Review by Booklist Review
Transplanted from New Orleans in her youth, Betty Jean (BJ) is now a middle-aged, well-established Angeleno, living in a racially diverse working-class neighborhood with her share of heartaches and hardships. She works for room service at a hotel and cares for her husband, a former UPS driver, as he succumbs to Alzheimer's. Her oldest son, a doctor, maintains his distance from the hood, which has taken its toll on another son (incarcerated) and a daughter (drug-addicted). BJ is now stuck raising her daughter's two sons amid worries about crumbling schools and neighborhood drug-dealing and gangbanging. BJ's two sisters, Arlene and Venetia, are much better off economically but have their own marital and childrearing challenges. Tammy, BJ's best friend and longtime neighbor (the last remaining white person on the block), hangs in there for her friend, although she has plenty of problems of her own. Told from the perspectives of several of the characters, the novel offers an array of personalities and everyday life challenges within a story of close friends, family, and neighbors as they grow and change over many years. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: The eighth novel from the best-selling author of Waiting to Exhale and How Stella Got Her Groove Back will be supported by a major marketing campaign and a 15-city author tour.--Bush, Vanessa Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Three generations take a long hard look at each other-and, finding lots not to like, try to outrun, ignore, or beat the demons pulling them together in this well-crafted story of acceptance, forgiveness, and hope. McMillan (Waiting to Exhale) deftly weaves her tale of a black Los Angeles family's disharmony around the narratives of bickering sisters Betty Jean, Arlene, and Venetia as they watch their kids stumble into adulthood. BJ's drug-addled daughter, Trinetta-who lost custody of her baby girl-dumps two sons on her; meanwhile BJ's youngest son, Dexter, does prison time for a crime he won't admit to, and her eldest, Quentin, searches for himself. Arlene, a single mom who has a master's in psychology and harbors a painful secret, struggles with over-protecting her long-closeted gay son, Omar. And wealthy, God-fearing Venetia can't see what's plain to her spoiled kids and husband: that she's been ignoring her own needs and her crumbling marriage. Trinetta's strong-hearted kids lead the family back to each other-but McMillan's story belongs to the middle-aged steel magnolias who value loyalty above all. "I have prayed for all of us to come to our senses even though I know it's an ongoing process," Venetia says. "We're not getting any younger and family is family." Agent: Molly Friedrich, Friedrich Agency. (Sept. 17) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
In this novel, set in a racially diverse Los Angeles neighborhood, McMillan (Getting to Happy) seamlessly weaves together the stories of three generations of a family struggling with the complexities of modern life. Middle-aged sisters Betty Jean, Arlene, and Venetia often bicker about how best to handle their collective family challenges: raising grandchildren, caring for a husband stricken with Alzheimer's, and coping with their cadre of drug-addicted, underachieving, incarcerated, and absentee adult children. Narrators McMillan, Michael Boatman, Carole DeSante, and Phylicia Rashad each gracefully depicts multiple characters, but Rashad steals the show with her exceptional portrayals of the sassy sisters. VERDICT -McMillan's many fans will cherish this engaging domestic drama.-Beth Farrell, Cleveland State Univ. Law Lib. (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
The years pass, and McMillan's (Waiting to Exhale, 1992, etc.) characters have moved from buppiedom to grandmotherhood. Betty Jean is not having a good day when we first meet her. She's in the kitchen, frying chicken, when her wayward 27-year-old daughter, Trinetta, calls, begging for money and adding, "the good news is I might have a job and I was wondering if I could bring the boys over for a couple of days." Trinetta admits to taking a pull or a snort every now and again, but to nothing stronger. The problem is, drugs have swept across Trinetta's generation ("all drugs, not just some...will fuck you up every time and make you do a lot of stupid shit and you won't get nowhere in life except maybe prison"), leaving it to the elders to pick up the pieces--and when it's not drugs, then it's some other form of culture destroyer, for Betty Jean's eldest child is a chiropractor in Oregon, "where hardly any black people live, which has made it very easy for him to forget he's black." Betty Jean's sisters, Arlene and Venetia, are formidable, too, and with troubles of their own--though in Venetia's case, there's an attractive young man, white at that, who's constantly making goo-goo eyes at her, making her forget that she's married and of a certain age. Naturally, complications ensue at every turn. Moving from character to character and their many points of view, McMillan writes jauntily and with customary good humor, though the sensitive ground on which she's treading is not likely to please all readers; even so, her story affirms the value of love and family, to say nothing of the strength of resolute women in the absence of much strength on the part of those few men who happen to be in the vicinity. McMillan turns in a solid, well-told story.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Review by Library Journal Review
Review by Kirkus Book Review
