Books

Sister Souljah - The Coldest Winter Ever (1999)

Finished the book and grew to like Winter a lot better. I won’t spoil the ending, but it isn’t what I was expecting in a good way.

So instead of Winter being the Mary Sue I thought she was going to be, she ended up being a likeable and realistic character, and even though she did some morally questionable things she grew as a character. Now Sister Souljah ended up being a self-insert character who was a rich woman, constantly entertaining famous guests and taking in troubled people. At the end of the book the author helpfully answers the question Why did you decide to include yourself as a character in the novel The Coldest Winter Ever? and says she was an “antagonist” to Winter being the “protagonist.” However to me it didn’t feel like Souljah was written as an antagonist. This sort of self-insert character is unconventional and I found it weird, but it didn’t take from my enjoyment of the book.

As a book, it was a great story of Winter’s growth and what resulted from her upbringing under her father and the people she met. I swallowed up the book that night and stayed up until 4am finishing it. the story had a lot of the things I enjoy in a book: Locality, power struggles, and morally ambiguous characters.

Misc

6pm feels like 2am today. Most shops are closed, the streets are empty besides families getting in and out of cars. I’ll be going to some bars tonight with a friend to hopefully meet some Chinese people to chat with.