Meaning of Love? Just one in many unanswered questions...
*Spoilers*
I tried to like this book. I really did. I enjoyed "Midnight: A Gangsters Love Story" enough to pre-order this book and read it within a week of receiving it. Let's just say what set up for an intriguing premise was destroyed at least 150 pages before the book was even finished.
My review will contain spoilers so please skip down to the BOTTOM LINE to avoid them.
Midnight And The Meaning of Love picks up right where A Gangsters Love Story left off. Akemi, the 16 year old wife of Midnight has been kidnapped by her Japanese father, and of course the young Sudanese Ninja vows to do whatever it takes to get her back. The book has three sections, with about 16-20 chapters each. The first section takes place in Brooklyn, the second in Japan, and the third in Korea.
The Brooklyn section is more or less filled with preparation for Midnight to go to Japan and take back his bride. While he organizes his plan though, he also takes time to play basketball with his friends, meet Santiago (Winters father from Coldest Winter Ever), train with his sensi, lust after Bangs, and move his family (his 7 year old sister and his non-english speaking mother) from their apartment in Brooklyn. It's a slow but necessary read and for the most part really helps to paint the mindset of Midnight before making his journey across the globe.
The second section kicks off once Midnight boards a plane to Japan where he meets several teenage girls; one of them a half black-half Korean ninja named Chiasa that Midnight hires to be his tour guide and translator. She impresses him with her knowledge of fighting and her quick intelligence and this lays the foundation for the love triangle that takes place later in the story. Sister Souljah goes into great lengths to explain every single detail of Japan through the eyes of Midnight, which includes brief introductions into history, language, fashion, and culture. Midnight also finds out more about Akemi's father and mother which helps him form a strategy for safely finding and retrieving his wife. Built like an odyssey with many trials and obstacles, Midnight encounters many people along the way that could be friend or foe, but ultimately finds a way to get his wife back. The reunion doesn't last as a new set of circumstances emerge which forces him to travel to Korea.
Midnight and his hired mercenary teenage comrade Chiasa travel to Korea to finally complete the mission of getting Akemi, and alleviate the other set of issues they have encountered on the way. This is also the setting where Midnight and Chiasa fall in love, and Midnight goes through a Mission Impossible-like courtship to win her hand and take her as his second wife.
This is the premise of the book. 14 year old Midnight (Souljah rarely mentions his age in the book. Likely to not remind the reader how young he is) travels to Japan to find his 16 year old wife that was kidnapped by her father and returns a few weeks later with two wives. If this isn't the most ridiculous plot ever...
The first book, though reaching on so many levels, was decent enough of a read to me. Obviously Midnight is bred differently from most boys so I gave SS the benefit of the doubt when it came to his "love story" with Akemi as well as his character arch in the first novel. But with this book, I was hoping it would take that next step and explain how 14 year old Midnight, who married a woman he couldn't communicate properly with, had tu
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