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Love After Midnight: A Novel
Sister Souljah returns to her beloved character Winter Santiaga in the captivating and heart-pounding sequel to instant #1 New York Times bestseller Life After Death. After suffering a horrifying, yet soul stirring death experience, worldwide top bitch Winter Santiaga, of The Coldest Winter Ever, is alive and facing a dilemma that every living person how to respond to the Fear of God, awareness of heaven and hell, while pursuing and satisfying deep desires for sex, fun, love, money, revenge, and fame. In her new novel, Love After Midnight, Sister Souljah delivers a powerful hip-hop hood style, global romantic comedy.
429 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 8, 2024
245 people are currently reading
5692 people want to read
About the author
Sister Souljah
23 books2,846 followersSister Souljah (born Lisa Williamson) was born in 1964 in New York City. She attended Cornell University's advanced placement summer program and Spain's University of Salamanca study-abroad program. She later majored in American history and African studies at Rutgers University. Her travels and lectures have taken her all over America, Europe, and Africa. In the mid-1980s, she founded, in cooperation with the United Church of Christ, the African Youth Survival Camp, located in Enfield, North Carolina, for children of homeless families. In 1992, her rap album, 360 Degrees of Power, and video, "Slavery's Back in Effect," catapulted her to national attention. She lives in New York with her husband and son.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 157 reviews
September 29, 2024
Love After Midnight is 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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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
October 14, 2024
If you thought Winter was going to have a come to Jesus moment after her near death experience, think again!
Winter Santiaga is back from the dead, literally, and she has a new lease on life… sort of. Gurl is out of jail and home from being shot and she ain’t time or energy on nobody. The only thing she’s set to do is make herself the top priority and build an untouchable media empire on the left overs and bones she crushes along the way.
It’s the ‘along the way’ journey that has her bent outta shape and questioning every single relationship. Her girlfriends are a triffling bunch of heifers. Her sisters are a mixed bag of love and toxicity. Her Dad is like a mob boss version of Papa Pope. Her jail crew is the kinda sisterhood we all need and F.K.R Mutha is a trip of a manboi.
I don’t currently have any urban fiction on my shelf and haven't paid much attention to the genre is years, but I’m super familiar with Sister Souljah and so I really really wanted to like this book. Unfortunately, the best thing of this book is the cover art. It’s gorgeous.
I can’t stand Winter Santiaga. I don’t need to like the MC of a book, as long as the story is good and writing is even better. The writing is terrible. It’s a mix of AAVE that’s stuck in the 90s but trying to make it mid 2000s with so many current day references throughout, what a mess. And because of that, everytime Winter opened her mouth, I really felt like telling her to shut up. I’m at a complete loss as to who the hell she thinks she is. She’s a hyper entitled version of the Kardashians, if you can imagine. She’s terrible to her sisters, she's violent and she thinks she's a business mogul like her dad but has this tendency to screw up everything along the way, banking on the fact that the men in her life will clean up after her.
Things that really annoyed me?
1. The way she she continued her relationship with Pretty, was unacceptable.
2. The way she dropped stacks… come on. Fair enough, I don’t read urban fiction, maybe this is normal… but it felt like fantasy.
3. What the hell was that relationship she had with F.K.R??? I felt bad for the guy.
4. Pure madness and the gratuitous inclusion of the little person… why, just why? Who in the editing room thought this was a good idea? It literally served no purpose.
5. That whole participating in staging domestic violence… Yikes. Especially as an ex-con? Again, there’s no amount of sense of purpose to any of that in the storyline if you’re not going to flesh out the purpose of it.
There were so many potential storylines that could have evolved into something, but fell flat and unfinished. And then it was done. All this chaos, for nothing. Just a bunch of weird ‘wth’ loose ends flapping in the wind.
Felt like a fever dream, a bad one… like the one we all had in 2020.
Thank you Simon & Schuster Canada for the ARC copy of Love After Midnight by Sister Souljah. While it wasn’t for me, this might be for those who enjoyed the TV series Empire.
Winter Santiaga is back from the dead, literally, and she has a new lease on life… sort of. Gurl is out of jail and home from being shot and she ain’t time or energy on nobody. The only thing she’s set to do is make herself the top priority and build an untouchable media empire on the left overs and bones she crushes along the way.
It’s the ‘along the way’ journey that has her bent outta shape and questioning every single relationship. Her girlfriends are a triffling bunch of heifers. Her sisters are a mixed bag of love and toxicity. Her Dad is like a mob boss version of Papa Pope. Her jail crew is the kinda sisterhood we all need and F.K.R Mutha is a trip of a manboi.
I don’t currently have any urban fiction on my shelf and haven't paid much attention to the genre is years, but I’m super familiar with Sister Souljah and so I really really wanted to like this book. Unfortunately, the best thing of this book is the cover art. It’s gorgeous.
I can’t stand Winter Santiaga. I don’t need to like the MC of a book, as long as the story is good and writing is even better. The writing is terrible. It’s a mix of AAVE that’s stuck in the 90s but trying to make it mid 2000s with so many current day references throughout, what a mess. And because of that, everytime Winter opened her mouth, I really felt like telling her to shut up. I’m at a complete loss as to who the hell she thinks she is. She’s a hyper entitled version of the Kardashians, if you can imagine. She’s terrible to her sisters, she's violent and she thinks she's a business mogul like her dad but has this tendency to screw up everything along the way, banking on the fact that the men in her life will clean up after her.
Things that really annoyed me?
1. The way she she continued her relationship with Pretty, was unacceptable.
2. The way she dropped stacks… come on. Fair enough, I don’t read urban fiction, maybe this is normal… but it felt like fantasy.
3. What the hell was that relationship she had with F.K.R??? I felt bad for the guy.
4. Pure madness and the gratuitous inclusion of the little person… why, just why? Who in the editing room thought this was a good idea? It literally served no purpose.
5. That whole participating in staging domestic violence… Yikes. Especially as an ex-con? Again, there’s no amount of sense of purpose to any of that in the storyline if you’re not going to flesh out the purpose of it.
There were so many potential storylines that could have evolved into something, but fell flat and unfinished. And then it was done. All this chaos, for nothing. Just a bunch of weird ‘wth’ loose ends flapping in the wind.
Felt like a fever dream, a bad one… like the one we all had in 2020.
Thank you Simon & Schuster Canada for the ARC copy of Love After Midnight by Sister Souljah. While it wasn’t for me, this might be for those who enjoyed the TV series Empire.
August 28, 2024
Redemption! Sister Souljah has brought Winter back to life. Literally. And she has crafted a readable tale, in the process restoring her credibility in the literary space. I’m not going to revisit her last effort, let’s stay focused on this new novel. Winter is back, fresh out of a coma, and she is still the foul-mouthed narcissist she has always been. However, Winter is now profiting from her new found celebrity and trying to make serious money moves and establish legitimate businesses. So the story centers around Winter navigating her celebrity while trying to come up in the business world.
Souljah manages to mix several themes while consistently dropping social commentary throughout Winter’s struggles. It is a great redemptive work for Souljah, although the ending was very weak and will be the cause of some consternation and confusion. I think there are more Winter episodes to come, and I’m here for it. Welcome back Sister Souljah! Thanks to Netgalley and Simon&Schuster for an advanced DRC. Book will be available Oct. 8, 2024
Souljah manages to mix several themes while consistently dropping social commentary throughout Winter’s struggles. It is a great redemptive work for Souljah, although the ending was very weak and will be the cause of some consternation and confusion. I think there are more Winter episodes to come, and I’m here for it. Welcome back Sister Souljah! Thanks to Netgalley and Simon&Schuster for an advanced DRC. Book will be available Oct. 8, 2024
September 30, 2024
I won this book in a Goodreads giveaway.
While I was not the intended audience for this book, I can still see the tremendous flaws throughout. There's no plot. The writing has no style or substance and the voice of the novel is laughable. The author thinks name-dropping luxury brands is equivalent to character development.
This book is horrible, horrible, horrible and has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Recommendation to avoid, avoid, avoid.
While I was not the intended audience for this book, I can still see the tremendous flaws throughout. There's no plot. The writing has no style or substance and the voice of the novel is laughable. The author thinks name-dropping luxury brands is equivalent to character development.
This book is horrible, horrible, horrible and has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Recommendation to avoid, avoid, avoid.
November 15, 2024
Ummm… I don’t know what I read. I took my time to read this. I have more questions than answers
September 28, 2024
I read this with the best intentions of receiving a redemption from the last but I really love the cover so pretty 😍! I feel the storyline was all over the place and it was really hard to figure out what was going on. I finished the book however I am so confused. The ending didn’t feel like a ending, it felt like a to be continue but I don’t understand why 🥲
October 24, 2024
It is very obvious that Sister Souljah hates Winter as a character. She hates the fact that people seem to adore this despicable human being and want to see what happens to her rather than her beloved Midnight. I believe it pissed her off so much, that she wrote the last book to punish her audience for wanting more Winter. In the last book she spent more time degrading Winter in a manner that I personally believe bordered on misogynistic than she did actually redeeming her. The book was panned and Souljah had to come out with a memo after the release of this book to explain herself.
However, I feel like this book went too far in the opposite direction. In this book, it’s WinterMania 2011. Everyone loves Winter even people who should have no reason to. Opportunities fall at her feet with her doing nothing to earn it other than being Porsche’s sister. People pledge their loyalty to her and promise her their son in marriage (that does happen). They are charmed by her crassness and immaturity even if they are supposed to be seasoned professionals. It’s all very unrealistic and silly.
Souljah makes the same mistake in this book that she made in the last book: focusing too much on the wrong thing. To be quite frank, I don’t care about Winter’s reality show deal, shoe line, or fashion empire. I care about her relationships with her family and her friends and the state of her mental health. A good chunk of the book is just Winter in business meetings with various different people or talking about business or hiring one dimensional characters. It gets tedious really quickly. The story shows promise when she interacts with her sisters and her OG Brooklyn squad. Notice that I only say Winter and her sisters and friends because when Winter and Santiaga interact with each other, their conversations are cold, cryptic and focus too much on building empires instead of talking to each other like actual human beings. In this book, Winter receives a beautifully written invitation from her younger sister Mercedes,that Winter misconstrues as a summons due to her inferiority/superiority complex. I thought that at some point we would get significant interaction between Winter and her sisters but the story places more importance on fame and wealth building than relationships and mental health. The book villainizes Winter’s Brooklyn squad unfairly. Yes, they a trifling bunch of women but let us not forget that Winter rubbed their faces in her wealth since they were children and actively did things to hurt them. They are toxic to each other.
To sum this up I feel like if this book focused on Winter repairing her relationship with her friends and family, it would’ve been decent but as it stands, it’s very rushed and unrealistic.
However, I feel like this book went too far in the opposite direction. In this book, it’s WinterMania 2011. Everyone loves Winter even people who should have no reason to. Opportunities fall at her feet with her doing nothing to earn it other than being Porsche’s sister. People pledge their loyalty to her and promise her their son in marriage (that does happen). They are charmed by her crassness and immaturity even if they are supposed to be seasoned professionals. It’s all very unrealistic and silly.
Souljah makes the same mistake in this book that she made in the last book: focusing too much on the wrong thing. To be quite frank, I don’t care about Winter’s reality show deal, shoe line, or fashion empire. I care about her relationships with her family and her friends and the state of her mental health. A good chunk of the book is just Winter in business meetings with various different people or talking about business or hiring one dimensional characters. It gets tedious really quickly. The story shows promise when she interacts with her sisters and her OG Brooklyn squad. Notice that I only say Winter and her sisters and friends because when Winter and Santiaga interact with each other, their conversations are cold, cryptic and focus too much on building empires instead of talking to each other like actual human beings. In this book, Winter receives a beautifully written invitation from her younger sister Mercedes,that Winter misconstrues as a summons due to her inferiority/superiority complex. I thought that at some point we would get significant interaction between Winter and her sisters but the story places more importance on fame and wealth building than relationships and mental health. The book villainizes Winter’s Brooklyn squad unfairly. Yes, they a trifling bunch of women but let us not forget that Winter rubbed their faces in her wealth since they were children and actively did things to hurt them. They are toxic to each other.
To sum this up I feel like if this book focused on Winter repairing her relationship with her friends and family, it would’ve been decent but as it stands, it’s very rushed and unrealistic.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 16, 2024
“Sometimes anger makes me full even though I’m empty.” - Winter
Sister Souljah, the Lyricist of Light brings Winter Santiaga back in full effect!
In the latest installment of this series, this author reminded me of a myriad of reasons I became infatuated with Book #1 in the first paragraph of the novel Honestly, after her novel, ‘Life After Death,’ continuing on with more novels was the route I was looking to follow. So, glad I decided against it…
This novel starts very slow...meaning there is MUCH going on, but do not get anxious at all. The Millionaires chapter is where the excitement begins!!
“Exhausting process. Protection, that is pressure, possession, and prison. A love that is choking me to death. I don’t want death. I hate death. I don’t want prison. I hate prison, handcuffs and chains, co’s and bosses. I hate slavery. I hate following orders. I like myself. I want to use my own mind, face the risks alone. I want love that equals life and freedom. I love Poppa more than anyone. I’m asking myself if a woman loves a man, say her father, does that mean she has to obey him? What are the ingredients in love? What percentage of love is obeying the one who you love. I don’t know.” - Winter
This author takes a dive into Mental Health issues with this novel in such a Profound manner. To know her as more than an author is to Understand…This novel is Everything! 🔥
Chapter: My Worth
“Why was he (Elisha) diming me out and making me look bad, when he is the king of less is more?” - Winter
“Your silence is your own guilt.” - Elisha
“There must be a few things you definitely want to do before your soul moves into an entirely different space.” - F.K.R
“That’s heavy. I still gotta ask if you ever heard some say, if you hate your own mother, hate is the most love you have to give any woman? What you think about that? - Santiaga
~ Quiet Fire 🤍🔥🤍 ~
Sister Souljah, the Lyricist of Light brings Winter Santiaga back in full effect!
In the latest installment of this series, this author reminded me of a myriad of reasons I became infatuated with Book #1 in the first paragraph of the novel Honestly, after her novel, ‘Life After Death,’ continuing on with more novels was the route I was looking to follow. So, glad I decided against it…
This novel starts very slow...meaning there is MUCH going on, but do not get anxious at all. The Millionaires chapter is where the excitement begins!!
“Exhausting process. Protection, that is pressure, possession, and prison. A love that is choking me to death. I don’t want death. I hate death. I don’t want prison. I hate prison, handcuffs and chains, co’s and bosses. I hate slavery. I hate following orders. I like myself. I want to use my own mind, face the risks alone. I want love that equals life and freedom. I love Poppa more than anyone. I’m asking myself if a woman loves a man, say her father, does that mean she has to obey him? What are the ingredients in love? What percentage of love is obeying the one who you love. I don’t know.” - Winter
This author takes a dive into Mental Health issues with this novel in such a Profound manner. To know her as more than an author is to Understand…This novel is Everything! 🔥
Chapter: My Worth
“Why was he (Elisha) diming me out and making me look bad, when he is the king of less is more?” - Winter
“Your silence is your own guilt.” - Elisha
“There must be a few things you definitely want to do before your soul moves into an entirely different space.” - F.K.R
“That’s heavy. I still gotta ask if you ever heard some say, if you hate your own mother, hate is the most love you have to give any woman? What you think about that? - Santiaga
~ Quiet Fire 🤍🔥🤍 ~
Want to read
May 3, 2024ALL I'LL SAY IS THAT IT BETTER BE BETTER THAN THAT B-LLCRAP THAT SS RELEASED "LIFE AFTER DEATH" WHICH WAS ILL-RECEIVED & EXTREMELY ILL-FAVORED ALONG WITH BEING TERRIBLY WRITTEN!
SS SHOULD STOP TRYING TO MAKE READERS HATE WINTER SANTIAGA, THE CHARACTER SHE MADE US LIKE FROM "THE COLDEST WINTER EVER" BOOK, & GIVE WINTER SANTIAGA A PROPER FOLLOW UP TO "TCWE" BECAUSE THE ONLY THING THAT WAS TOLERABLE IN "LAD" WAS NIA LONG'S NARRATION OF A AUDIOBOOK THAT WAS VERY NEARLY 24 HOURS LONG!
WITH THIS BOOK, SOME OF US ARE WILLING TO GIVE YOU ANOTHER CHANCE BUT DON'T SCREW US OVER WITH "LOVE AFTER MIDNIGHT", SS! OR, I'LL BE FORCED TO HAVE TO TAKE YOU TO TASK FOR IT IN MY REVIEWS JUST AS I HAD WITH "LIFE AFTER DEATH"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
SS SHOULD STOP TRYING TO MAKE READERS HATE WINTER SANTIAGA, THE CHARACTER SHE MADE US LIKE FROM "THE COLDEST WINTER EVER" BOOK, & GIVE WINTER SANTIAGA A PROPER FOLLOW UP TO "TCWE" BECAUSE THE ONLY THING THAT WAS TOLERABLE IN "LAD" WAS NIA LONG'S NARRATION OF A AUDIOBOOK THAT WAS VERY NEARLY 24 HOURS LONG!
WITH THIS BOOK, SOME OF US ARE WILLING TO GIVE YOU ANOTHER CHANCE BUT DON'T SCREW US OVER WITH "LOVE AFTER MIDNIGHT", SS! OR, I'LL BE FORCED TO HAVE TO TAKE YOU TO TASK FOR IT IN MY REVIEWS JUST AS I HAD WITH "LIFE AFTER DEATH"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
November 10, 2024
First of all let me say it was better than the last book lol. I loved how she brings back many characters from THE COLDEST WINTER EVER. I disliked the fact that it just ended. No explanation, no why… And where exactly was the “love after midnight” as the title suggests.. she mentions his sons and his wives but not him lol like he isn’t even in the book 😭… she just left us with many many more questions so she better be coming out with a follow up.
October 18, 2024
All over the place, confusing and incomplete. Seems as though the book was rushed and forced to publish incomplete. Many errors, new characters that served little to no purpose.
October 7, 2024
I feel like this was four storylines in one. There were so many storylines that were started but left unfinished. Initially it was unclear where we were time wise and it felt like this should’ve been released before the last book, but eventually there are enough thin threads to place it after the book. Watch my full review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_cp9...
August 10, 2024
I have to admit after reading Life After Death I was highly disappointed and definitely on the verge of not reading another Sister Souljah book. But she kinda redeemed herself in this one.
Thank you to the author and NetGalley for gifting me this book in exchange for my honest review
Thank you to the author and NetGalley for gifting me this book in exchange for my honest review
October 19, 2024
I listen to it in Audible and it was a HARD listen but I think she wanted it that way so she can be done with Winter
November 21, 2024
Waste of time
This has to be worse than the last Winter book, this is a pure waste of time i wont even begin to explain
This has to be worse than the last Winter book, this is a pure waste of time i wont even begin to explain
November 15, 2024
I usually enjoy her books for the most part,but this one was ridiculously boring. My main criticism was the writing style,turned me off completely with how it was written and the non persuasive writing. Usually with Soulja, I can depend on her to reel me in but I felt this one didn’t do much for me personally. I couldn’t tell you any of the characters names or even the plot of this.it felt very disjointed and unappealing to read through.
Oh well,better luck next time..
NEXT!
Oh well,better luck next time..
NEXT!
September 13, 2024
I was really excited for this read , I was one of the few that really saw how great life after death was. However , this was very hard to get into and it felt as if the book was not connected to a story line .
Love after midnight brings back the fiesty and unpredictable Ms. Winter as she returns back to the spotlight after her near death experience . Coming from book 2 I just knew it was going to be a much deeper meaning , but it appeared very superficial . I felt as if the story line was different pieces that did not create a story . The ending was a cliff hanger , so it gives hope for the journey of Winter.
Thanks to NetGalley & Simon & Schuster for this Arc
Love after midnight brings back the fiesty and unpredictable Ms. Winter as she returns back to the spotlight after her near death experience . Coming from book 2 I just knew it was going to be a much deeper meaning , but it appeared very superficial . I felt as if the story line was different pieces that did not create a story . The ending was a cliff hanger , so it gives hope for the journey of Winter.
Thanks to NetGalley & Simon & Schuster for this Arc
November 23, 2024
I didn't like this installment at all. We followed Winter around for like a week with no plot or no purpose. I at least thought maybe we'll find out who shot her..NOPE.. so I don't know what revelation we was suppose to get from this story.🤷🏾♀️ It took me 2 weeks to listen to this book on audio and I only pushed through it because I hate quitting.. only to learn absolutely nothing at all. Winter wasn't even herself, which use to keep me entertained by her shallowness.. I only gave it a 1 star because I had to pick something. Very disappointed reader 😒
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 2, 2024
25 years later no growth.
Winter is in the same mess as she was on in 1999. You can contribute some as when people are in jail. I skipped multiple parts. Let’s say as an adult woman at the age of 44, I can’t read this mess. Winter was a hot mess when I was 19. I lost a few brain cells thumbing through this.
Winter is in the same mess as she was on in 1999. You can contribute some as when people are in jail. I skipped multiple parts. Let’s say as an adult woman at the age of 44, I can’t read this mess. Winter was a hot mess when I was 19. I lost a few brain cells thumbing through this.
January 15, 2025
Chile if you dont like Winter then stop writing these books because you are ruining childhood classics.
Im so sorry that we didnt like the midnight series but you didnt write the darkest midnight ever initially so get over it.
This is just poor writing. there is no connective tissue in this book. It randomly adds characters with no depth and then drops them with no resolve.
I just cant
Im so sorry that we didnt like the midnight series but you didnt write the darkest midnight ever initially so get over it.
This is just poor writing. there is no connective tissue in this book. It randomly adds characters with no depth and then drops them with no resolve.
I just cant
October 29, 2024
Not reading another book from this author 😵💫 These last two in this series was a disappointment. She hasn’t written a book the same way she wrote “The Coldest Winter Ever”.
August 11, 2024
Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for providing this book, with my honest review below.
Like many who will be drawn to this book, I enjoyed The Coldest Winter Ever and had read some of Sister Souljah’s follow up books set in the same world, but had been eager for one focused on Winter (I did not read the first return to Winter book as the plot didn’t seem to my tastes). Love After Midnight focused on Winter as she gets back into the world she ran as a Brooklyn princess in her teens, complete with her father by her side, and I was eager to see if she had grown during her time in prison.
While Sister Souljah writes Winter in the same style for the character I got to know in The Coldest Winter Ever, the general writing and story felt disjointed and at times confusing. While some of that may just be my own tastes (as an example the first chapter opens with writing that seems to emulate the rhythm of a song, but it just didn’t work for me), others would apply for any reader (the last few chapters). On the positive side, I would view this as the promise of a good story emerging about Winter’s childhood friends betraying her and her continued shallowness despite a near death experience. Ultimately though, some of the chapters (see previous notes) just didn’t work for me and this felt very surface level throughout. Perhaps this is getting the reader ready for the next book (we end on a bit of a cliffhanger) which will dive deeper, but with so many places Love After Midnight could have taken me, I felt there was more than enough story available that could have been developed more deeply in this book alone.
Like many who will be drawn to this book, I enjoyed The Coldest Winter Ever and had read some of Sister Souljah’s follow up books set in the same world, but had been eager for one focused on Winter (I did not read the first return to Winter book as the plot didn’t seem to my tastes). Love After Midnight focused on Winter as she gets back into the world she ran as a Brooklyn princess in her teens, complete with her father by her side, and I was eager to see if she had grown during her time in prison.
While Sister Souljah writes Winter in the same style for the character I got to know in The Coldest Winter Ever, the general writing and story felt disjointed and at times confusing. While some of that may just be my own tastes (as an example the first chapter opens with writing that seems to emulate the rhythm of a song, but it just didn’t work for me), others would apply for any reader (the last few chapters). On the positive side, I would view this as the promise of a good story emerging about Winter’s childhood friends betraying her and her continued shallowness despite a near death experience. Ultimately though, some of the chapters (see previous notes) just didn’t work for me and this felt very surface level throughout. Perhaps this is getting the reader ready for the next book (we end on a bit of a cliffhanger) which will dive deeper, but with so many places Love After Midnight could have taken me, I felt there was more than enough story available that could have been developed more deeply in this book alone.
April 9, 2025
This book was terribly written. There was absolutely no plot what so ever. How does Winter do 15 years in prison and come out like an entitled teenage who runs around blurting about unnecessary fashion brands while trying to dodge security after "dying" with no sense of what is happening around her (even though most of what's happening is super irrelevant because there is no followup)? The character development was non-existent. I honestly wish I could request for my money back on this one. It was like Sister Souljah had a contractual obligation (3 book deal) and needed to just hurry up and finish it so it could be done and over with and the publishers accepted it because they'd been waiting for years.. Or that she didn't really write the first book at all and it was someone else. All in all I wouldn't recommend this read to anyone sorry to say. And unfortunately I have 10 others that read alongside me who agree.
October 13, 2024
Don’t waste your time!!!
I wanted to love this book but it was a dud! Major plot holes leave you confused. Don’t waste your time and money. Like someone else said this is just a money grab by the author.
I wanted to love this book but it was a dud! Major plot holes leave you confused. Don’t waste your time and money. Like someone else said this is just a money grab by the author.
October 30, 2024
It has to be another book!!! It's no way she ended this series open the way it is
February 10, 2025
Winter is back!!! This bad ass, selfish bitch is back to being her shallow self and honestly, as terrible of a character that she is, I breathed a sigh of relief that she wasn’t spouting religious nonsense. I feared that was the route Sister Souljah was going based on her last book which was a complete mess.
This book though was more of a redemption story. It basically follows Winter as she is trying to establish a fashion business and multimillion dollar empire. She has her own reality tv show where she is loved and adored by many of her fans and gets to live rent free in a beautiful villa thanks to her sister and her sister’s husband. Yet despite all that, she isn’t happy. Her old friends from Brooklyn are trifling (one of who attempted to kill her) and she desperately wants to have a man of her own to love and take care of her.
And while I enjoyed following Winter around once more, I can understand readers’ frustration with Sister Souljah’s writing. The book is disjointed in some parts and sometimes hard to follow. There were also a bunch of plot holes. I would sometimes excuse the lack of the information, knowing that our main character and narrator is Winter, but I still do wish that Sister Souljah expanded on some parts. And the ending was just horrible!
Overall though, I’m glad we got a better book but I still don’t feel that Sister Souljah is done with Winter’s story. I guess I’ll have to wait for the next book - 3 stars!
This book though was more of a redemption story. It basically follows Winter as she is trying to establish a fashion business and multimillion dollar empire. She has her own reality tv show where she is loved and adored by many of her fans and gets to live rent free in a beautiful villa thanks to her sister and her sister’s husband. Yet despite all that, she isn’t happy. Her old friends from Brooklyn are trifling (one of who attempted to kill her) and she desperately wants to have a man of her own to love and take care of her.
And while I enjoyed following Winter around once more, I can understand readers’ frustration with Sister Souljah’s writing. The book is disjointed in some parts and sometimes hard to follow. There were also a bunch of plot holes. I would sometimes excuse the lack of the information, knowing that our main character and narrator is Winter, but I still do wish that Sister Souljah expanded on some parts. And the ending was just horrible!
Overall though, I’m glad we got a better book but I still don’t feel that Sister Souljah is done with Winter’s story. I guess I’ll have to wait for the next book - 3 stars!
December 13, 2024
What the hell is going on?! Winter is probably my least favorite character in the Sister Souljah books, but I respect her as the OG of the series. I liked Life after Death. It was roundabout but it did eventually get to the point. I cannot say the same for this book. I left this book with more questions than answers? I found myself glazing over the extensive wardrobe sections of the book. I flipped through the pages hopefully there would be a point to all of this.
Simply put this book read like a pilot episode, a whole lot of open scenarios and nothing being resolved. This wouldn't bother me but it's the third book and you're telling me that Winter has zero character development after her time in the afterlife? The character still reads like the same Winter in The Coldest Winter and given the experiences of her life, I'm not sure if I'm buying the illusion. I give this book 2 stars because it was an easy read. I didn't waste much time getting through the book and honestly, I'd read the fourth book.
Simply put this book read like a pilot episode, a whole lot of open scenarios and nothing being resolved. This wouldn't bother me but it's the third book and you're telling me that Winter has zero character development after her time in the afterlife? The character still reads like the same Winter in The Coldest Winter and given the experiences of her life, I'm not sure if I'm buying the illusion. I give this book 2 stars because it was an easy read. I didn't waste much time getting through the book and honestly, I'd read the fourth book.
October 24, 2024
Truly I liked the story bc I finished this book in rapid time. However, I just don’t understand what’s going on. I wanted to love this book I really did but the ending… wth! It has a lot of holes and I’m sure it’s because she wants to continue the story but girl!!! It’s a step up from that last miserable book Life After Death, but a small tiny one.
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November 11, 2024This was so much better than the last one. Thanks to my co-worker for getting this book for my birthday.
March 11, 2025
I loved this book brought me back to the coldest winter ever. Winter is my Girl ! But she’s oh so bougie lol. I hate how it ended though and I hope that there is a book 4 coming soon !! 💖
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