Two young African Americans hoping for pop-music stardom become lovers-and pawns in a record-company power struggle-in this earnest debut. Jazmine Deems, a 26-year-old UCLA student anxious to escape her father's strict household, envies the freedom enjoyed by her best friend, Dakota, who introduces her to popular music, current fashion and sexy guys. Life hasn't been as smooth for Xavier Honor, aka X-Man, whose "family" consists of two street buddies and who hopes to rap his way out of the 'hood. X-Man and Jazmine meet at a party thrown by Black Tie Records, the company where producer Bobby Strong, having stumbled during his climb to the top, is looking over his shoulder at young producer Kirk Walker. Jazmine signs with Black Tie after Dakota makes a secret sacrifice on her behalf; X-Man also gains a contract. The two fall in love, while Bobby's world begins to crumble under pressure from his escalating drug use and bad judgment. On the eve of X-Man's and Jazmine's respective album debuts, a secret from X-Man's past becomes public, catalyzing a quick series of violent incidents. As X-Man and Jazmine narrate in alternating first-person voices, Jackson portrays the frailties and frustrations of South-Central L.A.'s residents with more compassion than subtlety. Her effort to tell a Cinderella story while retaining an attitude of hip-hop street credibility results in some awkwardness, but also in an engaging and up-to-date sudser. (May)
Caught Up in the Rapture
Narrated by Peter Francis James, Dion Graham, Kim Staunton
Sheneska JacksonUnabridged — 10 hours, 12 minutes
Caught Up in the Rapture
Narrated by Peter Francis James, Dion Graham, Kim Staunton
Sheneska JacksonUnabridged — 10 hours, 12 minutes
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Overview
Editorial Reviews
Jazmine Deems is a UCLA graduate student from South Central Los Angeles who dreams of becoming a rhythm-and-blues singer. With the help of an overzealous, promiscuous best friend, she lands a contract with a prominent record company. Between standing up to her preacher father and struggling against the record company's drug-addicted vice president, she is bound to develop into the strong-willed person she wishes to be. When she meets Xavier Honor, a South Central gang banger who would like to leave his gangster lifestyle and pursue a career as a rapper with the same record company as Jazmine, the two fall in love. However, with their alternate lifestyles and competition between the vice president and a power-hungry executive coming between them, Xavier and Jazmine soon learn that their love and determination to make it in the music industry may not be enough. This first novel is vivid, realistic, and strong, with perfectly fleshed-out characters. Readers will be bound by each word as they watch Jazmine struggle with life and the pursuit of happiness. Strongly recommended.-Shenise Ross, New York
A seamless, convincing, and gruelingly honest first novel, by the 25-year-old Jackson, portrays worlds known to many Americans only through the evening news.
Jazmine Deems is 26 and in a major rut: She still lives with her preacher father in her childhood home. She's working toward her master's degree at UCLA, her love life is virtually nonexistent, and, meanwhile, her real dream is to be a famous singer. Fortunately for Jazmine, her best friend, the wild but ever-loyal, street-smart Dakota, has Jazmine's best interests at heart: She wrangles invites to the annual Black Tie Records' executive party in the hopes that Jazmine can pass on a demo tape and be discovered by the label that represents all the best African-American singers. That fateful night turns out to be the beginning of Jazmine's career and of a turbulent romance with the soon-to-be-signed Black Tie artist, rapper (and conflicted gangster) Xavier "X-Man" Honor. Trouble in paradise pops up when X realizes that Jazmine—despite her attraction to him—has no interest in a drug-dealing, gun-toting street punk for a boyfriend, even if he does have a record contract. And then it turns out that Bobby Strong, the Black Tie executive responsible for signing up Jazmine, is a closet coke addict on a downward spiral that threatens to end the young woman's career before it ever gets off the ground. Through it all, Dakota, X-Man's homies Rich and T-Bone, Rich's philandering girlfriend Eyeisha, and the Revered Deems must deal with Jazz and X's impending stardom, as well as the dangers of life on the streets of South-Central L.A.
The glitzy facade of the high-powered, back-stabbing music industry provides an effective counterpoint to the scenes set on the deadly streets of America's most notorious ghetto: an impressive debut novel that never lets its message overwhelm the story.
Spike Lee An impressive debut — this novel tells a love story that won't take a backseat to ambition. Caught Up in the Rapture delivers big romance.
John Singleton With a great deal of heart and emotion, Jackson opens our eyes to a stirring love story full of angst and passion. After this literary experience, you will believe that love conquers all!
Spotlight With wit and a strong literary voice, Jackson has successfully captured the heart, soul, and struggles of an African-American generation that dares to dream of other possibilities.
Rocky Mountain News Fast paced and brilliant...incorporates the spectrum of human emotions — humor, tenderness, violence, hate, pride, and determination.
Omar Tyree A tightly written and well-thought-out contemporary love story with good old-fashioned morality.
Rita Mae Brown Dazzling.
Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940170446834 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Recorded Books, LLC |
| Publication date: | 04/29/2011 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
Read an Excerpt
Chapter 1
Are you listening, god?
I'm just about sick and tired of all this sneaking around like I'm some two-year-old child. I mean, look at me. I'm twenty-six years old and still breaking out in a cold sweat because I'm afraid Daddy won't let me go out tonight. He's probably going to say something like I need to be in church where God can reach me better, or he'll break out into one of his holy chants. "Oh Lord, save this child," he'll say, closing his eyes and holding the palm of his hand to my forehead. "Make her see the error of her evil ways. She's headed for destruction in them streets, Lord. She don't know no better. You gotta save her." The Reverend Deems has a definite flair for the dramatic. By the time he's finished, I'll feel so guilty and ashamed that I'll get dressed in one of my homey little white dresses and follow right behind him to the summer revival at Holy Sight Baptist Church. Or at least that's what usually happens, but not tonight. Tonight I've got big plans, and nothing, not the good Reverend Deems, not even the Almighty Himself, is going to stop me.
I mean, my goodness, to hear Daddy talk, you'd think I was some sort of low-life tramp who hangs in the street all night. But to tell the truth, I'm just like every other young woman these days. I wanna hang out With my friends, go places, see things, meet people -- hell, have a little fun before I'm too old or too ugly or too tired from working or too depressed over what I don't have or too spooked by all the things I do have. And dang it, I'm entitled to a little fun. I get up every morning and go to school, make good grades, then rush off to my part-time job atBullock's. Then I come home and clean up everything Daddy didn't have time to because he had to rush off to choir rehearsal or go to the hospital and pray for someone he doesn't even know or go help out at some other church auxiliary function. Next it's homework or studying for the next test or research, and if I'm lucky, I'll get about fifteen minutes to sneak a listen at Luther or En Vogue before I hear the clink-clink of Daddy's keys at the front door. What a life.
Okay now, let's see. I've got my hot curlers, my makeup kit, my good panties that I keep hidden in a pillowcase just in case Daddy comes peeping into my underwear drawer on one of his surprise scavenger hunts. He claims he'll be looking for a pair of his socks that might have gotten mixed up with my things in the laundry, but I know he's really trying to see if I have what he calls "demon material" hidden in there. Once he opened my drawer and found a romance novel and an Ice Cube tape, and I swear I thought the man was going to have a stroke. He went off into one of his holy trances and for the next month I was by his side every night at Holy Sight, praying for redemption. That man is too much. You'd think he'd be grateful. I mean, I could be a whole lot worse. I'm a college student, at UCLA no less. I work, I'm dependable, I'm smart, I can take care of myself, I'm kind to people, ambitious, clean, neat, careful, and have a high tolerance for putting up with bullshit or else I'd be out of his dang house by now. I could have turned out like some of the rest of these stupid girls running around here. I could have dropped out of high school, had about four or five babies, be on welfare, and sit around the house watching The Young and the Restless and Oprah all day. But nooo. I'm trying to do things the right way, and look at me -- still sneaking around trying to think of a good lie to tell the good reverend so he won't be suspicious.
Now where did I put those lace stockings? I've gotten so adept at hiding things from Daddy that I can barely remember where the heck anything is when I need it. Oop, here they are, under my mattress right next to my birth control pills. Ha, if Daddy knew I was taking the pill? I don't even want to think about how he'd react. His baby having sex? And she's not even married? Lord have mercy. By the time he would get finished with me, I'd be ripping out my own uterus. But it's not like I really use them anymore. The only time I took them for their intended purpose was when Dakota set me up with one of her cousins because she said I needed to be broken in. I was twenty-one years old and still a virgin and to Dakota that was like some sort of Guinness world record. Dakota's a dick-happy, borderline tramp, but hey, she's my best friend and I love her. So of course I did like she said and gave my virginity away to Boston, her stupid cousin who looks like a Bob Marley reject, with his long, messy dreadlocks that hang down to his butt and that goofy smile that makes him look like he's high all the time.
I did it partly because it was the thing to do and partly because I wanted to know just what the heck Dakota and everybody else was so crazy about. The whole experience lasted less than fifteen minutes, and I swear that boy didn't know the true meaning of deodorant or the pleasures of a long hot shower, but then again it was the middle of summer in L.A. and even the best of us get a little funky in one-hundred-degree weather. I had waited twenty-one years to do it so of course I thought my first time would be extra special, but it was nothing that I thought it would be. In fact it was pretty painful. Dakota said that it was just because it was my first time and since I hadn't done it before, I was just too tight and that it would take at least three or four times before I would experience any real pleasure. So Boston and I spent the majority of that summer twisted around each other, rubbing, poking, trying to get me to feel what everybody said I was supposed to be feeling, but it just didn't work. By the time I started my next semester at UCLA, I just gave up. The whole situation was just too dang awkward. I mean Boston was cool and everything, but he just wasn't my type, and I'm not one to put up with anything for too long that doesn't satisfy me to the fullest. Except for Daddy and that's just because I have no other choice.
Dakota says I'm weak when it comes to Daddy, but she just doesn't understand. "You need to leave the nest, Jazz," she tells me just about every other week. "You need to break away, do what you wanna do for a change. You're twenty-six years old and still running around trying to please him like he's going to put you on punishment or tell God to strike you down in a bolt of lightning."
"I know, I know," I tell her, but she just doesn't get it. She never had these type of daddy-daughter problems. I envy Dakota, I really do. She may not be the smartest sister, but she has her freedom. It seems like we're exact opposites, but I guess that's why we are the best of friends. I remember the first time we met at the beginning of twelfth grade at Harriet Tubman High. It seems the older I get, the more I like to reminisce about my last year of high school. Up until that time, life had been pretty boring, but twelfth grade was a time of change. In twelfth grade, there was Dakota.
It was the second week of school and by that time everybody had formed their cliques and posses and as usual, I was left by the wayside. Just another geeky-looking fat girl, with a face full of freckles, who was neither in style nor really wanted to be. While all the other girls were wearing their cropped tops and biker shorts, Guess? jeans and bomber jackets, I was in my homey, pleated skirt, penny loafers, and starched, white, button-up blouse -- looking neat and pure and like a virgin. Makeup was a no-no, according to Daddy, and my red, shoulder-length hair was plaited in one fat braid down the middle of my head. And pants? Please. The only pair of pants Daddy ever let me wear were some cream-colored slacks that he only let me put on in the winter or if it rained and got really cold, which was hardly ever in sunny Los Angeles.
Needless to say I was nowhe
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