Tiffany D. Jackson

New York Times bestselling author Tiffany D. Jackson delivers another stunning, ripped-from-the-headlines thriller, following a freshman girl whose college life is turned upside down when her roommate’s ex-convict brother moves into their dorm and starts controlling their every move.

Out from under her overprotective parents, Jordyn is ready to kill it in prelaw at a prestigious, historically Black university in Washington DC. When her new roommate’s brother is released from prison, the last thing Jordyn expects is to come home and find the ex-convict on their dorm room sofa. But Devonte needs a place to stay while he gets back on his feet—and how could she say no to one of her new best friends?

Devonte is older, as charming as he is intelligent, pushing every student he meets to make better choices about their young lives. But Jordyn senses something sinister beneath his friendly advice and growing group of followers. When one of Jordyn’s roommates goes missing, she must enlist the help of the university’s lone white student to uncover the mystery—or become trapped at the center of a web of lies more tangled than she can imagine.

The Scammer

Lindsay

“You know, I have my own theory. I believe that conspiracy theories have done an equal amount of damage as racism has to our Black communities. From enslavement until now, we, above most others, have earned the right to be suspicious of white people’s intentions after our history with one another. But our paranoia has rendered us frozen in our own imaginings. When you uproot and strip humans of their culture, you leave them vulnerable prey, easy to attack with stories rooted in believable truths. All it takes is to add a bit of fiction into the narrative you want a person to follow for it to be gospel. It doesn’t mean we’re gullible people. It means our collective generational trauma has us questioning everything. My honest advice is to continue the practice of skepticism with a critical eye. For example, if someone says they have a source or an example, tell them to provide three more. The ancestors gave us sharp instincts for a reason.”

“I’m not saying that we should trust recklessly,” Dr. Barnes continues. “But our rightful mistrust does not give license to forgo common sense and practicality. Ignoring science to our own detriment based on irrational principles. That doesn’t protect us. That gives the people who planted these conspiracy theorists in our communities, these covert terrorists, these snakes in the grass . . . exactly what they want. To eradicate us from the inside out.”

If I wanted to read about a Black girl from a white area going to college and falling for a blonde-haired, blue-eyed boy named Nick, I would’ve reread “Legendborn”. In all seriousness, Jackson is typically an auto-buy author for me, but I had a lot of issues with this book.

To start, the overall premise of an evil hotep was not engaging for me at all. In her other novel, “Grown”, we understood who the villain was from the jump, but watching the main character be gaslit and manipulated was still intriguing and realistic, like watching a car crash. In this, knowing the bad guy from the beginning did the book no favors. Watching the people around him fall victim to his bullshit was very hard to believe. All he had to do was talk to someone once, and they were hooked on his every word. I would like to believe a group of educated Black students would have better discernment. It was like a Lifetime movie in the worst way possible. Usually with Jackson’s work, I find that she is able to encompass a Black experience authentically, so misses the mark entirely.

Briefly, I want to touch on the pacing issues. I’m all for a good build up, but the main event in the story didn’t happen until about 65% in. So we had the climax and resolution in a very short time frame, which just made the ending feel like it was thrown together.

My final gripe with this is the white love interest. Our main character was the token Black girl in her town in Connecticut. She left her coon parents and white boyfriend to attend an HBCU to create community with other Black people … just to end up with literally the only white person on campus. Him being white (and blonde, yuck!) wasn’t the only problem I had. He was quite literally a white savior. He’s the only one that seemed to have Jordyn’s best interest in mind. It was like Jackson was trying to make sure that the readers were okay with the pairing. There’s even a line in the book that says he’s “invited to the cookout”, and they kept harping on his correct use of southern, Black sayings. Don’t worry, it’s totally not odd because we find out he had a Black nanny growing up that taught him how to act that way (sarcastic asf). Yeah, that shit was weird. The romance as a whole was not necessary, nor did it add anything to the story, regardless of the race of the characters. There’s nothing I hate more than a useless romance.

I don’t know, something about this book felt very unlike every other book by the author, and I’m unsettled by how much this deviated from her previous works.

Nik ✨

If I wanted to read about a Black girl from a white area going to college and falling for a blonde-haired, blue-eyed boy named Nick, I would’ve reread “Legendborn”. In all seriousness, Jackson is typically an auto-buy author for me, but I had a lot of issues with this book.

To start, the overall premise of an evil hotep was not engaging for me at all. In her other novel, “Grown”, we understood who the villain was from the jump, but watching the main character be gaslit and manipulated was still intriguing and realistic, like watching a car crash. In this, knowing the bad guy from the beginning did the book no favors. Watching the people around him fall victim to his bullshit was very hard to believe. All he had to do was talk to someone once, and they were hooked on his every word. I would like to believe a group of educated Black students would have better discernment. It was like a Lifetime movie in the worst way possible. Usually with Jackson’s work, I find that she is able to encompass a Black experience authentically, so misses the mark entirely.

Briefly, I want to touch on the pacing issues. I’m all for a good build up, but the main event in the story didn’t happen until about 65% in. So we had the climax and resolution in a very short time frame, which just made the ending feel like it was thrown together.

My final gripe with this is the white love interest. Our main character was the token Black girl in her town in Connecticut. She left her coon parents and white boyfriend to attend an HBCU to create community with other Black people … just to end up with literally the only white person on campus. Him being white (and blonde, yuck!) wasn’t the only problem I had. He was quite literally a white savior. He’s the only one that seemed to have Jordyn’s best interest in mind. It was like Jackson was trying to make sure that the readers were okay with the pairing. There’s even a line in the book that says he’s “invited to the cookout”, and they kept harping on his correct use of southern, Black sayings. Don’t worry, it’s totally not odd because we find out he had a Black nanny growing up that taught him how to act that way (sarcastic asf). Yeah, that shit was weird. The romance as a whole was not necessary, nor did it add anything to the story, regardless of the race of the characters. There’s nothing I hate more than a useless romance.

I don’t know, something about this book felt very unlike every other book by the author, and I’m unsettled by how much this deviated from her previous works.

The Scammer

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