SOURCE: "Black, Affluent and Looking for More," in The New York Times, May 15, 1996, p. C17.

In the following review, Bernstein offers a generally positive assessment of How Stella Got Her Groove Back, but states that "the issues for Stella are luxuriously banal."

Terry McMillan's new novel is like one of those television sitcoms in which a somewhat unconventional family faces the somewhat unconventional plight of one of its members. In this episode, the family member is Stella Payne, an affluent, divorced 42-year-old investment analyst who, trying to put a little excitement back into her life, goes on vacation to Jamaica. There she meets a handsome, gentle, very charming Jamaican and falls in love with him. The problem, which Stella wrestles with for the rest of the novel, is that the man, named Winston Shakespeare, is half Stella's age.

The television people have names for some of the main...