The most realistic of all urban fiction books. The story revolves around Winter Santiaga, the daughter of a prominent drug dealer in their Brooklyn neighborhood. Her mother had her when she was fourteen, and she has three other sisters, Mercedes, Lexus and Porsche.
Winter runs the town, or so she would like to think. She is in
love with one of her daddy's workers, Midnight, but he never pays her any mind even tho any other guy would kill to get a piece of that. Then suddenly, on her 16th
birthday, her dad announces that they will be moving to a mansion in
Long Island. The family doesn't complain but inside they are all upset, especially since he has forbidden any of them to set
foot back in Brooklyn after they leave. However once they get to the mansion they are so excited they don't care they hav e left their family and friends behind.
Ricky (Winter's
father) has actually left Brooklyn because he knew that an up-and-coming rival gang, the Young Heads, were threatening to harm his family. Unfortunately they track him down because when he and his wife are driving to the dealership to get Winter's mother a Benz for her
birthday, one of the Young Heads shoots Mrs Santiaga in the face. She survives, but the disfigurement causes her to almost lose her mind, because her life revolves around vanity.
One night, Winter tells her
parents she is going to a college party, when in fact she is sneaking back to Brooklyn to party with her friends. She takes her mom's Benz and parties in a hotel room until 4 AM. When she gets back to Long Island she finds her
father gone, and the house ripped up with all of their money gone. The
police found out about Mr Santiaga's drug dealing and put him in jail. With no money and Mrs Santiaga with no job, the rest of thge family is basically screwed. The rest of Winter's extended family is also being arrested for drug dealing at the same time.
Mercedes, Lexus and Porsche are taken into foster care. Winter manages to escape foster care by telling the authorities she is a family friend, not Winter. It is then that Mrs Santiaga goes completely insane. She starts living with Aunt Laurie, her sister, cuts off all her hair, and becomes a crack addict. Winter goes to live with Aunt B and her cousin Bianca in Brooklyn, but the feds eventually track her down and say she can't live there because there are too many
people for a Section 8 apartment. She is sent to a group home called the House of Success.
Winter manages to get some money together by selling stolen goods to her housemates through her friend Simone, who is a booster. However, Winter makes an enemy when Simone is caught while trying to steal a dress Winter asked for, and Winter refuses to bail her out. Winter gets jumped by Simone and runs away from the House of Success.
Winter eventually takes the advice of one of her housemates Rashida, and goes to stay with a woman called Sister Souljah in a brownstone, telling everyone there her name is Sasha. Sister Souljah is a motivational speaker whom Winter in the beginning has an extreme aversion to. She spends her time in the house trying to figure out a hustle, and she also meets a famous rapper, GS, who is Souljah's friend.
Winter and Souljah's sister
Lauren go to a hip-hop party with Sister Souljah, and Winter is allowed to go up and see GS because she won a beauty contest. She has sex with him, but it was dark and she doesn't realize that she actually had sex with GS's bodyguard, Tony.
Winter finally decides to leave when she is in charge of collecting money for a charity and instead steals the money and plans to escape. However,
Lauren switches Winter's bag with her own, which is identical, and Winter finds herself without any money.
Winter starts living with Bullet, one of the guys she hung out with during her party in Brooklyn. He is an up-and-coming drug dealer and treats her well, but becomes increasingly possessive to the point that he leaves a pack of vicious
dogs in the apartment for two days with Winter, who is forced to hide out in the bedroom with no food for the time period.
Winter lives with Bullet until they are driving to Brooklyn with drugs concealed in the trunk, and Winter encounters a vicious Simone with her crew. Simone slashes Winter's face with a broken bottle and Winter is taken to a hospital, then to jail for drug possession, even though they weren't her drugs. Bullet meanwhile, just walks away from the car and is not caught.
Winter is sentenced to prison, and while she is there her mother dies. She reunites with her family at the funeral, including her jailed
father, a now-wealthy Mercedes, and Lexus and Porsche, who were adopted by Midnight. The
book ends with Mercedes telling Winter all about her rich, drug-dealing boyfriend, and Winter thinking about all she;s been through and debating whether or not to warn her about the consequences. She decides not to, and that "she'll learn in her own time".
