How Stella Got Her Groove Back (Penguin Audiobooks)

Rating:
Summary: Lots of fun!
Review: Don't pick up "Stella" expecting something serious and deep. Read it for what it is - a fun romance that's light and airy and meant to take you and your mind into a world away from today's every day grind.

Stella decides to take a last minute trip to Jamaica, and winds up having the time of her life and meeting the man of her dreams, a man a LOT younger than she is! But who cares? Stella does at first, and fights this battle all the way til the end. She falls madly in love with Winston, who is barely in his 20's, but he's the kind of man she's always dreamed of, and they "click"!

I loved the style of the book - the rambling sentences that took us into Stella's mind. I loved the time she spent in Jamaica, and the fact that she had the guts to do this trip (it is something I've done myself, on a similar whim!! I can totally relate!). Stella teaches us that you dont' have to be stuck in your rut and conform - go and do what makes you feel good! Have fun!!

Rating:
Summary: A Fun Summer Story To Sit and Relax To!
Review: I didn't read the book but I just listened to an audiobook recording of Terry McMillan's, How Stella Got Her Groove Back which was read by the author and I liked it and found it very entertaining and relaxing and I found myself wishing I was in Jamaica sitting by the pool or on a beach drinking a Pina Colada and I recommend How Stella Got Her Groove Back which I think is a great summer read or in my case a great summer listen and I recommend either the book or the audio recording and I think it would be great to read or listen to How Stella Got Her Groove Back while sitting on a beach or by a pool. The audiobook is abridged and I wish that there was an unabridged recording and I might even buy the paperback book and I also plan on renting the movie which I haven't seen yet, well anyway this audiobook is a keeper for sure! In this book Stella Payne is a 42 year old divorced hardworking sucessful career woman and loving dedicated mother to 11 year old Quincy and when Quincy goes to spend time with his father and Stella has time by herself she realizes that she is not as happy with her job as she thought and she is in a rut she decides she needs to get her groove back and goes off to Jamaica where she meets a handsome younger man named Winston (He is about 21 years old) and they immediately hit it off but Stella is feeling insecure about their age difference and Winston thinks she is being silly and that it is no big deal. I rate this audiobook a 5 because it was just a fun summer story to sit and relax to.

Rating:
Summary: pure sassy fun
Review: I loved Waiting to Exhale -- this book is not as "deep" psychologically speaking, but it's a fun romp in Jamaica. No one gets inside the upper middle class black mind like MacMillan. She's not going for Shakespeare here, so give her a break -- this is a fun book to be enjoyed and savored. I think more readers should be happy that for once we have positive and strong black literary characters who are financial successes. I hope both black and white children will learn something from these books alone the lines of there are plenty of successful black women -- not all black people play basketball or deal drugs! The sexual plot is throughly enjoyable -- I think MacMillan must have had a ball writing this one. For an enjoyable read, pick it up!

Rating:
Summary: Sisters, you're never too old! Go for it like Stella did!
Review: Terry McMillan once again reminded us how precious our lives are, and that we should live it and take the chance once it comes our way. Never mind our age. We are just as young as we are at heart. Stella is a brilliant example to all of us women - an independent, intelligent woman and a wonderful mother who knows what she wants and is determined to get it. She knows what life is all about, and is certainly not going to waste a minute of it. Go for it, and join her! You'll love the groove! An enjoyable, easy-going book. Will definitely recomend it to my friends as I've done with Terry's previous books. Thanks for the good laughs, Terry, when's you're next one out?

Rating:
Summary: Groovin' With Terry
Review: Terry McMillan, more well known for the 1995 film *Waiting to Exhale*--she wrote the text in which the movie was based--moves on into her new venture, *How Stella Got Her Groove Back*. Whatever you do, don't let the panned film prejudge your thoughts on this wonderful book.

McMillan pens a character who is a single mother forty, and coincidentally black, but don't let that dissuade you from picking this up. Although reading from a female, single, white perspective, there were few times I ever felt alienated, for McMillan brilliantly tells inexorable truths about being single in America today.

Stella, the main character, has raised her son, established a lucrative career, and settled into a comfortable life finding her independence from men and society; yet something pulls her to a spontaneous Jamaican holiday and inevitably a 21 year old native man named Winston. What follows is a juggling act that any May/December romance would produce.

Stella reproves herself constantly, unable to believe Winston would actually want to be with her, and unable to make a commitment after what the world has taught her. She confesses that "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 year 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."

This narrative, a no-holds-barred free for all, tumbles easily like a mountain stream. McMillan speaks to her readers as friends and thus Stella becomes anyone you know, or yourself, because she tells you information as if you were best friends. This style, mostly associated with women writers and minorities in particular, may not jell with what we've been taught in the canonized versions of literature; yet it moves with such fluidity you can't help but smile and turn the pages.

McMillan speaks of Jamaica in such beautiful and colorful language, I felt like an American tourist sharing the beach with her. Her admiration for beautiful bodies, no color specific, is a lesson to all on how to see the attractiveness within every person.

After maintaining a long-distance relationship, with its drawbacks and pitfalls, Stella journeys to Jamaica again, this time with her son Quincy in tow to vote yea or nea on Winston. What she learns is that no one, not even her son, can make a heartfelt decision about love for her.

Does love conquer all? Is she able to throw the yoke of society and its view on older women/younger men relationships? And does she eventually tell her mother and sister knowing the reproach she will certainly receive. Well, I'm not going to tell you. Pick up the book.