This was a sad little book. I had a bad feeling when I read the author's note at the beginning and Terry McMillian wrote about her Waiting to Exhale characters that "To be honest, all four of them got on my last nerve long after their shelf life." The writing was choppy. The dialogue was sophomoric. The editor should have gone through the book and removed the word "Anyway" from the start of way too many sentences. There were too many references to pop culture as if Ms. McMillan was trying to prove that she's hip or something. The women watch Hallie Berry's "Catwoman", Terrence Howard's "Hustle and Flow", and "Crash". (But they can only watch movies if Gloria can buy a bootleg movie. Gloria has a successful salon and the other women are financially okay, but none of them can purchase or rent a movie. For some reason, they can't have movie night until Gloria's bootleg movie guys return.) There are references to the tv shows "So You Think You Can Dance" and "Days of Our Lives". With the excessive and unnecessary pop culture references, it felt like Terry McMillian didn't have enough substance to fill up the pages, so she added a bunch of fluff.The story and characters were sad. The women didn't communicate well and even though they had been friends forever, they constantly lied to each other. I disliked Savannah the most. She was just plain mean and foul-mouthed and her sister was beyond annoying. Bernadine was pathetic. I was sad that Ms. McMillian turned her second husband into such a jerk and the bigamy storyline was unbelievable and incredibly stupid. How would Bernadine not know he wasn't a big time civil rights attorney? With all the multi-media references, you would think somebody would have googled his name. I hated the names she gave to all the children in the book: Stone, Blaze, Diamond, Brass, Go-Go, Sparrow. I guess this was supposed to be a commentary on the silly names parents give their children, but it was annoying. And compiled with all the other annoying elements, it worked against any social commentary. I liked Gloria and Robin the best, but I don't understand how Gloria's salon has an rule against "unnecessary gossip." That's an oxymoron. All gossip is unnecessary, but fundamental in a salon. It was laughable how Ms. McMillian described the big sign in Gloria's salon listing way too many rules and regulations. Then at the end of the sign it says "So relax."I listened to the audio version and that's the only reason I finished the book. Ms. McMillian should not narrate her books. Her voice is terrible or see talks with marbles in her mouth and I wanted to skip over the chapters she narrated. Anyway, "Getting to Happy" left me depressed. Ms. McMillian could have at least given the ladies a nice meal at the end of the book instead of dry chicken breast and three limp carrots with a lonely asparagus tip. Skip it.
I am undecided on Terry McMillan’s sequel to Waiting to Exhale. I told someone recently that I wasn’t loving it, nor was I hating it…just stuck in the middle somewhere. That was at page 97, and my feelings never changed.I started reading Getting to Happy like it was a destination Ms. McMillan needed the characters to reach; however, as it went on, I found myself wanting to scream, “Are we there yet!” But the reality is, happy isn’t a place we should be trying to get to, it is merely an emotion we experience when the stars line-up in our favor.Unfortunately, not much lined up for the four women we grew to love in Waiting to Exhale. Where we find them today is pretty much where they were fifteen or so years ago, over in some cases, worse off. Ms. McMillan painted a portrait that clearly shows that if there is no internal growth, if we aren’t willing to change the things that burden us down; we can’t evolve and grasp that little bit of happiness that may be out there for us. It was a little disheartening for me to see these women go through so much and some of it, I felt was a little bit extreme. I am not naïve enough to believe the situations in the book aren’t real and don’t happen everyday, I just didn’t need them all happening in the lives of each character in the same book. As I read the story I wanted to be objective and say that she was not writing from a place of pain and disillusionment with love, but the further the story went the harder it was not to factor this in. The parts dealing with homosexuality were just a bit too fluffy, and unreal. As if she was trying to prove a point of some sort. Even the parent/child relationships felt surreal for me.More than anything, I think reading about four smart, beautiful, strong women, just stuck in "life" may be what has me torn, and a little spent. At my age I really need to see the glass as half-full but Getting to Happy kept it teetering just below the half-empty mark. Maybe Terry can turn this into a trilogy and we can finally see these ladies where we, the readers, need them to be in life, so we can rest assured that happiness is something we all can achieve at some point. Then again, maybe we need to just let Bernie, Gloria, Robin, and Savannah, go out to pasture and live the remaining years of their lives wherever our imaginations take them.Much Love,TracyTracy L. Darity is a writer and author of two novels, He Loves Me He Loves Me Not!, and Love…Like Snow In Florida On A Hot Summer Day. For more information, visit: www.TracyLDarity.com
What do You think about Getting To Happy (2010)?
For now, I'm giving Getting to Happy 3 stars, but this could change. I've been fluctuating between 3 and 4 stars, mainly because it's a good book, but pales next to Waiting to Exhale. I think what helped me was reading both books back to back, so I could see clearly just how far the women came. At times it was depressing to read, and everything that could happen to the foursome did: divorce, pill addiction, death. And there were a couple liberties McMillan took with her characters, but she did give them same voices they had in the original book...for better or worse.
—Rena
Getting to Happy was an enjoyable quick read, but it could've been quicker had Terry McMillain excluded some of the many superflous characters and not attempted to mention almost every social problem and trend of 2005. It was also somewhat redundant as she practically retold Waiting to Exhale in the exposition. I unserdtand that some backstory is necessary since the sequel takes place about 15 years after the original, but it was borderline redundant. It was fun to catch up with Gloria, Robin, Savannah, and Bernie even though they have super-depressing lives and oddly perfect children/grandchildren!
—Alesha
I have rarely been so disappointed by a novel before. McMillan has taken 4 strong, intelligent, independent women from Waiting to Exhale, and made 1 a drug addict, 1 a pushover mom/desperate single woman, 1 a widow, and 1 a divorcee. All of which wouldn't be the worst thing in literature, but McMillan has made their strong bonds of friendship minimal when compared to finding a man. When one character is widowed, her friends are more concerned with her weight gain than her mental well-being. All that aside, McMillan does strange things with point of view--2 characters tell the story from their first-person POV and 2 tell it from limited 3rd person, which is strange and very confusing initially. Any sort of social commentary, satire, remarks on race and men--all are lost due to her overwriting, over-explaining, and overall clunky style of prose. She believes in the "tell, don't show" way of writing, which can be a little insulting at times. Furthermore, the novel is set in 2005, so every movie (Crash), event (Katrina, death of Luther Vandross) or cultural reference needed (or not) is included. She's so insistent on reminding readers way, way too frequently that the book is 15 years later, which wouldn't be so annoying if I didn't know she's a better writer than this book demonstrates. She should have been able to evolve her characters better. The messages about race, gender, class, men, and color are lost amid too many discussions about needing a man, weight, and overall childish and immature dialogue. Leave Gloria, Robin, Savannah, and Bernadine as the feisty, strong women from Waiting to Exhale.
—Morgan
