We’re celebrating the release of CRY BABY by Ginger Scott! One-Click today!
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“Cry Baby is brilliantly written. It’s hauntingly beautiful and heartbreaking and will leave you thinking about it for days afterward. Bravo, Ms. Scott. This boy-man stole my heart and I don’t want it back.” – L.J. Shen, Bestselling Author
Synopsis
Tristan Lopez is loyal to his brothers. He doesn’t really have a choice, born into a gang that has a chokehold on every kid that roams its streets. He gave his life to them willingly, knowing if he did then one day this kingdom, led by boys drunk with power and ruled by fear, would all be his.
He was loyal through it all. Loyal when prison took his dad away. Loyal when his face was touched by the cold metal of the rival gang’s gun. Loyal even though his mom begged him to run the moment she returned home from rehab.
He thought about becoming someone else. It was hard not to crave the life of a regular 17-year-old. It’s the only reason he stayed in school—to pretend. But he
always fell back in line.
Loyal.
Riley Rojas didn’t belong in Tristan’s real world. She should have only been part of the fantasy, one of the many faces he got to pretend with amidst rows of metal chairs and desks and whiteboards with assignments. But there she was, moving boxes from the back of an old pick-up into a house Tristan had shot up on a dare with his friends only a few months before.
Tall enough to look him in the eyes and strong enough to fill his shadow, Riley took up space on his streets, her loud mouth fearless in the face of the gang leaders who terrified everyone else. She pushed Tristan around on the hard court, and she balled better than his friends—better than him sometimes. She challenged him. She needed him. He liked it. And when her pale blue eyes stared into his, he quit wanting to pretend.
He couldn’t ask her to leave because she’d only dig her heels in deeper. He couldn’t ask because he didn’t want her to go. She was blurring his lines. She was testing his loyalty.
He was falling in love.
And it was going to tear him apart.
Review
4.5 stars!
Wow, I loved this book. Beautifully written and gutwrenchingly emotional, it’s a heartbreaking glimpse into suburban gang life through the eyes of an amazing 17-year-old boy. It’s real and raw, with a gorgeous love story, a really special read that held me absolutely captivated, and I loved it!
Tristan Lopez was born and raised in the gang that was started by his father. Even though it eventually took his father’s life and sent his mother spiralling into drug use and eventual rehab, Tristan stayed loyal. But secretly he craved a life away from the violence, wanting to be a normal 17 year old with hopes of having a real life someday.
I knew every bit of this was wrong. I know it’s wrong. I hate it. I hate my fate. It’s there, though. I’m married to it because of the place I was born, the man who fathered me, his friends and his choices, and my mother’s weaknesses. All I can do is make the most of it, and maybe find a little happiness somewhere on the fringes.
Riley Rojas moves in just down the road from Tristan, and he is immediately drawn to her. They share a few ‘moments’ but when the strong and feisty girl shows up in gang turf, he knows he needs to push her away for her own safety.
I’m walking two paths beginning right this minute, and I can’t let them cross. The collision would be deadly.
Riley’s passion is for basketball. She has mad skills, and when she heads down to the local court to try and get a game, she is completely ignored and shamed. What makes it worse is that it’s by the boy she had begun to crush on, who completely dismissed her. When the two of them end up in the same classes at school, they are forced into spending time together, they bond over their shared love of basketball, and it doesn’t take too long for Riley’s fearless bravery to overcome Tristan’s reservations as she boldly stands up to him, demanding his attention.
“You are my test, Riley. My temptation. My mother says you’re the light, and I want to stand in it with you, but…”
“So stand with me,” I interrupt.
I freaking love Riley! She’s loveable, relatable, and incredibly fierce in a way that I admire so much. Her determination to be a part of Tristan’s life, despite the danger, is just gorgeous, and I love that she bravely takes his hand and guides him into the realisation that he can be so much more.
“You don’t have to take this job, Tristan…the one that says you’re a bad guy. It doesn’t suit you.”
And Tristan, whose whole life has been about doing what he has to in order to survive, is so ready for it. He’s scared, but he can’t hold back from the girl who has started to capture his heart.
“You’re unlike any other girl. You make me wish things were different, that I was different.”
It’s a beautiful love story that develops in spite of the dangers, and I loved the honesty and intensity of all that they felt for each other.
“You shouldn’t do things like this with a guy like me,” he says, his voice rough but the pleading tone evident still. He hates himself, and he’s denying himself, but I see more than the boy in a gang.
“You’re the only boy I should do things like this with,” I say, looking deep into him and shifting until my forehead rests on his.
But when the realities of Tristan’s world become all-too real, everything will change and neither of their lives will be the same again.
I really loved this story. It’s heartbreaking, but it needed to be as the realities of Tristan’s life were revealed. The story twists and turns, and I appreciated the surprises and unexpected direction of Tristan and Riley’s journeys, and I thought the way it all played out was realistic and really well done. Would I have liked to see more? Of course I would! But there’s something ‘right’ about the way that Scott finished this story, it fit in with the book, and with the extraordinary story of these incredible characters. I finished it feeling very satisfied, and so so glad that I got to experience it all with them.
Riley has opened this window to what could be. She’s built a bridge between my reality and my fantasyland, and I can’t stop crossing it.
A fantastic read – 4.5 stars.
An Advanced Review Copy was generously provided by the author in exchange for an honest review.
About the Author
Ginger Scott is an Amazon-bestselling and Goodreads Choice Award-nominated author of several young and new adult romances, including Waiting on the Sidelines, Going Long, Blindness, How We Deal With Gravity, This Is Falling, You and Everything After, The Girl I Was Before, Wild Reckless, Wicked Restless, In Your Dreams, The Hard Count and Hold My Breath.
A sucker for a good romance, Ginger’s other passion is sports, and she often blends the two in her stories. (She’s also a sucker for a hot quarterback, catcher, pitcher, point guard…the list goes on.) Ginger has been writing and editing for newspapers, magazines and blogs for more than 15 years. She has told the stories of Olympians, politicians, actors, scientists, cowboys, criminals and towns. For more on her and her work, visit her website at http://www.littlemisswrite.com.
When she’s not writing, the odds are high that she’s somewhere near a baseball diamond, either watching her son field pop flies like Bryce Harper or cheering on her favorite baseball team, the Arizona Diamondbacks. Ginger lives in Arizona and is married to her college sweetheart whom she met at ASU (fork ’em, Devils).
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