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List Price: $24.95 | | Publisher: Penguin Audio
Salesrank: 2620964
Released: January 15, 2001 |
| Our Price: $3.94 |
| Used Price: $0.01 |
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| Media: Audio Cassette |
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Editorial Review:
Much-heralded and long awaited, Terry McMillan's tour-de-force novel introduces the Price family-matriarch Viola, her sometimes-husband Cecil, and their four adult kids, each of whom sees life-and one another-through thick and thin, and entirely on their own terms. With her hallmark exuberance and cast of characters so sassy, resilient, and full of life that they breathe, dream, and shout right off the page, the author of the phenomenal best-sellers Waiting to Exhale and How Stella Got Her Groove Back has given us a novel that takes us ever-further into the hearts, minds, and souls of America-and gives us six more friends we never want to leave.
• Abridged. Four cassettes, 6 hours
Description of A Day Late and a Dollar Short:
Terry McMillan's novels feature chatty, catty narrators who have a story they're just busting to tell you. The dominant voice in A Day Late and a Dollar Short is Viola Price, whose asthma just sent her to the ICU. And who came to visit? The Jheri Curl-wearing Cecil, "a bad habit I've had for thirty-eight years, which would make him my husband." Viola doesn't think Cecil's such a catch: "His midlife crisis done lasted about 20 years now," and "to set the record straight, Cecil look like he about four months pregnant." But somebody did catch Cecil--he recently left Viola for "some welfare huzzy" with three kids. And, as we soon find out in Cecil's first-person chapter, Viola has abundant flaws of her own. McMillan deftly sketches the exasperated intimacy of the long and unsuccessfully married.
She also has great dish about family dynamics. Have Cecil and Viola's kids got problems! When lovable, luck-free Lewis turns up to visit his mom, he's drunk, broke, and still whining about his ex, Donnetta, who "didn't have as much sense as a Christmas turkey" (though she did have the sense to dump Lewis). Now Lewis consoles himself with his Bobbing Betty doll. "How could somebody with an IQ of 146 be so stupid?" marvels Viola. And that Charlotte! Viola's daughter is "a bossy wench from the word go." (Gee, where could she have gotten that trait?) Charlotte feels like she never got her fair share of attention, having been born 10 months after the eldest daughter, Paris (now the driven mom of a brilliant athlete whose white girlfriend claims she's pregnant). Charlotte took it out on younger Lewis and Janelle, who's been in college 15 years with no degree in sight.
At first, you'll make ample use of the family charts in the endpapers to figure out who's who, but pretty soon you'll feel right at home with the squabbling, multiply dysfunctional, ultimately loving Price clan. You may agree with Viola: "Some folks got some stuff that can top ours. Hell, look at the Kennedys." --Tim Appelo
A Day Late and a Dollar Short Reviews:
I love this book!! 
2009-08-24 - This book was good, no its great!!!!!!!! It had me laughing, crying, and mad. Its really a great book people should read it! No go buy it!! Its so worth it!
Review of the audio version - Storyline fell short! 
2008-11-25 - In the early part of the book, McMillian explains in excrutiating detail how someone looked, what they held, what they looked like and so forth. Unfortunately, with so much detail about inconsequential stuff, she didn't have time to give us a detailed storyline.
The books that hold my attention focus on the meat of the storyline and mention the other stuff in passing. McMillian focuses on the other stuff and forgets the meat of her storyline.
The only storyline that really was developed was the one in which George molests Janelle's daughter. At least he gets punished for that, although I hate that we learned he molested his other daughters and McMillian didn't decide to use that tidbit to have a trial with all of them testifying about it.
The storyline with Lewis and his son was left hanging. Lewis' son is getting punched by his step father, Lewis gets put in jail and then miraculously the storyline end.
The rest of the book was just blah. It was read well and made driving a pleasure, but I would have been very frustrated if I was actually reading this in book form.
Sadly, Interruption of Everything by Terry McMillian (her next book) was just as bad. It was about a woman going through a change of life. This book is about a mother and her family. Terry is aging and I guess she wants her books to age with her, but to do that she has got to make them more interesting.
HER BEST WORK
2008-07-06 - THIS IS A BOOK FOR READERS, WHO ARE REAL ABOUT THEIR RELATIONSHIPS WITH NOT ONLY FAMILY BUT THEMSELVES. WHAT I LIKE MOST ABOUT THIS BOOK IS THE MOTHER PULLS NO PUNCHS, WITH HER CHILDREN OR EX HUSBAND. SHE IS NOT A PERFECT MOTHER, AND SHE AND ALL OF US KNOW THIS. NEITHER IS HER CHILDREN. BLACK MOTHER ALWAYS KNOW THE REAL YOU EVEN WHEN YOU HIDE IT FROM THE REST OF THE WORLD. THIS STORY MADE YOU FEEL LIKE A FLY ON THE WALL JUST WAITING TO SEE WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT. I LAUGHED AND CRIED, AND THEN CRIED AND LAUGHED AGAIN. THIS IS REALLY A GREAT BOOK I JUST WISH IT HAD BEEN MADE A MOVIE.
Absolutely Engrossing
2008-04-23 - This book was enthralling. I found that I could relate to it. Personally, felt that I knew everyone in the book as they seemed like members of my own family.
The language and dialogue in the book were also realistic, making it even easier to understand and love.
Great Book
2008-02-17 - One of my favorite Terry McMillan books. You'll fall in love with the Price family and in A Day Late A Dollar Short, you'll go on their not so smooth journey. It's about life & family and it's very well written. You'll love it.
