Terry McMillan is a good writer, but unfortunately for me she writes for a different audience than I fit into. This is for Oprah watchers: middle-aged women and other touchy-feely types. I’m a romantic at heart, but I’m not very touchy-feely. I was happy for the main character, Stella Payne, but I was also extremely annoyed with her. I could not put myself into her shoes at all. Not because she’s a woman, but because she has too much head noise.
Stella Payne is a 42 year old black divorced securities analyst. She’s upper middle class black living in Oakland, California. She has a son, Quincy, and two sisters. Her ex-husband lives in Colorado. And she’s having a mid-life crisis. She doesn’t feel excited by anything anymore. On a whim, after packing Quincy off to spend a few weeks with his dad, she takes a trip to Jamaica. While in Jamaica, she meets Winston Shakespeare. He’s half her age, but he makes her tingle. He has all the good qualities of youth, and little of the bad qualities. The have a brief fling. She comes back a few weeks later with her kid and she and Winston renew the affair. And then he visits her in California.
That’s all that happens. Which is fine. This is a love story, not a thriller. However, the problem for me is that 75% of the book is her head-noise about whether it’s a good idea to be with Winston or not. My philosophy is do or do not. Test the waters a bit, then go for it or do not. But navel gazing? Hate it. I hate living in my own head. And Stella Payne has some serious ADD thoughts bouncing around her skull. That’s the whole novel.
And that’s not really my thing.
Title: How Stella got her groove back
Author: Terry McMillan
Imprint / publisher: Viking / Penguin
Format: Hardcover
Length: 368 p.
Publication date: 1996
ISBN-10: 0-670-86990-2
Subject: African American women — Fiction
Subject: Americans — Jamaica — Fiction
Subject: Divorced women — Fiction
Subject: Jamaica — Fiction
LC classification: PS3563.C3868 H68 1996
