I would argue that I am not the target audience for this book.
But what’s interesting to me is that I distinctly remember being 10 and 13 respectively when the book and then the movie came out and it being a blockbuster reception for both. So much so, that this happened:
…but they told us not to hold our breath.
And I don’t remember if this is a movie my very white parents went to go see, but they might have. One time they went to go see White Men Can’t Jump while they put me in a different theater to watch Ghost Dad. Fear not, faithful readers…I was able to see White Men Can’t Jump later that year.
Anyhoo, this book is about four Black women staring down their mid-to-late 30s with myriad professional and love lives that they’re all trying to sort out in different ways. Savannah is moving from Denver to Arizona for a new job and seeing if a few of the last loose ends man-wise might pay off. They don’t for a while. Bernadine has just been blindsided by her husband leaving her for a white woman. Robin, her friend, is messing around with a real fuckboi named Russel. And Gloria has a teenage son, but no man in her life.
As we move forward they all work through the various issues that face via jobs, love, kids, money, housing, health, body image, and friendship.
It’s relatively light reading in terms of language, but earnest and compelling in plot and situations. There’s a third person narrator for two of the women’s stories and then two others get to narrate their own, which makes some of the different interactions interesting and complex in their portrayal.
(Photo: https://www.amazon.com/Waiting-Exhale-Terry-McMillan-1992-05-28/dp/B01JXQS6F2/ref=sr_1_2?crid=1QVOH7ROAOTL3&keywords=waiting+to+exhale&qid=1550097502&s=gateway&sprefix=waiting+to+%2Caps%2C134&sr=8-2)