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Never As Good As the First Time
For years Samai Collins has been a faithful Christian, devoted wife and loving mother. But suddenly she finds herself in the middle of a nasty divorce from her minister husband and struggling to find a job, with almost no work skills, in order to support her three children. As Samai tries to get back on her feet, loneliness and the deep longing for a man's touch cause her to stumble in her spiritual beliefs.
Then an old high school crush reappears and Samai's life takes a wild new turn. She is seduced completely by Zane Blackmon's passion and zest for life and soon finds herself being led down a dark path that she never knew existed. An underworld of drugs threatens her life and the lives of her three children. But is love...and just a little bit of faith enough to save them all?
Then an old high school crush reappears and Samai's life takes a wild new turn. She is seduced completely by Zane Blackmon's passion and zest for life and soon finds herself being led down a dark path that she never knew existed. An underworld of drugs threatens her life and the lives of her three children. But is love...and just a little bit of faith enough to save them all?
304 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 2008
About the author
Mari Walker
4 books2 followersMari Walker is the author of two novels, NEVER AS GOOD AS THE FIRST TIME and NOT QUITE WHAT IT SEEMS. Mari is passionate about helping disadvantaged and at risk young people discover the hidden talents and gifts locked inside of them, and to channel their energies toward a more positive outcome in thier lives through creative writing. She is currently working on a new novel for teens titled Just Take Me As I Am and a new adult series, beginning withTired of Being Nice, both to be released late 2011. Mari is also a freelance writer for a national newspaper.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
April 23, 2009
Started off good, then bored until middle and ending! She blew me away towards the end. What a crack addict is willing to do, that can cost her family and own dear life! Samai is a woman who lived a life as a Christian woman, married, with children, and when her husband, Ian, divorced her is when her world tumbled down. Samai tried to cover her drug habit as time progressed, from her kids, family, and church members. Working at jobs when they did not require drug testing, became harder, and tricks she had to do to pay the rent. Go on this crack addiction ride with Samai, and how God brings her through!
August 8, 2012
From the church house to the crack house, Mari Walker's debut novel is the classic tale of "a good girl gone bad". The cover makes the book look like a love story, but that's not the case. The reader follows the main character, Samai Collins, as she gets drafted into the crack epidemic of the mid- to late-eighties.
Samai weds a minister of questionable values in her early twenties. She soon finds herself separated after six years of marriage, struggling to make sense of what went wrong and how to deal with her tenacious need for intimacy. The most important thing that Samai must do is find a job to financially support her three children.
A church member suggests seeking a job in the hardware store where he is employed. She gets the job, and her schedule includes long hours. Worst of all, she is required to work Sundays, thereby missing the one thing that has been keeping her stable – going to church. While at work Samai has a chance encounter with Zane, a person she had a high school crush on. He was bad in high school, and he's worse now. Samai catches Zane at a time where he is an occassional cocaine sniffer and not yet a hopeless junkie.
Although Samai and Zane are only separated from their spouses, Zane manages to convince Samai not only into adulterous sex but also drug use. Everything is telling Samai to leave Zane alone: the weird dreams, the fact that her two little boys blatantly dislike Zane, the fact that her involvement with Zane breaches the Christian values which are the foundation of her spiritual existence.
Curiosity develops into the utter destruction. What starts as a "bump" of cocaine with Zane turns into freebasing cocaine and naturally progresses into an unshakable crack habit. Samai gets her divorce, loses jobs left and right eventually winding up on public assistance.
"Never As Good As The First Time" is so interesting because it shows exactly how that relative, that friend, that business associate can go from heading in the right direction to crackhead in a few short months. Usually, the junkie is the nefarious supporting character in most urban lit novels. Author Mari Walker gives the reader a character that is simultaneously pitiful and despicable.
What did you like best about this book?
This book is about authentic as it gets when it comes to the story of a person who struggles with God and crack. Mari Walker skillfully sculpted Samai Collins. As she slips away from being involved in the church, she quickly becomes enveloped by the culture that comes along with being addicted to crack. The reader learns as Samai learns.
Samai's struggles and cravings are so realistic. Who knows that the steel wool put in the glass stem is called "chore" after a company that makes steel wool? Who knows that a crack dealer will put the stuff used to sooth a teething baby's gums on fake rocks to numb a crack-addict's lips and gums when they test a rock's authenticity? This aspect of the novel is researched on Mari Walker's part.
If this book was a movie, Zane would win the role of Best Supporting Actor. He is the gas to Samai's engine. I laughed out loud to one of his many stories early in the novel. I actually grumbled and put down the book when he popped back up on the scene after Samai swore off of him. In some ways, Never Good As The First Time is about Zane's deterioration from a pretty boy pusher to a run of the mill crackhead as much as it is about Samai's turmoil.
I also liked that fact that the story happened in the late eighties without hitting the reader over the head with it. References to watching Luther Vandross perform, saying "that's the bomb!", going to see Spike Lee's School Daze at the movies were sprinkled throughout "Never As Good As The First Time" just enough to frame a story about the arrival of crack.
What did you dislike about this book?
I didn't like the way this book ended. The last twenty pages didn't flow like the previous two hundred seventy. Too much action. I thought this story should have stuck with dealing with the issues of leaving behind crack for family instead of turning in an action packed adventure.
How can the author improve this book?
Besides the surprise ending, the book can be condensed. "Never As Good As The First Time" is almost three hundred pages. A couple of smoke sessions could have been left out and the theme would still be intact.
Samai weds a minister of questionable values in her early twenties. She soon finds herself separated after six years of marriage, struggling to make sense of what went wrong and how to deal with her tenacious need for intimacy. The most important thing that Samai must do is find a job to financially support her three children.
A church member suggests seeking a job in the hardware store where he is employed. She gets the job, and her schedule includes long hours. Worst of all, she is required to work Sundays, thereby missing the one thing that has been keeping her stable – going to church. While at work Samai has a chance encounter with Zane, a person she had a high school crush on. He was bad in high school, and he's worse now. Samai catches Zane at a time where he is an occassional cocaine sniffer and not yet a hopeless junkie.
Although Samai and Zane are only separated from their spouses, Zane manages to convince Samai not only into adulterous sex but also drug use. Everything is telling Samai to leave Zane alone: the weird dreams, the fact that her two little boys blatantly dislike Zane, the fact that her involvement with Zane breaches the Christian values which are the foundation of her spiritual existence.
Curiosity develops into the utter destruction. What starts as a "bump" of cocaine with Zane turns into freebasing cocaine and naturally progresses into an unshakable crack habit. Samai gets her divorce, loses jobs left and right eventually winding up on public assistance.
"Never As Good As The First Time" is so interesting because it shows exactly how that relative, that friend, that business associate can go from heading in the right direction to crackhead in a few short months. Usually, the junkie is the nefarious supporting character in most urban lit novels. Author Mari Walker gives the reader a character that is simultaneously pitiful and despicable.
What did you like best about this book?
This book is about authentic as it gets when it comes to the story of a person who struggles with God and crack. Mari Walker skillfully sculpted Samai Collins. As she slips away from being involved in the church, she quickly becomes enveloped by the culture that comes along with being addicted to crack. The reader learns as Samai learns.
Samai's struggles and cravings are so realistic. Who knows that the steel wool put in the glass stem is called "chore" after a company that makes steel wool? Who knows that a crack dealer will put the stuff used to sooth a teething baby's gums on fake rocks to numb a crack-addict's lips and gums when they test a rock's authenticity? This aspect of the novel is researched on Mari Walker's part.
If this book was a movie, Zane would win the role of Best Supporting Actor. He is the gas to Samai's engine. I laughed out loud to one of his many stories early in the novel. I actually grumbled and put down the book when he popped back up on the scene after Samai swore off of him. In some ways, Never Good As The First Time is about Zane's deterioration from a pretty boy pusher to a run of the mill crackhead as much as it is about Samai's turmoil.
I also liked that fact that the story happened in the late eighties without hitting the reader over the head with it. References to watching Luther Vandross perform, saying "that's the bomb!", going to see Spike Lee's School Daze at the movies were sprinkled throughout "Never As Good As The First Time" just enough to frame a story about the arrival of crack.
What did you dislike about this book?
I didn't like the way this book ended. The last twenty pages didn't flow like the previous two hundred seventy. Too much action. I thought this story should have stuck with dealing with the issues of leaving behind crack for family instead of turning in an action packed adventure.
How can the author improve this book?
Besides the surprise ending, the book can be condensed. "Never As Good As The First Time" is almost three hundred pages. A couple of smoke sessions could have been left out and the theme would still be intact.
November 14, 2013
I got this book as a discarded book at our annual library book sale. I only picked it up because it had a gentle read sticker on the cover. After reading the back cover I saw it talked about a Christian gal and her divorce from her minister husband. I do realize that bad things happen to good people and just because your a Christian doesn't mean you are protected from these things. So I figured why not go ahead and read this book. I ended up not reading too far into it because there is a lot of foul language and then the sex was described in detail. I was not expecting that from a "gentle" read book at all! I Was deceived by the cover for sure! You really can't judge a book by its cover.
April 21, 2015
I picked up this book because I like stories of redemption. This didn't really feel like one. The main character gets so deep into the world of drugs and sex that I ended up despising her. I no longer cared if she came back to the church or was able to repair her family. I found myself scowling at the pages every time I picked it up and with each page I lost a little more hope that she would get her life back. Once I lost all hope, she started making good decisions. But it was too late, I no longer cared. I finished the story just to finish it and it is one of the few books I have ever given away to the thrift store.
January 1, 2009
This was a really, really good book from cover to cover. I loved the character Zane and how Samai couldn't break her addiction to him or the drugs. Loved the ending too
January 30, 2009
thiis was a good book
Read
February 27, 2013Page turner!! Shocking turn of events, title was deceiving at first. but it definitely made sense as you read on!!
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews