Life After Death is Sister Souljah’s sequel to Coldest Winter Ever, a sensation two decades ago and called by some the best urban fiction ever. I have not read Souljah’s other work but wanted to read Life After Death because of all the buzz around it. The plot premise is the protagonist, bad-ass bitch Winter Santiaga, is about to be released from prison and become the star of her own reality show but is shot the day she’s released. This causes her to go into an afterlife world that has elements of gangster life, science fiction, and purgatory (which is called, in the novel ‘The Last Stop before the Drop’).
Readers are sharply divided on this book. While some of the support may be political (e.g., a reviewer on Amazon who says “I haven’t even read it but I’m giving it 5 stars because I support a young black woman doing her thing”), 65% of Amazon reviews gave it 5 stars. Those who rave about it urge people not to listen to the negative reviews and often say they got the symbolism and Souljah is teaching them through this novel. At the other end are the 17% of Amazon reviews that gave it one star, many of them disappointed fans of Coldest Winter Ever. Similarly, some of the negative literary reviews are from disappointed Souljah fans.
Personally, the novel didn’t work for me, but the positive comments of Souljah’s fans on Amazon inspired me to look up some of her activist work. She’s trying to do good things. Rather than refer you to a review, here’s a link to one of her speeches in 1994 – “We are at War.” I think it reflects, or is consistent with, the message intended nearly three decades later in Life After Death.
