Book review: A day late and a dollar short

Author: Terry McMillan

This is the best work by Terry McMillan I've read and i have read quite few.

Terry McMillan's novels feature chatty, catty narrators who have a story they're just busting to tell you. The dominant voice in A Day Late and a Dollar Short is Viola Price, whose asthma just sent her to the ICU. And who came to visit? The Jheri Curl-wearing Cecil, "a bad habit I've had for thirty-eight years, which would make him my husband." Viola doesn't think Cecil's such a catch: "His midlife crisis done lasted about 20 years now," and "to set the record straight, Cecil look like he about four months pregnant." But somebody did catch Cecil--he recently left Viola for "some welfare huzzy" with three kids. And, as we soon find out in Cecil's first-person chapter, Viola has abundant flaws of her own. McMillan deftly sketches the exasperated intimacy of the long and unsuccessfully married.

Hi Solitude.

I love Terry McMillan; she is one of my favorite authors. I just read "A Day Late" a few months ago. McMillan continues to grow with each new work. I heard her speak once. She is megacool. She said that her characters just come to her and use her as a kind of medium to get themselves worked out. You can really see that in her skillful presentation of their inner and outer conflicts and eventual evolutional breakthroughs.

"How Stella Got Her Groove Back" is one of my favorites, too. Everybody thinks that it is just a story about an OW/YM relationship. In actuality, it is the story of an overly self-controlled successful businesswoman who has a middle-aged crisis and goes into a spin. Stella's "perfect" life cracks and falls apart piece by piece. She has to learn to trust her instinct and restructure her thinking and work it out. The movie didn't present that aspect very well, but, oh well, what can you expect of Hollywood.


"What I do know deep down, although I keep it secretly secret, is that I am terrified at the thought of losing myself again wholeheartedly to any man, because it is so scary peeling off that protective sealant that's been guarding my heart, and letting somebody go inside and walk around, lie down, look around, and see all those red flags, especially when right next to your heart is your soul, and then inside that is the rest of your personality puzzle pieces and they're full of flaws and in your grown-up years you have just finally started to recognize them for what they are one by one."

--How Stella Got Her Groove Back

http://www.bookpage.com/0102bp/terry_mcmillan.html

Patricia i've read how Stella got her groove back too and i loved it. i also liked Disapperaing acts.

nearly all her books have been made into movies;
"How Stella got her groove back" the movie was great but not as good as the book.
"Waiting to exhale". i loved the movie too.
"Disappering act". very very cool movie.

i thought no one in the board is a Terry McMilan fan but u didnt disappoint me Patricia :)