16 Years 2 Life (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780984429622)

Jayiah starts life out as a normal young girl growing up in a single family home. She is the middle child of three kids and is quite content with life until her mother meets a special guy. That's when things changed forever. At the age of ten she has to learn to grow up quickly while helping with her younger sister. After the honeymoon stage was over Reggie exposed her family to a world of drugs and prostitution. In one year things had taken a turn and she finds her self helping her mother not only take care of her younger sister, but also a new born baby boy while fighting a drug case. They hope for the best thinking that court appearances will soon be over until one day her mother never comes home. She now finds her self lost with the responsiblity, at a young age, of figuring out how to keep her small family together.

Unfortunately, her sibilings and her split apart and have to spend years fighting to stay as close as they can with Jayiah fighting anyone in her path. Jayiah goes from a innocent young carefree child to a worrisome teen. She battles family members and the sterotypes placed upon her while remaining closesly linked to her mother through letters and visits. She saves face to ensure that her mother feels like everthing is ok, but with each year that passes she dies a little inside.

After being bounced from family memer to family member, she finally graduates and makes the choice to joint the military to provide for her mother once she is released from prison. She still faces depression and hards times in the mist of her young adulthood, but gathered strength from the hopes of her mother's release. Jaiyah knows that life will be hard regardless, but she is well aware that this life is her life. She makes a promise to her self, siblings and mother to bring them through the dark times.

In the mist of the jounery she meets several people along the way. Those that add to her life and those that mean her no good. One of those people being her father. Can Jayiah survive the odds? Maybe she can or maybe it might break her for life.