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A review by lacy30twin1
The Coldest Winter Ever by Sister Souljah
2.0
I was really expecting this to be an amazing book. After reading it I can see now why this is popular with teenagers.
This book is about the daughter of a major drug dealer in Brooklyn, Winter Santiaga. All she's ever known is popularity, privilege, and wealth all do to her father's status. When he's eventually arrested and imprisoned she has to "make it" on her own.
Winter is the definition of a teenager who doesn't know anything about life but thinks she's so smart and has all of the answers. In reality, all she's ever done was be taken care of by a man with money and when her father gets knocked she just goes out looking for another man with money to take care of her. In this quest she makes dumb decision after dumb decision thinking her looks and her vagina is all she needs to bend any man. Ugh, I never disliked a main character so much. She had absolutely no redeemable qualities. She was all for self. She had no loyalties to ANYONE. Even those who were trying to help her.
Also, Sister Souljah interjected herself in this story for who knows why. The portion of the book where Winter stayed with her added nothing to this storyline. The only thing it did was give more information about Midnight, Ricky Santiaga's right hand man. Midnight was the best character in the book. Well he was really the only character with some depth. I digress, thos story would've flowed just fine without that small arc in the story.
With all of the truly terrible life choices Winter made, it was no surprise that her life ended the way that it did, in jail. What really was the straw that broke the camel's back for me is all that build up for Winter's character for the last 10 pages of the story to just cut to her 7 years later in prison. And on top of that her whole damn hood in there with her!!! Like what was the damn point of all of that?! Is this supposed to be some cautionary tale? If so, why didn't it include ANY lessons that Winter may have picked up along the way? Maybe show what her life is like after prison?
Oh and another thing. In the back of the book it says "...introduced readers everywhere to the real ghetto experience." Who are you to say this is the real ghetto experience? This leads me to believe that this book wasn't written for "us". How can you write about a "real ghetto experience" without any hint of how it came to be. This book was the epitome of negative representation of the black community. I don't feel I gained anything from this book. But then again, I'm a 35 yr old BW who grew up around the hood. Maybe it wasn't for me and if that's the case I'm okay with that.
This book is about the daughter of a major drug dealer in Brooklyn, Winter Santiaga. All she's ever known is popularity, privilege, and wealth all do to her father's status. When he's eventually arrested and imprisoned she has to "make it" on her own.
Winter is the definition of a teenager who doesn't know anything about life but thinks she's so smart and has all of the answers. In reality, all she's ever done was be taken care of by a man with money and when her father gets knocked she just goes out looking for another man with money to take care of her. In this quest she makes dumb decision after dumb decision thinking her looks and her vagina is all she needs to bend any man. Ugh, I never disliked a main character so much. She had absolutely no redeemable qualities. She was all for self. She had no loyalties to ANYONE. Even those who were trying to help her.
Also, Sister Souljah interjected herself in this story for who knows why. The portion of the book where Winter stayed with her added nothing to this storyline. The only thing it did was give more information about Midnight, Ricky Santiaga's right hand man. Midnight was the best character in the book. Well he was really the only character with some depth. I digress, thos story would've flowed just fine without that small arc in the story.
With all of the truly terrible life choices Winter made, it was no surprise that her life ended the way that it did, in jail. What really was the straw that broke the camel's back for me is all that build up for Winter's character for the last 10 pages of the story to just cut to her 7 years later in prison. And on top of that her whole damn hood in there with her!!! Like what was the damn point of all of that?! Is this supposed to be some cautionary tale? If so, why didn't it include ANY lessons that Winter may have picked up along the way? Maybe show what her life is like after prison?
Oh and another thing. In the back of the book it says "...introduced readers everywhere to the real ghetto experience." Who are you to say this is the real ghetto experience? This leads me to believe that this book wasn't written for "us". How can you write about a "real ghetto experience" without any hint of how it came to be. This book was the epitome of negative representation of the black community. I don't feel I gained anything from this book. But then again, I'm a 35 yr old BW who grew up around the hood. Maybe it wasn't for me and if that's the case I'm okay with that.