SOURCE: A review of Waiting to Exhale, in Publishers Weekly, Vol. 239, No. 15, March 23, 1992, p. 58.

In the following review, the critic offers praise for Waiting to Exhale.

A racy, zesty, irreverent and absorbing book with broad mainstream appeal, McMillan's third novel (after Mama and Disappearing Acts) tells the stories of four 30ish black women bound together in warm, supportive friendship and in their dwindling hopes of finding Mr. Right. Savannah, Bernadine, Robin and Gloria are successful professional or self-employed women living in Phoenix. All are independent, upwardly mobile and "waiting to exhale"—to stop holding their breaths waiting for the proper mate to come along. Bernadine is married, but her husband walks out on her for a white woman as the novel opens. They also share speech patterns that some readers may find disconcerting: they utter profanities with panache, unceasingly. Indeed, the novel's major drawback may be the number...