SOURCE: "The Comic Unlikelihood of Finding Mr. Right," in Chicago Tribune Books, May 31, 1992, p. 6.

In the following review, Larson offers favorable assessment of Waiting to Exhale.

In the climactic scene of Terry McMillan's wickedly acerbic third novel, Waiting to Exhale, four African-American women—Gloria, Savannah, Bernadine and Robin, all between the ages of 34 and 38—celebrate the birthday of the youngest by drinking five bottles of champagne and talking about their on-going problems with men. All of them are single and/or recently divorced and "waiting to exhale"—yearning for the ideal mate who takes your breath away, although he never seems to materialize.

Furthermore, these women are all economically independent, horny and explicit in their feelings. Among other things, they conclude that the problem with black men is that they are "with white women," "gay," "ugly," "stupid," "in prison," "unemployed," "crackheads," "short," "liars," "unreliable," "irresponsible," "too possessive," "dogs...