feeling Myers-Powell lived inside of an ignorant social vacuum with disinterested or unmotivated or pedophile adults surrounding her as a child. I think maybe she also chose to ignore better opportunities that did cross her path when a child or as an adult. But I also think she did not have what we have come to call social capital or any kind of educational background to grasp where a better choice could lead. In my opinion, she also had a huge craving for friends, lovers-and-criminal-protectors (very much the same thing) which superseded everything else, coloring every choice, including breaking out of the underclass and moving away from her protector-torturer-abuser ‘friends’. Just my opinion. She still loves her ne’er-do-well friends and family deeply and sincerely.
From her memoir, she seems to have resisted her abusers a lot - in her mind. But outside of her head? Not so much, in my opinion, unless bragging about how much torture, pain and self-abuse she could take without fear or breaking is about resisting. She actually was unable to change the trajectory of her life until a horrific encounter with a john at age thirty-nine - being dragged by a car which tore up her face - put an end to her career. After that she got, and wanted, help. This vignette is told early in the book - no spoilers.
Myers-Powell is a hero today. She is working hard to save others who have been sex-trafficked. She is an experienced public speaker. She has received many awards for her activism and her service. She is the cofounder and executive director of the Dreamcatcher Foundation since 1997 and has been on the board of many organizations involved with stopping sex trafficking.
In the present, she is apparently a hardcore Christian. She feels God made everything happen for a reason. She is very grateful to God, along with many other people who helped her get out of prostitution and addiction after she left the hospital.
While I completely believe her and trust her Truth, I wasn’t this kind of kid despite that I also had a home with some similarities to hers until I was old enough to escape my abusers at about age nine by becoming a loner and a reader. She did none - NONE - of the things I did. I lost myself in reading books. I hung out with my teachers at school and in the library, staying for the events for kids that were free. I stayed in school, doing my best to get A’s. I joined in on school opportunities, such as a book-reading contest, becoming a school-crossing guard, cleaning the blackboards and running errands for my teachers. I made friends with other elementary-school nerds and brains. We hung out at their safer homes and I never invited them into mine. When I got a used bike from one of them, we went biking, leaving my neighborhood for others with a lake, a zoo, a beach, tourist sites like the government locks to watch fish travel up a fish ladder. We went to the Seattle Center for kid shows. I went to museums and concerts, learned to drive, participated in sports, all sponsored by groups working with my mostly White, if working-class, schools.
I hated my dad. Full stop. My mother, who I pined for frequently, benignly ignored us except when she was drunk. They were married and stayed together, which was amazing, frankly. Neither was home much. Dad was working all of the time, thankfully, and my mom preferred to stay away getting drunk as much as she could get away with leaving me and my brother on my own. We were latch-key kids, taking care of ourselves at the age of five (my brother) and seven (me, in charge), except occasionally we went to a neighborhood lady’s home who babysat for a few hours, until we were eleven or so. We lived in the same house, never moved, for my entire childhood. I moved out when I was eighteen. I did not have any relatives near. No adults in the near neighborhood bothered with us.
Frankly, I only trusted myself anyway. I wanted to be safe more than I wanted friends or adults around me. I only reached out to others I felt safe with, the nerds and brains who were socially awkward or also more into studying and books than close friendships as I was. Or who were so self-involved, they never inquired or were curious about me and my home or my parents. Yes, I had a lot of friends like the latter! I also did not allow anyone to ever touch me, fearing abuse more than I wanted affection or love. I never reached out except to teachers. I never asked for the phone numbers of others, although they asked for mine. I guess I kept people away a few steps, not wanting intimacy. I was very curious about them, though. I was socialized through watching other people and TV and books.
In comparing Myers-Powell’s life with mine, there are crystal-clear differences. I was not Black. I had a White father and a Native-American mother, so I looked unidentifiably and vaguely ethnic. Both of my parents stayed together and lived in one house for forty years.
I went to an average neighborhood school with resources, and it wasn’t downtown but in the middle of a residential area. Parts of the area was middle-class, parts of it were lower-class and underclass, mixed together. School was my safe place and sanctuary. Teachers gave me the impression they cared about me to a degree. I loved school, but especially I loved learning, studying, reading.
People fascinated and amazed me, but I did not love people. Myers-Powell seems to me desperate for people, and for love, even if in all the wrong places and in all of the wrong ways. I know I never thought I could trust people further than I could throw them, so I tried to be social only as much as I needed to be, and snuck off when I could, hopefully without anyone noticing.
Kids noticed I got A’s, so that was a natural barrier between me and many of them. I did not miss being with them, I never wanted to be part of a gang or a club, I wasn’t a joiner, I hated beer (the number one alcoholic drink of choice), drugs made me violently ill and I also had convulsions sometimes (later I found out I had an erratic brain wave - mild epilepsy). I was lousy at sports and activities (later I found out I have joint hypermobility - EDS). Of course, I had to have glasses in the third grade. So. A lot of barriers in attracting the attention of ne’er-do-well kids, friendly and otherwise. I never had kids. It turns out my uterus was messed up from bad stuff that happened.
Being suspicious of all adults kept me out of their hands. I didn’t talk back, but I ran off instead of waiting obediently for an adult command to “come here”, or “I’m talking to you!” “I want to show you something”. I was afraid to run only from my dad.
As an adult, I always looked for exits no matter who I was with or where I was. I kept money in my shoe to get a taxi always, no matter who I was with or where. I was one of those people who seem to always keep their coat on, and their purse strapped across their body, even when friends made fun of me or demanded I make myself comfortable. I “just said no” - the only time I ever was on the same page with President Reagan’s administration.
I do not believe in a God who causes or allows (an understanding that depends on the religion) some children to become prostitutes for decades. I don’t believe in a God who permits little kids, from prepuberty into adulthood, to live in an ignorant unschooled underclass violent life where death could happen anytime. Apparently God permits this until He has decided to ‘rescue’ His Chosen Ones in one of the ways He mysteriously does. For example, by destroying their face by being dragged on pavement by a sadistic man - who punched her repeatedly before she jumped out of the moving car before dragging her.
I have heard such awful things happen because God is teaching a lesson to a parent or other adult or to you about personal responsibility or He wants to humiliate you into recognizing you are scum. Or He is teaching, apparently, through victimizing a child and giving it agony, hoping the adult will see the errors of their ways and come to Jesus, all forgiven, even if they have damaged a child beyond all repair or hope of life. Sort of a biblical Job moment, where God destroys all of Job’s wives, children and relatives to show the Devil Job will always love God no matter what tortures God does or how many innocent children, who will never live to grow up because their entire purpose was in being a tool to teach an adult. Or God is standing about, waiting, for one to ask him for help, which He is willing to provide, invisibly for sure, maybe, or not, depending on His mood. Myers-Powell and I certainly understand cause-and-effect entirely different. But getting religion is part of how she made the decision to get out of the underworld. I have NO idea of how that works since the logic or philosophy of believing is insane to me. So.
This book is a valuable resource for sociological study in any case, but I fear some people will not see it is the culture of generational poverty and abuse, ignorance and addictions which is the Evil. You know, those people who are conservatives and Republicans - at least those who can read.
June 23, 2021
Leaving Breezy Street is heartbreaking. A memoir about a 14 year old girl who is motherless, and she had two kids of her own to take care of. Just a child herself she ends up in human trafficking as a means to provide for her family. The lifestyle leads her to more violence and eventually she finds herself addicted to drugs. This is her story and how she found her way out of the human trafficking lifestyle.
We need more awareness about the truths women like what Brenda Myers-Powell had to endure as a means to survival. Myers-Powell does not sugar coat anything in her story. I think her honesty is what makes this story so raw.
We need more awareness about the truths women like what Brenda Myers-Powell had to endure as a means to survival. Myers-Powell does not sugar coat anything in her story. I think her honesty is what makes this story so raw.
October 1, 2021
I can't rate this memoir... This is a story about struggle and addiction. This lady is the walking definition of a testimony 💃🏾
July 12, 2021
I finished reading this because I received it as a ARC. It’s terrifically sad as the author was abused as a young girl and then lived for years as a prostitute and drug addict, and single mother who loses her first three daughters. In the last few chapters she pulls her life together, and perhaps in her next book we will hear that story.
July 28, 2021
Black Chicago Summer Reading Book #3
3.5. I’m grateful to Brenda for sharing her story. Leaving Breezy Street was incredibly authentic and moving. The book felt like an oral retelling of Brenda’s life, it wasn’t overly polished and retained the natural cadence/language/word choice one would expect, which I enjoyed.
A little more editing could’ve helped reduce some of the redundancy and made the timeline clearer.
3.5. I’m grateful to Brenda for sharing her story. Leaving Breezy Street was incredibly authentic and moving. The book felt like an oral retelling of Brenda’s life, it wasn’t overly polished and retained the natural cadence/language/word choice one would expect, which I enjoyed.
A little more editing could’ve helped reduce some of the redundancy and made the timeline clearer.
July 1, 2021
Wow. That's the first word that comes to mind when I think of what I just read. This was a very clear look at what it is like to live the life of a prostitute. Brenda touches on her childhood and the things that led her down the path she took, as well as the reasons she stayed in that life for as long as she did. It was a deep, dark look at a world that I previously knew nothing about. One thing that really struck me is that she didn't necessarily dislike the lifestyle. After leaving that world, she was still drawn to it. The other thing that jumped out at me is how strong and brave Brenda had to be to live that life. She got herself out of situations that I cannot imagine ever living through. Her life was not easy, but at no point in this book did it ever seem that Brenda was looking for pity or even feeling sorry for herself. She is able to look back at her childhood and even turn the challenges and struggles into something positive.
I am really impressed that she was able to get away from a life that so many get trapped it or never make it out of. And not only that, but she took her experiences and used them for good by starting a foundation to help others that have ended up as prostitutes.
This was a really interesting memoir and while it was written by a ghostwriter, it certainly felt like it was being told in Brenda's voice. The language is definitely vulgar, so if that is something that offends you, it's something to take into consideration before reading this book. Even though I am not typically a fan of vulgarity, I did feel that it lent authenticity to this story and it felt appropriate given the topic.
I am really impressed that she was able to get away from a life that so many get trapped it or never make it out of. And not only that, but she took her experiences and used them for good by starting a foundation to help others that have ended up as prostitutes.
This was a really interesting memoir and while it was written by a ghostwriter, it certainly felt like it was being told in Brenda's voice. The language is definitely vulgar, so if that is something that offends you, it's something to take into consideration before reading this book. Even though I am not typically a fan of vulgarity, I did feel that it lent authenticity to this story and it felt appropriate given the topic.
August 20, 2021
Such a powerful and moving memoir of Breezy aka Brenda, and how she turned her life around and got out of prostitution and working “tricks”. I thought the writing style was easy to follow and made you feel like you were right along side with you. I did at times find her stories a tad long and seemed to side track from the original story.
I want to watch the documentary about her and the Dreamcatcher foundation, and learn about the foundation that she has started! Overall a good read, and I would recommend!
I want to watch the documentary about her and the Dreamcatcher foundation, and learn about the foundation that she has started! Overall a good read, and I would recommend!
August 9, 2021
Brenda Myers-Powell is the co-founder of the Dreamcatcher Foundation, a nonprofit that aims to fight human trafficking and prostitution in the Chicagoland area. Brenda is just about the most qualified person to run a foundation with this aim, because she herself was a victim of human trafficking, a drug user, a sexual abuse survivor, a teen mom with hardly any resources to support her kids, and so much more. In this book, Brenda tells the story of Breezy, her nickname when she was a prostitute, and the persona that Brenda often slipped behind when she needed to get tough, because things were tougher than tough.
As a child, Brenda was raised by her grandmother (her own mother had passed away). Her grandmother was good and bad - she provided for Brenda, but was an alcoholic, and often became emotionally, verbally, and physically abusive to Brenda was she was drunk. She loved Brenda and taught her countless life lessons, but she wasn't nurturing in the slightest. She exposed Brenda to every bit of the craziness and hardship of Chicago, from the violence to the drugs to the sex to the lack of safety. When she grew up a bit, Brenda went to live with her aunt in Evanston and got a taste of the suburban life, but her aunt's husband began to sexually abuse her from a young age. She never, ever forgot this - and it basically shaped the rest of her life, causing her to fall into bad things, sell her body, and find other unhealthy coping mechanisms. Before she was 15, Brenda had two young kids, Peaches and Prune.
With no other way of providing for them, she started to turn to sex work - regardless of the fact that she was well underage. In fact, some pimps and tricks wanted her because she was so young and fresh. Not long after that, Brenda was kidnapped by two "gorilla pimps," the worst kind of pimp, one that brutally beats and rapes a victim until they agree to have sex with strangers. Although she managed to escape this relationship, she was forever scarred. She had short- and long-term relationships with other pimps, ones that were kinder to her than the gorilla pimps (although the bar is shockingly low), but continued on this path. There were "good" tricks and "bad" tricks, and there was always a constant, constant fear that one bad trick would end your life right then and there.
Brenda had a wild and chaotic young life, traveling all over the country, getting addicted to drugs, getting shot and stabbed multiple times and surviving, and many more insane incidents - she must be right when she says that God was watching over her the entire time, knowing that there was something better in store for her. She was unable to take care of her children and sometimes put them in very dangerous situations, even losing one of her children at the hospital immediately after she was born because she was addicted to drugs. She reflects on the profound loneliness she felt during this period, when she had nothing and nobody looking out for her or really in her corner. She felt empty, and tried to fill that emptiness with drugs, sometimes sex, and always the urge to keep moving on.
Eventually, after many, many hardships, Brenda got clean, stopped selling her body, and got on a better path. Her story is difficult to read - one can't even imagine how difficult to actually live - and her strength is unbelievable. She credits a lot of her recovery to God and faith, but a lot to herself as well: her own self-reliance, her own belief that she could overcome, and her own toughness from fighting some of the hardest conditions a person could go through. Her memoir is an honest and realistic perspective of what many women have survived, as well as a path forward. Although she admits that things are different, probably worse, now with social media, she knows many, many of the tricks of the trade and is a veritable expert in how human traffickers work. She now dedicates her life to getting through to young women who are victims of human trafficking, trying to steer them in a different direction and show them how their lives could be different. Highly recommend this book if you're interested in human trafficking, powerful memoirs, and surviving abuse.
Thank you to Henry Holt & Co for the ARC via Netgalley!
As a child, Brenda was raised by her grandmother (her own mother had passed away). Her grandmother was good and bad - she provided for Brenda, but was an alcoholic, and often became emotionally, verbally, and physically abusive to Brenda was she was drunk. She loved Brenda and taught her countless life lessons, but she wasn't nurturing in the slightest. She exposed Brenda to every bit of the craziness and hardship of Chicago, from the violence to the drugs to the sex to the lack of safety. When she grew up a bit, Brenda went to live with her aunt in Evanston and got a taste of the suburban life, but her aunt's husband began to sexually abuse her from a young age. She never, ever forgot this - and it basically shaped the rest of her life, causing her to fall into bad things, sell her body, and find other unhealthy coping mechanisms. Before she was 15, Brenda had two young kids, Peaches and Prune.
With no other way of providing for them, she started to turn to sex work - regardless of the fact that she was well underage. In fact, some pimps and tricks wanted her because she was so young and fresh. Not long after that, Brenda was kidnapped by two "gorilla pimps," the worst kind of pimp, one that brutally beats and rapes a victim until they agree to have sex with strangers. Although she managed to escape this relationship, she was forever scarred. She had short- and long-term relationships with other pimps, ones that were kinder to her than the gorilla pimps (although the bar is shockingly low), but continued on this path. There were "good" tricks and "bad" tricks, and there was always a constant, constant fear that one bad trick would end your life right then and there.
Brenda had a wild and chaotic young life, traveling all over the country, getting addicted to drugs, getting shot and stabbed multiple times and surviving, and many more insane incidents - she must be right when she says that God was watching over her the entire time, knowing that there was something better in store for her. She was unable to take care of her children and sometimes put them in very dangerous situations, even losing one of her children at the hospital immediately after she was born because she was addicted to drugs. She reflects on the profound loneliness she felt during this period, when she had nothing and nobody looking out for her or really in her corner. She felt empty, and tried to fill that emptiness with drugs, sometimes sex, and always the urge to keep moving on.
Eventually, after many, many hardships, Brenda got clean, stopped selling her body, and got on a better path. Her story is difficult to read - one can't even imagine how difficult to actually live - and her strength is unbelievable. She credits a lot of her recovery to God and faith, but a lot to herself as well: her own self-reliance, her own belief that she could overcome, and her own toughness from fighting some of the hardest conditions a person could go through. Her memoir is an honest and realistic perspective of what many women have survived, as well as a path forward. Although she admits that things are different, probably worse, now with social media, she knows many, many of the tricks of the trade and is a veritable expert in how human traffickers work. She now dedicates her life to getting through to young women who are victims of human trafficking, trying to steer them in a different direction and show them how their lives could be different. Highly recommend this book if you're interested in human trafficking, powerful memoirs, and surviving abuse.
Thank you to Henry Holt & Co for the ARC via Netgalley!
August 27, 2023
This was a very tough book. About 85% of it was a real-world horror show, of all the ways that women and girls get exploited and how they gradually become conditioned to use their bodies as currency. And among the saddest parts of this odyssey was how rational that conditioning comes to sound in your mind as a reader. Imagine a fifteen-year-old with two kids, under-educated and under pressure, wondering how she will feed her children. The logical question is: why, how does she even have not one but two kids at fifteen?! Multiple episodes of molestation by several men beginning when she was four-years-old, that's how. Being adultified by an alcoholic and physically as well as verbally abusive grandmother, that's how. And ultimately, learning to rationalize and excuse that abuse so that later receiving more of the same from various boys and men seems ... normal. Given those circumstances, it was actually no wonder that Brenda Myers very early began to have what felt to her like sex by choice with different boys and men, and ultimately got pregnant. The way her family members seemed to see this as a predictable outcome was almost as heartbreaking as the accounts of the rapes she endured. No one seemed to have high hopes for Brenda, so no wonder that she didn't know how to have those hopes for herself.
Much of the book is an extraordinarily detailed account of how she became a prostitute by fifteen, traveling across the country to sell herself (alone and sometimes with various pimps) by seventeen, and addicted to crack cocaine by her mid-twenties. Her life as a prostitute went on almost uninterrupted against a backdrop of memorable cultural and social moments like the popularity of the Harlem Globetrotters in the 70s, the advent of crack cocaine in the late 80s, the rise of uber-organized gangs like the Crips and Bloods, and the Rodney King beating in the 90s, and the Million Man March in the early aughts. Brenda Myers-Powell describes herself as having been a 'ho and prostitute back then, rejecting and disdaining the more politically correct term sex worker, viewing it as a failed effort to confer dignity on something that in its most common form is a thief of human dignity and not a matter of career choice at all ("you ever known a so-called sex worker to have a retirement plan?" she asks). She lays out in sometimes uncomfortable detail a remarkable and remarkably violent life. But what's most remarkable is her survival, and the fact that today, she thrives as co-founder of Dreamcatcher, a non-profit dedicated to addressing human trafficking, and has a functional and close relationship with two daughters she abandoned to be raised by family members, and one she left (involuntarily) in hospital after giving birth to her while under the influence of crack.
I wish I could rate this book higher, because it feels sleazy to not offer unmitigated praise to someone so bravely and unflinchingly telling their life story, warts and all. But at the end, while I was happy for Brenda's triumphs, I felt uneasy. At times there was the ring of something like nostalgia—which she herself acknowledges as part of a mindset she had to unlearn—for the chaos and violence of the streets and the life she left. And relatively short shrift given to her recovery and redemption process. It made me wonder whether this story will ring as a cautionary tale to the girls she obviously cares so deeply about, or whether for some it will be merely entertaining, and feed their already blighted perception of what it means to be a 'ho'. On the other hand, I have no doubt Brenda Myers-Powell delivers a more nuanced message through her life's work at Dreamcatcher. And if nothing else, those of us who had no idea (and I thought I did, but boy was I wrong) what this life might be like will receive a very rough but thorough education.
I recommend this one if you can handle the grittiest of grit, or if you work in any capacity with young girls and women deemed to be "at-risk" and even just with young girls and women in general. Believe me, this book pulls no punches; in no small part because it was all true of Brenda Myers-Powell's experience, but remains tragically true for many hundreds of girls and women.
Much of the book is an extraordinarily detailed account of how she became a prostitute by fifteen, traveling across the country to sell herself (alone and sometimes with various pimps) by seventeen, and addicted to crack cocaine by her mid-twenties. Her life as a prostitute went on almost uninterrupted against a backdrop of memorable cultural and social moments like the popularity of the Harlem Globetrotters in the 70s, the advent of crack cocaine in the late 80s, the rise of uber-organized gangs like the Crips and Bloods, and the Rodney King beating in the 90s, and the Million Man March in the early aughts. Brenda Myers-Powell describes herself as having been a 'ho and prostitute back then, rejecting and disdaining the more politically correct term sex worker, viewing it as a failed effort to confer dignity on something that in its most common form is a thief of human dignity and not a matter of career choice at all ("you ever known a so-called sex worker to have a retirement plan?" she asks). She lays out in sometimes uncomfortable detail a remarkable and remarkably violent life. But what's most remarkable is her survival, and the fact that today, she thrives as co-founder of Dreamcatcher, a non-profit dedicated to addressing human trafficking, and has a functional and close relationship with two daughters she abandoned to be raised by family members, and one she left (involuntarily) in hospital after giving birth to her while under the influence of crack.
I wish I could rate this book higher, because it feels sleazy to not offer unmitigated praise to someone so bravely and unflinchingly telling their life story, warts and all. But at the end, while I was happy for Brenda's triumphs, I felt uneasy. At times there was the ring of something like nostalgia—which she herself acknowledges as part of a mindset she had to unlearn—for the chaos and violence of the streets and the life she left. And relatively short shrift given to her recovery and redemption process. It made me wonder whether this story will ring as a cautionary tale to the girls she obviously cares so deeply about, or whether for some it will be merely entertaining, and feed their already blighted perception of what it means to be a 'ho'. On the other hand, I have no doubt Brenda Myers-Powell delivers a more nuanced message through her life's work at Dreamcatcher. And if nothing else, those of us who had no idea (and I thought I did, but boy was I wrong) what this life might be like will receive a very rough but thorough education.
I recommend this one if you can handle the grittiest of grit, or if you work in any capacity with young girls and women deemed to be "at-risk" and even just with young girls and women in general. Believe me, this book pulls no punches; in no small part because it was all true of Brenda Myers-Powell's experience, but remains tragically true for many hundreds of girls and women.
June 27, 2021
I received this book in a Goodreads giveaway and I'm so glad that I got to read it! That was some real shit. It wasn't a bunch of excuses, it wasn't romanticized, it was just real. Some of it was hard to read because I felt bad for some of the people involved, but Brenda is an amazing storyteller and you feel like you're in her head. I finished this book really quickly and I was disappointed that it ended, I wish it was like 700 pages. I don't think I've ever read a book like this before and I loved it.
July 12, 2021
***Goodreads Giveaway Win***
The honesty and the equanimity with which Brenda Myers-Powell told this story must have required years and years of therapy. This wasn't just a beat for beat breakdown of events but 30,000 foot level narration of self-honest story telling. I'm not just talking honesty as in the fucked-up stuff that happened in her life, although there is that, but honesty as in admitting she actually liked parts of being a prostitute. She admitted she often felt good about how good she was at it. It's refreshing to hear someone who can not only admit this to the public but even admit it to herself.
The honesty and the equanimity with which Brenda Myers-Powell told this story must have required years and years of therapy. This wasn't just a beat for beat breakdown of events but 30,000 foot level narration of self-honest story telling. I'm not just talking honesty as in the fucked-up stuff that happened in her life, although there is that, but honesty as in admitting she actually liked parts of being a prostitute. She admitted she often felt good about how good she was at it. It's refreshing to hear someone who can not only admit this to the public but even admit it to herself.
July 1, 2021
Leaving Breezy Street by Brenda Myers-Powell is a colorful, instructive and compelling story about struggle, survival, and prevailing against all odds. It is a testament to the power of the human spirit, never giving up despite setbacks, doing the hard work to create the life you wish you had, and constructively channeling personal experience by giving back to the community through mentoring and advocating for others. I was struck by how much the descriptions of the author’s childhood reminded me of Terry McMillan’s first book Mama, in terms of growing up in a vibrant, boisterous, energetic, challenging household, and despite enduring some of the worst life has to give, the journey leads to a personal renaissance that is a full circle joyful embrace of the past with the present, and a celebration of family and faith.
Author Myers-Powell notes, “Respect. That’s how I lived my life. Needing respect, demanding respect and actually, that’s how I got into a lot of trouble I found myself in.” The words in her book convey her truth, and as she states, “It starts in the family.” She grew up a child in an adult world, the 60s in Chicago, got lots of spankings, remembers the first person who “tried to mess with her,” couldn’t play outside, didn’t have friends, knew how to be invisible when adults were doing inappropriate things, and “trained to be a ho, before she knew what one was.” Her mother was dead, her favorite uncle was a criminally brutal bully who lovingly shared fried bologna sandwiches as well as biscuits and syrup with her.
In the home and on the streets, violence and love are two mercurial players who appear and disappear at a moment’s notice, repeating their capricious danse macabre in a way that wreaks havoc in the mind and heart of a child. Young Brenda yearns for freedom, and seemingly independent women dressed smartly on street corners catch her attention. She states, “It looked powerful, and when you are in pain, you’re looking for some power and control.” She is 14 years old when two pimps pick her up and terrorize her to stay with them.
Brenda needs rescuing from the human commerce of truck stops and seedy backroad motels, but doesn’t realize at the time no one looks for young black girls. Her story of life inside the insulated bubble of human trafficking, using drugs to mask fear, hurt, and enormous frustration, unfolds in a way you rarely see in any book. It is a story of one of many young women whose plight is a global inconvenient truth, sponsored by a quietly burgeoning industry, that capitalizes on vulnerable women with few choices for survival; no one is looking for them when they disappear. No one is rescuing them, there are scarce resources of sanctuary available, and few advocate for them in the seats of state and national government.
The balance of this book is a journey of self discovery in the darkest of personal moments, and shines light on life’s blessings. After making the decision to evict toxic influences from her life, she “started dating herself,” loving herself, eating right, grooming herself with care, getting stronger, healing, eating out and going to movies alone, because she knew her love and focus needed to be on the author of her life...herself. Her pilgrimage toward self fulfillment leads to a purpose greater than herself in advocacy work with others trafficked for revenue. She becomes known in Springfield, Illinois as the “senator slayer,” building that reputation during trips to the capitol, tireless and determined in her efforts to lobby for people with few fighters in their corner.
This story is stunning in its detail of reality for those trapped in a life of human trafficking, and encouraging in its outcome. Myers-Powell speaks with the imperative voice of experience for those whose stories may remain untold, and so readers can share in witnessing this important, riveting, and timely narrative.
(Note: I received a copy of this audiobook from publisher Henry Holt and Company/Macmillan Audio via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own and not influenced by either the author or publisher. #LeavingBreezyStreet
Author Myers-Powell notes, “Respect. That’s how I lived my life. Needing respect, demanding respect and actually, that’s how I got into a lot of trouble I found myself in.” The words in her book convey her truth, and as she states, “It starts in the family.” She grew up a child in an adult world, the 60s in Chicago, got lots of spankings, remembers the first person who “tried to mess with her,” couldn’t play outside, didn’t have friends, knew how to be invisible when adults were doing inappropriate things, and “trained to be a ho, before she knew what one was.” Her mother was dead, her favorite uncle was a criminally brutal bully who lovingly shared fried bologna sandwiches as well as biscuits and syrup with her.
In the home and on the streets, violence and love are two mercurial players who appear and disappear at a moment’s notice, repeating their capricious danse macabre in a way that wreaks havoc in the mind and heart of a child. Young Brenda yearns for freedom, and seemingly independent women dressed smartly on street corners catch her attention. She states, “It looked powerful, and when you are in pain, you’re looking for some power and control.” She is 14 years old when two pimps pick her up and terrorize her to stay with them.
Brenda needs rescuing from the human commerce of truck stops and seedy backroad motels, but doesn’t realize at the time no one looks for young black girls. Her story of life inside the insulated bubble of human trafficking, using drugs to mask fear, hurt, and enormous frustration, unfolds in a way you rarely see in any book. It is a story of one of many young women whose plight is a global inconvenient truth, sponsored by a quietly burgeoning industry, that capitalizes on vulnerable women with few choices for survival; no one is looking for them when they disappear. No one is rescuing them, there are scarce resources of sanctuary available, and few advocate for them in the seats of state and national government.
The balance of this book is a journey of self discovery in the darkest of personal moments, and shines light on life’s blessings. After making the decision to evict toxic influences from her life, she “started dating herself,” loving herself, eating right, grooming herself with care, getting stronger, healing, eating out and going to movies alone, because she knew her love and focus needed to be on the author of her life...herself. Her pilgrimage toward self fulfillment leads to a purpose greater than herself in advocacy work with others trafficked for revenue. She becomes known in Springfield, Illinois as the “senator slayer,” building that reputation during trips to the capitol, tireless and determined in her efforts to lobby for people with few fighters in their corner.
This story is stunning in its detail of reality for those trapped in a life of human trafficking, and encouraging in its outcome. Myers-Powell speaks with the imperative voice of experience for those whose stories may remain untold, and so readers can share in witnessing this important, riveting, and timely narrative.
(Note: I received a copy of this audiobook from publisher Henry Holt and Company/Macmillan Audio via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own and not influenced by either the author or publisher. #LeavingBreezyStreet
July 28, 2021
Poorly written, uninspiring book by a longtime prostitute who writes, "This seems like an action movie and I was the hero." She's wrong on both accounts. She is a horrible person who makes a lot of anti-white racist comments while seeming to have no trouble with the lying, stealing, cheating, abusive black community where she lives and participates. It's all pretty disgusting.
The first 80% of the book is all about her life as a ho (her word) and drug addict. Without much description she claims she was sexually abused as a child, claiming a memory at age three of a man fingering her. A relative tried while she slept. But by the time she was a teenager she was freely deciding to sleep with boys and men, got pregnant at 13, had a baby, then pregnant again at 14. So she had two kids by high school and started to earn money by streetwalking.
Then the author was abused by a few pimps. She makes the claim in the book that she was a victim of "sex trafficking" but that was only for a very short period. Most of the problems in her life were due to her own bad choices and her unwillingness to give up cocaine or the sex trade. You might be able to excuse it away when she is a teenager (living as an adult with two kids) but by the time she's 18 there's no excuse. She seems to have no real moral compass. And for the next couple decades it's all about her bad choices, including stealing money from her family and abandoning her children without letting anyone know where she it. She is in no way a hero.
Very little of the book (or of her life) is positive. There's a stint in jail after years of her being a prostitute. Of course she blames the system on her being jailed instead of accepting responsibility. She still claims she's a great role model but struggles with her addictions when her kids are in college and she has little to do with them. Then out of nowhere she tries to change (mostly through a narcotics anonymous group) and eventually starts a non-profit for prostitutes with another addict. The ending is too short and quick to have any impact. I honestly didn't see much positive in her no matter how much she tried to tell the reader how beautiful, smart, or tough she was.
The book is horribly written in partial jive-talk that makes her and her community sound ignorant, mixed with proper English that sounds like it came from her highly educated co-author. Much of it is offensive and none of it works.
The biggest problems are the author's unwillingness to accept responsibility for her thousands of bad choices, to slam white people whenever she gets the chance, and to continue to support a broken black community that must accept part of the blame for this woman's horrible life story. This book represents a lot of what's wrong within black culture, but the author fails to draw those conclusions, and instead tries to turn it into a heroic story of her strength to simply survive. It's not.
The first 80% of the book is all about her life as a ho (her word) and drug addict. Without much description she claims she was sexually abused as a child, claiming a memory at age three of a man fingering her. A relative tried while she slept. But by the time she was a teenager she was freely deciding to sleep with boys and men, got pregnant at 13, had a baby, then pregnant again at 14. So she had two kids by high school and started to earn money by streetwalking.
Then the author was abused by a few pimps. She makes the claim in the book that she was a victim of "sex trafficking" but that was only for a very short period. Most of the problems in her life were due to her own bad choices and her unwillingness to give up cocaine or the sex trade. You might be able to excuse it away when she is a teenager (living as an adult with two kids) but by the time she's 18 there's no excuse. She seems to have no real moral compass. And for the next couple decades it's all about her bad choices, including stealing money from her family and abandoning her children without letting anyone know where she it. She is in no way a hero.
Very little of the book (or of her life) is positive. There's a stint in jail after years of her being a prostitute. Of course she blames the system on her being jailed instead of accepting responsibility. She still claims she's a great role model but struggles with her addictions when her kids are in college and she has little to do with them. Then out of nowhere she tries to change (mostly through a narcotics anonymous group) and eventually starts a non-profit for prostitutes with another addict. The ending is too short and quick to have any impact. I honestly didn't see much positive in her no matter how much she tried to tell the reader how beautiful, smart, or tough she was.
The book is horribly written in partial jive-talk that makes her and her community sound ignorant, mixed with proper English that sounds like it came from her highly educated co-author. Much of it is offensive and none of it works.
The biggest problems are the author's unwillingness to accept responsibility for her thousands of bad choices, to slam white people whenever she gets the chance, and to continue to support a broken black community that must accept part of the blame for this woman's horrible life story. This book represents a lot of what's wrong within black culture, but the author fails to draw those conclusions, and instead tries to turn it into a heroic story of her strength to simply survive. It's not.
July 14, 2021
Leaving Breezy Street felt like a "no holds barred" recollection of 25 years of prostitution -- including the circumstances that led to "Breezy" becoming a sex worker and how she was ultimately able to leave that life, and now work to help other victims of human trafficking.
Brenda Myers-Powell and co-author April Reynolds describe Brenda's life in a conversational style; it often felt like sitting down at the kitchen table with a new friend. A friend who has been through a lot -- an abusive home life, rape, crack addiction... Brenda shares her pain and heartbreak with the reader.
But she also shares her hope. I loved hearing about her meeting with then-Senator Barack Obama. As well as all the times she managed to persevere, despite having to deal with things no one should have to go through.
I thought the audiobook production was well done. It did take me about a month to read Leaving Breezy Street -- given the subject matter, I found there were certain times of day/certain moods better-suited to reading this book. It's not for the faint at heart, though I do recommend it for an eyes-wide-open look at human trafficking.
(You might recognize Brenda's name from Dreamcatcher, a documentary about the foundation she and her friend founded to prevent the sexual exploitation of at-risk youth and to help current victims. I haven't watched it yet, but the pages on her advocacy work were a great part of this book.)
Thank you to Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for a free ALC of this title for review.
Brenda Myers-Powell and co-author April Reynolds describe Brenda's life in a conversational style; it often felt like sitting down at the kitchen table with a new friend. A friend who has been through a lot -- an abusive home life, rape, crack addiction... Brenda shares her pain and heartbreak with the reader.
But she also shares her hope. I loved hearing about her meeting with then-Senator Barack Obama. As well as all the times she managed to persevere, despite having to deal with things no one should have to go through.
I thought the audiobook production was well done. It did take me about a month to read Leaving Breezy Street -- given the subject matter, I found there were certain times of day/certain moods better-suited to reading this book. It's not for the faint at heart, though I do recommend it for an eyes-wide-open look at human trafficking.
(You might recognize Brenda's name from Dreamcatcher, a documentary about the foundation she and her friend founded to prevent the sexual exploitation of at-risk youth and to help current victims. I haven't watched it yet, but the pages on her advocacy work were a great part of this book.)
Thank you to Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for a free ALC of this title for review.
April 21, 2022
Most people have preconceived notions of prostitutes. No one is born asking to be a hooker. This riveting page turner tells us about Brenda Myers-Powell, abused since age 4 by an uncle and then slipped into sex trafficking and drug abuse. We witness her ups and downs plus the agony of defeat. she rises above and currently directs the Dreamcatcher Foundation, helping those that fell victim to the same horrors as herself. A must read.
December 8, 2021
*goodreads giveaway win*
i actually forgot to add this to my 'read' list.. perhaps it was the fact that it is forgettable or i just wasn't inspired to leave a review.. but with a prompting email, i know these giveaways are meant to be in relation to a review.. so here goes..
going backwards, in the end, the author Brenda, she gets her act together and seems to become an educated, intelligent woman.. so why write this book from her teenage, hardened self as a prostitute point of view? it makes the book seem poorly written.. why not write this memoir in hindsight, rather than in the moment.. because really, young Brenda, prostitute Brenda, child neglecting Brenda, drug addict Brenda, stealing, lying, abusive Brenda is NOT a likeable person and reading what she has to say is hardly worth my time..
as the reader, i am to feel like i am one of her peers..
there are more people that overcome abuse as a child, who choose NOT to live in the world of prostitution, abuse, drugs and the likes.. she has many opportunities to get out of this life, people that want to help her and she still chooses to neglect her children, steal from her family and almost welcome the abuse as an adult.. how can we think of her as a victim when she continually makes poor choices?
i gained nothing from this book, except i felt so sorry for her children.. you'd think she wouldn't want her children to have the childhood she had, yet her neglect is abuse and she was never there to protect them.. sad.. it's just pathetic and sad..
i actually forgot to add this to my 'read' list.. perhaps it was the fact that it is forgettable or i just wasn't inspired to leave a review.. but with a prompting email, i know these giveaways are meant to be in relation to a review.. so here goes..
going backwards, in the end, the author Brenda, she gets her act together and seems to become an educated, intelligent woman.. so why write this book from her teenage, hardened self as a prostitute point of view? it makes the book seem poorly written.. why not write this memoir in hindsight, rather than in the moment.. because really, young Brenda, prostitute Brenda, child neglecting Brenda, drug addict Brenda, stealing, lying, abusive Brenda is NOT a likeable person and reading what she has to say is hardly worth my time..
as the reader, i am to feel like i am one of her peers..
there are more people that overcome abuse as a child, who choose NOT to live in the world of prostitution, abuse, drugs and the likes.. she has many opportunities to get out of this life, people that want to help her and she still chooses to neglect her children, steal from her family and almost welcome the abuse as an adult.. how can we think of her as a victim when she continually makes poor choices?
i gained nothing from this book, except i felt so sorry for her children.. you'd think she wouldn't want her children to have the childhood she had, yet her neglect is abuse and she was never there to protect them.. sad.. it's just pathetic and sad..
June 18, 2021
The author gives a straightforward, unfiltered account of her life, beginning with being raised by her physically abusive grandmother and experiencing sexual abuse at the hands of frequent visitors and a family member.
Teen pregnancy further complicated her situation, so she turned to prostitution to bring in cash. What followed is a brutally honest narrative of human trafficking, drug addiction, crime and hitting rock bottom.
Just surviving decades of that life is remarkable enough, but the fact that she got out and used her experiences to help young girls in the same boat is what makes her story stand out. As an added bonus, the author’s voice comes across loud and clear and she is able to make the most horrifying situations entertaining and humorous.
I listened to the audiobook and the narrator was great. The only bummer about listening is not being able to see the included pictures.
Thanks to #netgalley and #henryholtandcompany for this ARC of #leavingbreezystreet in exchange for an honest review.
Teen pregnancy further complicated her situation, so she turned to prostitution to bring in cash. What followed is a brutally honest narrative of human trafficking, drug addiction, crime and hitting rock bottom.
Just surviving decades of that life is remarkable enough, but the fact that she got out and used her experiences to help young girls in the same boat is what makes her story stand out. As an added bonus, the author’s voice comes across loud and clear and she is able to make the most horrifying situations entertaining and humorous.
I listened to the audiobook and the narrator was great. The only bummer about listening is not being able to see the included pictures.
Thanks to #netgalley and #henryholtandcompany for this ARC of #leavingbreezystreet in exchange for an honest review.
June 29, 2021
Wow, what a heartbreaking story that Brenda went through. She had a tough childhood that led her to prostitution, drug abuse and physical abuse. This was a memoir that was so raw and real. She didn’t sugarcoat her past. Her story is difficult to read but she is a very strong woman that has overcome many obstacles in her life. I listened to the audiobook and loved the way that narrator read. It felt that she was sitting right next to me telling her story. This was a story about pain and suffering as well as survival and reinventing herself. If your heart can handle it, I suggest you read or listen to this memoir.
December 21, 2021
Brenda Myers-Powell has written a compelling, raw, brutal account of her life as a prostitute, part-time thief, and drug addict, living her life as 'Breezy.' At times sad, humorous, and shocking, it is a truthful look at her traumatic life and the harsh cyclical events that kept her there for years.
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June 11, 2021Y'all this book is a TRIP!!!!! lol
August 22, 2021
I received a copy of this book courtesy @henryholtbooks . It took a little time to get to it on my TBR but once I started reading, it was hard to put down. Although, I often had to take breaks to mentally disconnect from the events unfolding on the page. For context, if you are triggered by situations involving sexual assault, drug use, and violence and/or are not in a mindful place to engage with this content, I do not recommend you read this. Myers-Powell gives an in-depth look into her life growing up and becoming entrenched in prostitution in 1970s Chicago. She provides vivid details into the ways her family and community failed her and also saved her. She exposes her truth about being a "ho", her relationships with pimps, tricks, and others, the crime she engaged in or was forced to commit, becoming a mother, becoming addicted to drugs, and a myriad of ways she was harmed, used, exploited, and nearly killed before she was finally able to leave the life for good. Myers-Powell is a founder of the Dreamcatcher Foundation and now works to aid girls and women caught up in the life of prostitution and trafficking.
I give this 5 stars because it deserves the highest rating possible just for being such a candid portrayal of a lived experience I know nothing about. Some of her behaviors and decisions feel unfathomable to me but I also recognize they are a result of circumstances I have never had to survive. The author's writing style and language use in this book combines regional, cultural, and lifestyle slang and makes the reader feel even more immersed in the world she experienced. At times the timeline was confusing as some stories overlap, and often I was unprepared when aggregious violence was mentioned casually in a sentence. After all the pain and trauma spilled here, my only hope is that the author and her family continue to heal and find peace. This doesn't seem like a book for those with lived experience to have as a tool, but rather to help everyone else find understanding and humanity in this experience. #LeavingBreezyStreet #ReadMore2021 #BookReview
I give this 5 stars because it deserves the highest rating possible just for being such a candid portrayal of a lived experience I know nothing about. Some of her behaviors and decisions feel unfathomable to me but I also recognize they are a result of circumstances I have never had to survive. The author's writing style and language use in this book combines regional, cultural, and lifestyle slang and makes the reader feel even more immersed in the world she experienced. At times the timeline was confusing as some stories overlap, and often I was unprepared when aggregious violence was mentioned casually in a sentence. After all the pain and trauma spilled here, my only hope is that the author and her family continue to heal and find peace. This doesn't seem like a book for those with lived experience to have as a tool, but rather to help everyone else find understanding and humanity in this experience. #LeavingBreezyStreet #ReadMore2021 #BookReview
April 15, 2021
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this book in exchange for an honest review.
This is a tough book to read due to the content of human trafficking, a variety of abuse, and prostitution. But it is also an inspiring book that shows these young women can change their lives for the better. It's so sad to think there are 12 year olds (or any age, really) that are already caught up in the lifestyle. Non-profit organizations such as Dreamcatchers are incredibly important.
This is a tough book to read due to the content of human trafficking, a variety of abuse, and prostitution. But it is also an inspiring book that shows these young women can change their lives for the better. It's so sad to think there are 12 year olds (or any age, really) that are already caught up in the lifestyle. Non-profit organizations such as Dreamcatchers are incredibly important.
January 9, 2022
This is a story of survival and self discovery. So many trials, tribulations, abuse and violence. I appreciate the author bearing it all to share her story with the world She gives it to you raw with no filter which at times had me shook. I don’t think I’ve ever read a memoir that was this heartbreaking & jaw dropping. What a memoir and life!
November 16, 2021
I mean whew! But a story that must be told and will help a lot of women who have lived this lifestyle. The audiobook narrator was incredible in conveying the attitude, sentiments, and diction that you may not get from just reading it. Highly recommend!
January 27, 2025
Ended up DNF-ing this book, because the themes were too repetitive for my liking. The first 1/3-1/2 of the book was great, but the further you get, the more the same situations are repeated - just in different cities/states. Found myself waiting for the character development to happen.
September 13, 2021
Truly made me cry at how much people go through and outwardly we have no clue how every person suffers. Beautiful memoir
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December 8, 2021I dont want to rate this because it's her personal story. I found it a bit too long and repetitive.
September 5, 2021
This is a tough read -- very engaging, but also horrifying. Without being very street savvy myself, I can only guess that this is told very honestly and openly. I appreciated hearing about how Brenda's abuse as a young girl led to many decisions later that really hurt her, so in that way -- almost a self-harm situation without realizing it. It definitely wasn't all victim-minded, as she explains that she craved that fast lifestyle (sex, drugs). Brenda definitely rose above the circumstances of her life and her own past decisions to forge a new path of sobriety and self-love. I finished the book feeling grateful for her willingness to have hard conversations with the "powers that be," even when they sometimes fall upon deaf ears. I'm also grateful for people that stepped into her life and supported her as she changed direction. Thank you to Henry Holt Books for a copy of this book via a Goodreads giveaway. #LeavingBreezyStreet
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