http://www.lulu.com/content/433981
GROWING UP JERSEY
BY JENNIFER M. SABATINO
There's no better place to feel like you're alive, whether it's a bad feeling or a good one, than in New Jersey.
Angelina grew up Jersey. She was from an upper-middle class multi-racial family. Her hometown was bordered by millionaires on one side and projects on the other. You would think that kids in Jersey grew up like kids in the rest of the country. Maybe it was from eating Taylor Ham, Disco Fries and subs. Or maybe it was all the jug-handles and never knowing how to pump her own gas. Or...maybe it was because anyone who grows up Jersey grows up with so many different kinds of people, places, things...vibes...that only living in the armpit of the United States can offer. It wasn't the billowing smoke stacks from pharmaceutical companies and oil refineries that made Angelina grow from naivety to naughty. That can happen to anyone.
You'll find that things that MIGHT only happen to someone once in a lifetime, happen to Angelina over and over again.
Follow her story from her first kiss to her first blunt smoking session with guidos. Become part of her story as her life leads her to living a Short Hills lifestyle to searching for her friend in a crack house in Newark. You'll laugh at her dating disasters, bad pick up lines from guidos, bennies, city boys and hardcore kids. Party like a rock star and recover like an actress when Angelina transforms from Sayreville night club junky to an all out bridge and tunnel girl. Hang out in college with the good looking people who made you glad you didn't join a fraternity or a sorority. Become an artist as she meets a musician who teaches her more than how to tap in to her creative side.
Angelina's tale isn't just about twenty-four hour diners and the ultimate hot spots that Jersey has to offer. You'll get angry when things get violent. You'll go from victim to survivor and in a circle again before you get past the eightieth page. You'll get warm and fuzzy, resentful and romantic as she goes from her first true love to trying to find a lover. Get a wake-up call that everything she learned in Catholic school was just a way of scaring kids to behave "morally" and that people don't wait to find their spouse to have sex. Travel through the Holland Tunnel or take the PATH from Hoboken to walking past famous people and hearing the guy behind you saying "trees..ttrees...trees...want some trees...you a cop?†as the sun is about to rise and the party hasn’t ended.
Join Angelina for a drink on New Year's Eve as she wears her wedding dress and hopes a few bottles of champagne will heal her broken heart. You'll become a stronger person when you learn how she went from being just a kid to a mature and responsible adult as she gets sick of everyone she cares about leaving her or dying. You'll regain faith in humanity as Angelina meets good-hearted strangers and carries on a twenty-five year old friendship with her best friend Claire. Find out the rules of internet dating, dealing with the mafia, getting lost in Newark and hustling a way to get her high school diploma. Explore Fort Monmouth, New Hope, go-go bars, galleries and ghettos as Angelina tries to figure out where Central Jersey really starts and finishes or if it's just a lie people tell themselves so nobody thinks they live in the white trash section of the state.
Angelina doesn't just learn about a few people, she takes her experiences and becomes like them. No matter if you were a homeless crack head living near the port in Elizabeth or a nun from the Philippines, Angelina treated everyone she ever met like she wanted to be treated. She gave her heart, her soul, her mind and her wallet away over and over again in search of one thing, the only thing, she ever wanted. To be loved unconditionally.
Growing up Jersey is a fascinating fictional story intended to show you that life is what you believe.
TO LESLIEFOR TEACHING ME TO IGNORE EVERYONE WHO
DOESN’T GET IT.
FOR BEING SOMEONE WHO DOES.
AND FOR BEING SOMEONE WHO DID IT.
IF IT WEREN’T FOR YOUR INTELLECT AND INSPIRATION,
I WOULDN’T BE DOING IT.
I used to think that nothing lasts forever, but before I even turned 30, I realized, life is what you believe.
