Cry Baby by Ginger Scott Series: Standalone Novel
Published by Self Published on 6/22/18
Genres: Young Adult
Pages: 322
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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.
Cry Baby is a new TOP FAVORITE from this author. It’s absolutely one of the greatest books I’ve read this year. My emotions are still a wreck. Typically I’m content with leaving characters exactly where the author left them at the close of a book, but I wasn’t ready to let Tristan and Riley go yet. These are characters I DESPERATELY hope we might get to revisit down the road because THEY ARE EVERYTHING. They’ve left me shaken and twisted up, satisfied but also a bit desperate for a glimpse into their future. They’ve made me fall deeper in love with this author’s writing than I thought possible. And they’ve left me changed for the better. I loved this story so very much.
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Jessica’s Review
5 “This was Everything” Stars!
As soon as I turned the last page of this book, I felt like I needed to sob. I had all these pent up feelings, all these residual emotions from everything this book made me feel and I just couldn’t get them out. I understood Tristan Lopez so much more in that moment and how he earned his nickname because I too held onto all my tears until it was too much to bear, until it was safe to let it all out. I felt such overwhelming sadness for all that had been lost on these pages. I felt grief. I was heartbroken and angry but I was also deeply moved by the gravity of the realism in this story. I was also overcome with hope. There is joy in this story. There is forgiveness. There is so much possibility and such brilliant silver linings amid despair. Cry Baby wreaked havoc on my heart, overwhelmed me with an intense barrage of conflicting emotions, and it devestated me with its heart stopping romance in the way that only Ginger Scott’s stories do.
The Hard Count has been my top favorite book from this author until this moment. I’m not certain Cry Baby has topped it, but it’s certainly neck and neck right now. There simply aren’t words to adequately describe my love for Ginger Scott’s YA romances. She’s at her absolute best when she writes in this genre. I want to get lost in her high school romances and never, ever come out. Like The Hard Count, Cry Baby is layered masterfully with a sports element, with Tristan and Riley connecting and sparring and releasing the blistering tension between them on the basketball court. But, like The Hard Count, this story is so much heavier than anything I could’ve anticipated, a much deeper storyline than your average sports romance. These characters exist in a world full of impossibility and fear and it’s absolutely gut wrenching to be swept up in their story. This book is layered seamlessly with so much strife, such beautiful friendships, such horrific circumstances, such heartwarming romance. It’s an unputdownable, EXTRAORDINARY story of survival and love and I never wanted it to end.
I don’t want to say anything at all about this plot, just READ THE BOOK. Feel all the things as you’re meant to, let Ginger Scott carry you away with her words and her storytelling and her unforgettable characters and this gritty storyline that you won’t be able to shake off long after you’re finished. I’ll say it again, Cry Baby is a new TOP FAVORITE from this author. It’s absolutely one of the greatest books I’ve read this year. My emotions are still a wreck. Typically I’m content with leaving characters exactly where the author left them at the close of a book, but I wasn’t ready to let Tristan and Riley go yet. These are characters I DESPERATELY hope we might get to revisit down the road because THEY ARE EVERYTHING. They’ve left me shaken and twisted up, satisfied but also a bit desperate for a glimpse into their future. They’ve made me fall deeper in love with this author’s writing than I thought possible. And they’ve left me changed for the better. I loved this story so very much.
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 and In Your Dreams.
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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