SSR book - Cake by D

My SSR book was "Cake" by D and is 180 pages long. It’s classified as African-American fiction. The narrator is nameless, which was a nice spin on things. It's the sequel to a book titled "Got" by the same author. The main character is a man with a past. A very heavy past that mainly consisted of many dirty deeds and several acts of hatred & revenge that caused plenty of blood shed. The narrator has moved to Atlanta to live with one of the two only living relatives he has left. He plans to get an education and live a "normal" life. He's done some horrible things, but on his quest to run away from them, he gets tangled up in the same mess he was trying so hard to let go of. It all begins when he meets a beauty named Jennifer who draws him in like a fish on a fishing pole and the seven days that come after that encounter are the worst of his life.

The story-line for this book was very interesting. There are so many twists and turns that it keeps you wanting to read it. I fell in love with the main character. He has such a good heart and is just stuck in some downright dirty and messed up situations. His will to keep going through all of the unfortunate circumstances is what I liked a lot. It also reminded me of Chris McCandless too. The author is someone I wouldn’t call my favorite author, but I’d keep him in mind for further books. I could tell that either he was a great story teller, or he’s experience some of it for himself. I’m going to go with the latter of the two since it hints at it on the back of the book.

The things that I didn’t like were that the book was too short. I just wanted the story to keep going. I guess since the whole thing took place in seven days, any longer would have been dragging it out. I hadn’t read the first book so I was a tad confused on things. Like Names and places that popped out of no where. There’s a slight (very slight) recap at the beginning, but not significant enough that the reader really knows what’s going on. The ending is what makes the whole book worth it. I’m really big on good endings and I even though I didn’t like this one, it was still a very good one.

I would recommend this book to anyone that can stand a little violence. It’s not your typical love story with daisies and roses. It’s gritty and dangerous which is different for me. I still enjoyed it though.