The Coldest Winter Ever/ Independent Reading Project

This book is abut a young girl named Winter growing up in the ghetto in Brooklyn. She lives with her father Ricky, her mother Mrs. Santiaga, and her sisters Lexus, Porsche, and Mercedes. She has to go through many things in her life. Her father is a drug lord in Brooklyn. He always provided her with whatever she wanted. She says that her father is a king, her mother is a queen, and she is a princess. To me she was a little bit arrogant. In the book her attitude was,"Hey...bow down to the family who puts food on the table for you and yours."
Winter had a crush on one of her father's workers named Midnight. But he showed no intrest in her. He was always listening to Sistah Souljah a radio personality. He really liked her. Winter wasn't really into Sistah Souljah. She said that she was trying to make herself look good by helping alot of people.
When Winter was about fifteen her father revealed that they were going to move into a house in Long Island. She did not want to leave her home town. Their new house was huge, and everybody seemed to enjoy it but Winter. She missed Brooklyn so much. She always found a way to sneak back to Brooklyn just to see what was up.
A couple of months after they moved, Winter's mother was out with her father and was shot in the face. That really changed her mother. She wasn't the same after that. Her mother didn.t dress the same, didn't act the same, sometimes Winter was embarassed to be with her, and she has never had that problem before.
A few months after her mother was out of the hospital her father was arrested on many drug charges. Eventually they gave him 2 life sentences. Because he killed 2 men in jail. They took everything from them. Their house, cars, furniture , jewelry and everything. Everything was repoed. Her sisters were put in a foster home, because her mother could not take care of them. Her mother moved with her aunt back in Brooklyn, so Winter was on her own. She had to handle business.
Winter was only seventeen, so she wasn't supposed to be out on her own. The authorities caught up with her, and put her in a group home. It was called The House of Success. She really hated being there, but she had a good hustle while she was in there. She did hair, makeovers, sold clothes, basically everything you could think of to make money.
While Winter was in the home she met a girl named Natalie. She was very religious and very quiet. She also liked Sister Souljah. She went to her book meetings a lot. She tried to encourage Winter to go, but Winter wasn't having that.
Winter ran away from the home, and moved with an older man she met. She stayed in touch with Natalie. Natalie begged her to move with Sister Souljah, so she could help her. Winter agreed with her, and decided to move in. Sister had a huge house. She stayed there with her younger sister Lauren. Winter and Lauren kind of hit it off from the beginning. Winter had more class than Lauren. Lauren was jealous of her.
Eventually Winter ran away from the house and moved with a boy named Bullet who she had known when she stayed in Brooklyn. Everything seemed good at first. He was spoiling her. He was buying her what she wanted. She felt like the old her. She got an apartment in her name. And they also got a car. Bullet was selling drugs, and her mother was one of the junkies buying it. She felt so bad for her mother.
One day Bullet asked Winter to rent a car in her name so they could go on a vacation. She didn't know that he had guns and drugs in the car. The police pulled them over, and they were both arrested. Bullet was released because everything was in her name. The apartment, the rental car with all of the drugs in it. Everything!!!! She had to serve 15 years in a federal prison.
7 years after Winter was in prison, she had to attend her mother's funeral. she had to be escorted by police officers. Her mother died from a blood clot in her brain. At the funeral she seen her sisters, Midnight, her father and a lot of other people she had known. Midnight adopted her sisters, and got married. Her father was also escorted by police officers at the funeral. They were happy to see each other. Her family was together again.