Getting to Happy

Getting to Happy is the sequel to Waiting to Exhale by author Terry McMillan.^[1][2] The novel follows the lives of four African-American friends in Phoenix, Arizona in 2005. McMillan decided to write the sequel after her divorce with Jonathan Plummer, the inspiration to How Stella Got Her Groove Back. The book was released in 2010.

Plot summary

The novel picks up fifteen years after Waiting to Exhale ends. Savannah has since married but decides to divorce her husband and be single again at the age of fifty-one. Bernadine is now friends with her ex-husband John, but has anger and resentment towards her second ex-husband James which she must learn to let go of. She also suffers from an addiction to prescription pills which she goes to rehab to confront. Gloria deals with the heart-breaking death of her husband Marvin and the marital problems of her now grown son Tarik. Robin realizes that, at fifty, she has yet to accomplish one of the goals of her life: to wear a wedding dress. She keeps trying on men like shoes until she finds one that fits, and in the meantime is busy raising her now teenage daughter Sparrow.

References