The Coldest Winter Ever by Sister Soulja

By Desmond Catron (K.I.P.P.)

Winter Santiaga, named because she was born in a snowstorm, is a young black woman living a lavish life of luxury due to the fact that her father, Ricky Santiaga, is the most successful drug lord in New York City. Winter is blessed with an ethereal, entrancing beauty that seems to get her anything she wants from any man that falls for her.    People in their community start to become jealous of the family’s success and talents and eventually people start to report information to the police.

Ricky Santiaga gets a tip from one his gang members and immediately move his family, including Winter, her three sisters and his wife, to an huge house in a rural and distant environment from the city life the family is used to for their well-being; all he asks for in return is for them to never go back to Brooklyn until he tells them the time is right.

While Winter is away from all of the hatred and schemes from her old neighborhood, she develops a since of loneliness because she has no one her age to talk to. All of her friends are back home in Brooklyn.

Her loneliness causes the main plot of the story when she calls a so-called “old friend” to pick her up and take her on a night of fun including taking her out to a party and to visit her old family and friends. When she returns home, the police have raided her father’s operation and he is sentenced to life in prison. Because of Winter’s actions, she, her mom and her siblings face tough situations like having no source of income and having to learn how to provide for themselves now that the family’s provider is incarcerated.

What I’ve learned from this book is that as teenagers, we generally feel as if some of the choices our parents make are to hurt us or bore us to death, but in reality they are really trying to keep us safe.

Since adults have more experience than us they have a greater insight on how choices effect situations; making them better or worse. When Winter took off to go to the party, it affected everyone; when you disobey sometimes others as well as yourself could pay for the wrong that you have done.