Review of Cry Baby Cry or Not

[Saniya Dolan]

[Following is a volunteer review of "Cry Baby Cry or Not" by DeWandus Johnson.]

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3 out of 4 stars

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Cry Baby Cry… or Not by DeWandus Johnson, the first installment in the series, narrates a story about the children of the streets. It takes readers on a journey through the street life and the gangsters of Chicago. Trina’s mother Jackie was born deaf and dumb. This made her hateful towards Trina. She wasn’t given proper education and care as a child, which in turn caused her to turn to a pedophile for affection. Finally, Trina, being tired of her mother’s abuses, lashes out on Jackie and runs away. She befriends Mistro, a fifteen-year-old fledgling gang member, who takes Trina under his wing. They soon fall in love while living under the same roof. The story follows Trina’s journey to finding herself.

The book includes a lot of action and drama. After the initial shock of reading such vulgar situations, the story moved on with a flow that wasn’t smooth nor rough. The narration was spectacular, so were the detailing, though it seemed unnecessary in many places. Having known that the author has been through or at the very least witnessed some of the events described in this story and keeping that fact in mind while reading made the storyline even more satisfying.

That being said, the book did not seem edited by a professional. This put a damper on the whole experience and was very distracting. The dialogues, at times, seemed to be very bland. It wasn’t unique to the characters. I had to force myself to read through the first 60 pages before I started to get into the book. Several sex scenes looked to me like they were out of place. There were too many characters to keep track of and some of them were unnecessary.

I would rate the book 3 out of 4 stars because overall, the book seemed to have a moderately good story line, but is desperately in need of a rewrite and some editing. I am skeptical about going back for the sequel but I have to give it a try because I have grown attached to the characters of Trina and Mimi.

The book has several trigger warnings, some being sexual assault, child abuse, pedophilia, murder, substance abuse, prostitution, necrophilia and such. Suffice to say, I’ve never read anything like it before. It was raw, vulgar and satisfying. Cry baby cry… or Not is definitely not a book for the faint hearted.

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Cry Baby Cry or Not
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