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 Writing.Com Item ID: #1144548
 Title:  How Stella Got Her Groove Back
 Item Type: Static Item
 Brief:  My thoughts on this book by Terry McMillan
 Last Modified: 01-13-2007 @ 10:13pm
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by Terry McMillan



I finished this book a couple of days ago. What a disappointment! I must have missed something in all the hype about it when it came out. I knew what the premise of the book was. The disappointment is that there is nothing beyond the premise that I can see.

McMillan writes in a very conversational, run-on sentence way. At first this annoyed me, but as I continued to read, I began to appreciate it. It drew me in and created the familiarity I needed to finish the book

McMillan creates good characters. By the end of the book you feel like you know these people, and generally like them. That's a good thing. My favorite character was Stella's son Quincy. There was no one to hate in this novel.

The books fulfills the requirement that a character must change. Stella has changed quite a bit by the end of the book. The whole book is about her obsessing about whether or not she should be falling for Winston, who's half her age. If you like romances and very light reading, I guess it works. I found it boring.

I take it back. There is a little more to it. McMillan also briefly talks about women taking charge of their lives, giving up the "role" they've made for themselves for practical reasons. Had she developed this more, it could have been more interesting. But McMillan doesn't really develop this aspect. Stella was an investment analyst and learned from the job and a mentor, and she was very comfortable financially. She could afford time to figure out where her heart was professionally as well as romantically.

The best part of the book for me was when she first arrives in Jamaica (maybe the second day) and is going through the books she took with her, trying to decide what to read. She comments on all of them -- including Terry McMillan's Waiting to Exhale.



On a five point scale I'd give it a three. It's ok, but I didn't find anything to think about, really.