Book Babblings

The Coldest Winter Ever by Sister Souljah

The Nitty Gritty: Winter Santiaga is the undisputed Princess of the Ghetto. The oldest daughter to drug kingpin Ricky Santiaga, Winter is used to having the best and being the best.

Things have never been better, until her mother is shot in the face and things quickly crumbled in Palace de Santiaga. Winter's mother is no longer the beautiful queen of the hood, her father is thrown into jail with no release in sight, her sisters are swept up into the system, and worse Winter is left without the money to maintain her Princess tiara.

Left without her king and her baubles, Winter only has her street savvy and her money maker to get herself back on top of things, and she will stop at nothing, spare no one to get her tiara back.

Opening Line: "I never liked Sister Soulja, straight up."

The Good: Love her or hate her Winter is one of the strongest female characters in literary history. Her voice is crystal clear and it rings with all the Brooklyn authority that Jay-Z would be proud to find. When faced with the annihilation of her entire family much like a cat Winter landed on all fours.


The Coldest Winter Ever is to urban fiction what gangster rap was to hip hop. It was a pioneering book that blazed a trail into Barnes and Nobel for other African American urban authors. it have even been the very book that helped to usher in the new book genre.

That is about all the credit I am willing to give Souljah with this book. And her book was groundbreaking just as gangster rap gave a musical voice to the disenfranchised black men of the inner city Winter gave voice to the black females of the inner city.


The Bad: Where do I start? Maybe the beginning would be best. I take issue with the fact that Soujah placed herself in the book. Not as a caricature of herself or as comic relief. She put herself into the story as Winter's foil. She was the sole voice of reason in this twisted tale.

I find that highly arrogant of Souljah. Here is a woman with no formal training and no dog in the fight save her desire to influence. For me that is not enough. I fail to see her love for the very people she is claiming she is trying to help. There is one scene in the book where Winter sits in on one of Souljah's "therapy" sessions. One of the women who happened to be a lady of the night, supporting her family as a stripper is reprimanded by Souljah. She acts the woman how much money she makes. I  believe the answer was about $500 a night. And Souljah asks, "does it take $500 a night to support your family?"

Here is a woman who is living rent free in a large town home owned by a doctor. Who pays all the bills, keeps the fridge stocked with food, and living in New York there isn't a need to own a car. So she is sitting up in her palace without a care in the world trying to verbal spank another woman because she tries to provide for her family the only way she knows how.

But perhaps by biggest bone of contention is the fact that Souljah looks down her nose at this people, points out their flaws and misdeeds without offering an avenue of change. I am certain that woman knew what she was doing was not only dangerous and harmful to herself, but also her family on top of being embarrassing. What she was looking for was a way out of her situation not a reminder of what situation she was in.

I find Souljah self righteous with no reason to be.

Moving on to her Midnight. Now I understand that someone women find this man sexy, charming, alluring and possibly the best man in the book. Sad to say that he is probably the best man in the book. Insofar as being compared someone like Bullet. However no one mentions the fact that Midnight is a coldblooded drug dealing killer. I don't care how pretty the package he is still a murderer and a drug pusher. Just because he can string together a semi-intelligent sentence we are suppose to forgive the sons he has killed. The fathers he laid to rest? The mothers he sold crack to? The orphans he made of families?

For all his posturing about how he loves and cherishes woman he left a sixteen year old girl to the mercies of the streets. Sure the said girl was Winter Santiaga, but she was still a minor female without direction. He had the means to take her away from her environment and if nothing else give her a chance at normalcy and change. Instead her abandoned her saying it was her ghettoish ways that pushed him out the door.

I call BS on that. Midnight is worse the the other men in this book. He is a wold in sheep clothing. The other man know who they are and they embrace it. They didn't try to hide it. Midnight hid his nature under a cute smile and the Quran.

My Final Say: I do think this is a book worth reading. However much I may dislike it. I did read her other books with caution and again with disappointment. Simply for its pioneering nature i give it

Book Babblings

A Deeper Love Inside: The Porche Santiaga Story by Sister Souljah

The Nitty Gritty: This is being herald as the sequel to the Coldest Winter Ever. Which is is, but the way they are marketing it its almost as if its going to be starring Winter with her little sister Porche along for the ride. However this is is Porches story of her trials and tribulations after her father Ricky Santiaga is locked up and Porche is shuttled off into the system despite her best efforts to allude the authorities. 

In theory this is the story of what really happens after Winter's tale, but I look at it as a parallel story. While Porche is locked up Winter is out galavanting as if she didn't have a care in the world. 


What's The 411: If I had wanted to sit through a sermon I would have gone to church and I am sure I would have enjoyed the experience better. Sister Souljah has fallen for the trap that many celebrities and the like fall victim too. She had begun to believe her own hype. 

She is under the delusion that is is the savior if black people and this book seems to be her attempt at living up to that ideal. But I am here to let Sister Souljah know that organic foods and vaccines aren't going to help the African American community and neither is this book. 

When I read Coldest Winter Ever for the first time I fell under her spell. I was transported into the gritty life of Winter and I loved it. Then I happened to listen to a lecture by Bell Hooks. She explained that as black people and as black women we must look at everything the media produces and look at it critically. We can't just sit back and allow a world that we aren;t apart of spoon feed us our own identity without saying something. 

So I went back and read the Coldest Winter Ever and I was startled with what I found about that book and more importantly Sister Souljah. Now I won't get into the CWE because this is about A Deeper Love Inside. Which I felt wasn't as bad as CWE but it was certainly trying. 

The book starts off with Porche's love affair with her family who are gods in her eyes that can do no wrong. S.S tried extremely hard to work Winter into this book to draw in her readers without actually having her in the beginning of the book. Its a personally pet peeve of mine when authors do that. Its not really a bait and switch its more like "I need Winter in this book to get you to read it," and I don't like that. I'm not a idiot that needs to be drawn in my the lure of more vulgarity from Winter Santiaga to read the book. I was more intrigued by hearing Porche's story than I was about learning more about Winter. I had enough of her in her own book. 

Porche wasn't as lucky as her sister and she was shuffled into the system. S.S critical view of the prison system and its workers come across clear as a sledge hammer to the head. While I do agree that the DOC is slanted against minorities I don't think its face to categorize everyone who works in the system as vile, nameless thugs who take the job to torture little girls. Her characterization of the warden and the guards pissed me off. Now I don't believe that everyone is an angle, but I also do not believe that prison guards are horrible human beings.  

Now this is where we have to suspend disbelief a little bit. Porche at the beginning of this book is a ten year old girl that pees on herself at the drop of a hat, but yet we are supposed to believe that she is a young hustler just looking for her come up. Within a few months of being locked up she managed to pull together a crew, work an angle and get the respect of her fellow prisoners. Well that one's that are trying to kill her because she is just so beautiful and they are oh so jealous of her. 

Her scathing review of the behavior and attitude of black women comes through loud and clear. 

Porche is also adult enough to stab a case worker in the neck with a pencil for as she claims "running her mouth about her family." As if the Santiaga family is above reproach. 

We are also introduced to Suri. Who is Porche's best friend and her anchor to reality. Only later do we find out that this character is just a figment of Porche's imagination. Nothing out of the realm of reality from a child. We expect children who have been through a trama to react that way. What we don't expect is for the people around the child to see what is going on and do nothing about it. 

Sister Souljah gives Porche a parade of mental illnesses and never addresses any of them. None of the other characters mention them either. Its almost like she uses mental illness as a plot device, but then never mentions them. She makes a point to cram the organic lifestyle down our throats at every turn of the page, but we never hear her thoughts on the mental health system. 

Sister Souljah is aware of how powerful words can be. She started out life as a hip hop artist before she moved into the realm of fiction. So she should be taken to task for simply overlooking something just to move her story along. Its sloppy writing. Especially for someone who is claiming she is trying to uplift her people. 


The Good: There is very little that I can find good about this book to be frank. I only read the entire thing because it was a book of the month for a book club I was in and there were some heated debates going on and I never miss a chance for a good debate.

Though I will say that Porche seemed to thrive in all the areas that her sister failed in. Where Winter auctioned off her vagina to the highest paid bidder Porche protected her with a daily ritual of smelling herself to see if someone had touched her. A gross past time for any child I am sure. When Winter walks away from her mother Porche fights everything and everyone to pull her mother out of her addiction. While Winter fails to find a lasting source of money Porche falls in love with a boy destined to be a moneymaker from jump street. While Winter wheels and deals people like disposable tampons Proche manages to make lasting friendships and even learns a thing or two about a thing or two from people. 

The Bad: This book fails to deliver on all fronts. We don't get a coming of age story. We got a grown woman in a little girl's body. We don't get a proper catch up with the characters from Coldest Winter (if that was what you were looking for). The get honorable mentions to whet out appetites  We don't get a realistic slice of life story either because Porche just isn't a realistic character and nothing that happened in her life is at all realistic. Don't get me wrong I love fantasy books and Harry Potter is one of my favorite stories, but J.K never claimed that she was trying to portray real life.  

The book is extremely wordy and long winded. Almost as if Souljah had a word count she had to hit before they would publish it. I figure 200 pages of writing could have been cut out of this book and it still would have been an ok story.

Souljah seemed to have an internal battle with Proche in this book. On one hand she tried to keep the hard, street edge that we loved Winter for, but on the flip side she wanted to make Porche her own, unique character. What we are left with is a little girl with spilt personalities that would have left Sybil confused. 

My Final Say: Don't think I will be buying this book at all. I am so over the Santiaga family and I doubt I would even go see the Coldest Winter Ever even if they managed to get the movie made. One trek through the ghetto was enough for me.