This is the sequel to Waiting to Exhale some fifteen or so years after the end of the first book. The first started in frustration and ended in mostly mixed to positive situations for all four friends in and around 40 years old and in Phoenix AZ.
But then, damn, this book is brutal. We are dealing with all four women being hit in the effing face by life in a handful of different ways. Whether it’s embarrassing divorces, menopause, deaths, drug addiction, or other things, these women get absolutely punched right in the mouth at the beginning of the novel. And of course, they’ve drifted away from one another too, so they’ve lost or lease experienced a lapse in their support system.
So what happens next? Well this book is a continuation of the themes of self-care, but more so self-acceptance. This novel has a healthier attitude about sex and health, and about selfhood. It’s also got a more adult experience of parenthood. Where the children were almost nonexistent in the first book, they are characters in this one.
This reminds me in a weird way of the Rabbit Angstrom novels now that we have two of them, where the novels are about the time period and world as much as the women themselves. I’d read a third book taking place in 2018 or so, if it means revisiting the women in early old age, but also with their understanding of the world. In the meantime, this book has a softer vision for the world, but a much harsher feeling about what the world does to us.
(Photo: https://www.amazon.com/Getting-Happy-Waiting-Exhale-Novel/dp/0451237579/ref=sr_1_1?crid=PWBHXAGYAJ2M&keywords=getting+to+happy+by+terry+mcmillan&qid=1553688996&s=gateway&sprefix=getting+to+happy%2Caps%2C240&sr=8-1)