September 29, 2024

Series Sunday: Love After Midnight

(The Coldest Winter Ever #3) 


Series Sunday is a bookish meme hosted by Literary Marie. I encourage all of my fellow book bloggers and bookhearts to play along.
  • Read an installment of a series.
  • Share your review/recommendation below.
  • Include the title, author and series name.

My Series Sunday pick is Love After Midnight, the third book in The Coldest Winter Ever series by Sister Souljah. There was a time when Winter Santiaga was that bitch. Allow me to re-introduce this classic character. Winter was the oldest daughter of a Brooklyn drug kingpen. Reigning hood loyalty until everything fell apart. Fast forward fifteen years and Winter was released from prison, only to be shot and sent to hell in the sequel, Life After Death. (A book that I DNF'ed with no regrets.) 

In this third installment titled Love After Midnight, Winter is brought back to life with a mission to find out who shot her while trying to capitalize on newfound fame as the star of a reality TV show and creator of legitimate businesses.

"Fame is a hard life." ~ 68%

I expected Love After Midnight to be a redemption novel. It started off better than the sequel but quickly became hard to follow, disjointed and confusing. There are no smooth transitions between chapters. New characters are introduced but not fully developed (or truly named). Winter's narcissistic antics and shallow behavior is almost comical. I don't even know what genre to categorize this book. The best I can describe it is urban fiction with themes of fame, revenge and relationships.

I can no longer try to figure out Sister Souljah's purpose for this series. Is it to prove that fame comes at a cost? To point out the difference between heaven and hell on Earth? To jumble readers' brains? Love After Midnight is written like Sister Souljah wrote random dialogue and narrative on index cards, shuffled them and transcribed to paper with no clear direction. The ending even seems out of place and incomplete, not in a traditional cliffhanger kind of way.

"I knew that none of this fits my personality, or my way." ~ 96%

This review feels very much like a break-up. Very "it's not you; it's me." The whole time I was reading Love After Midnight, I was thinking that I'm no longer interested in Winter's shenanigans, ghetto princess behavior, hood friends and nonsensical actions. Girl, grow up! Evolve. Learn. Listen. Mature. I want to see Winter win but it's time I hop off this journey. This series is no longer for me.

Happy Early Pub Day, Sister Souljah! Love After Midnight will be available Tuesday, October 8.

Disclaimer: An advance copy was received directly from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. Opinions are my own and would be the same if I spent my hard-earned coins. ~LiteraryMarie

Author: Sister Souljah
Published: October 2024
Pages: 429
Edition: Galley
Genre: Urban Fiction
Rating: 🖤 

September 27, 2024

First Lines Friday


First Lines Friday is a bookish meme hosted by Literary Marie. I encourage all of my fellow book bloggers and bookhearts to play along.
  • Grab your current read(s).
  • Share the first line(s).
  • Include the title and author.

"The average life expectancy for a Hell Diver was fifteen jumps. This was Xavier Rodriguez's ninety-sixth, and he was about to do it with a hangover."

Hell Divers by Nicholas Sansbury Smith

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