A Day Late and a Dollar Short

Rating:
Summary: Her Best Yet
Review: I've read a few Terry McMillan novels and have always loved her way of looking at the world in all its quirky splendor. This was her best yet. Chapter after chapter you do get to know this functionally-dysfunctional family full of sibling rivalry, parenting woes and dealing with aging parents. The last quarter of the book I was reading on the plane and surprisngly, not being a big cryer, found myself biting my lip and blinking through tears to get through it. This story will touch anyone who has had a mother, who has siblings, who has tried hard to be the person everyone wants them to be. It is a story that transcends race - it's simply a beautiful and heart wrenching story of a pretty typical middle-class American family. Don't miss this one.

Rating:
Summary: extremely emotional and understanding
Review: this book has a family like no other! actually this family is just like yours, or your friends. it's so understandable and very easy to relate to. i relate mostly to the little girl who was getting sexually abused by her stepfather. and the dumb ass mother who couldn't see signs of it. but this book is a definite reccommendation!

Rating:
Summary: Family Drama
Review: I enjoyed this sequel to her first book, MAMA. In my arguable opinion, Terry McMillan is the Queen of Family Drama but I believe unarguably, she's dubbed as the Queen of "Sistergirl" drama. This was a really great read.

Author Beverly Rolyat in her novel LUST OF THE FLESH, in my opinion, is the Queen of family/church drama. This is one HOT pageturning novel. If you haven't read it, you're missing a great read. I'd love to see her and Terry McMillan write a novel together on family/church drama.

Rating:
Summary: Don't Put Off Til Tomorrow What You Can Do Today...
Review: Terry McMillan has continued in her down-to-earth style to which every African-American family can relate. She incorporates themes of the good, the bad, and the stressful. And, of course, she continues to explore the close, and often painful, relationships between mothers and daughters. She also issues a reminder that we should live for today. Enjoy life and take pleasure in our familial ties while our loved ones are still with us. To say we're sorry when we're wrong and to forgive each other rather than bear long, hurtful grudges. All in all, it was a fast read. Always interesting. Great book, if you like her other novels.

Rating:
Summary: Great Family Story
Review: This is a great read. I tried to read it once and put it down. Why did I do that? This is a great family drama story. Read it, you won't be disappointed.


Rating:
Summary: okay but old story
Review: This book was enjoyable enough, but it's basically a retelling of the movie Soul Food. Siblings have problems, the matriarch dies, and then they all get their lives back on track and become a family again. *yawn*

But the book is funny in parts and Viola is a great character. All of the characters are well-written and their individual stories are very familiar in today's world. The chapters are hard to get into sometimes because the point of view changes each time and each person telling it is different. I would have liked their names in the chapter titles to make the transitions easier.

Good enough book but it's been done before.

Rating:
Summary: Simply must read
Review: I gave this book five stars although I found it difficult to read. I had to digest each character's situation before moving on to the next chapter. This is one good book but it took me longer to read than usually.

Rating:
Summary: A Great Read
Review: This was another enjoyable McMillan story to me. I loved it because it was a true to life story and each character seemed as real as can possibly be. The writing style is conversation style which, to me, adds to the story and gives it a cozy feel. Again, the characters are distinctive, true, and well-rounded. The story is an engaging one. I thoroughly enjoyed this novel.

Rating:
Summary: WEAK!!!
Review: This is one of McMillan's weakest books. It literally took me forever to get through it. I read the first 10 pages of this book, then set it down on my bookshelf. That was 3 years ago. I decided to finally finish reading the book this summer (2004). I haven't had to force myself to read a book like that in such a long time. She uses a lot of characters in this novel, so much so that she created a family tree in the inside cover just to keep the readers (and herself) from getting so confused. The story line itself is not as rich as her other plots. I'm a big fan of McMillan and have read all of her novels. However, this book just does not do her writing or story-telling skills any justice. She should have written a caveat emptor in her prologue that read "Buyer beware. You'll be disappointed right down to the very last sentence of this novel." I hope McMillan redeems authorship in more current novels.