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I Almost Forgot
about You
by Terry McMillan
c.2016, Crown
$27.00 / $36.00 Canada
358 pages
By Terri Schlichenmeyer
The Truth Contributor
In every love life, there’s always The One That Got Away.
He got away because you were both too young, too scared, too
broke, or too different. Things were said that couldn’t be
unsaid, done that shouldn’t have been done. It just didn’t
work out then, but now…? In the new novel, I Almost
Forgot about You by Terry McMillan, he’ll never get
away twice.
It should have been an ordinary run-of-the-mill Monday.
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That’s the way it started for optometrist Georgia Young: new
prescriptions, return clients, follow-ups, and one new
Monday-morning patient who – big surprise! - turned out to
be the daughter of a man Georgia dated in college and had
fallen for. She never told the guy she loved him, though,
and she never would… because he was dead.
Shaken to the core, Georgia began to think about all the men
she’d slept with, and the ones she’d fallen in love with.
How would life have changed if she’d stayed with any one of
them? She’d been divorced twice; would that number have been
higher or lower? Would she have more than her two daughters,
live somewhere other than San Francisco, travel, cook for
two?
At nearly 55 years old, she figured she’d never find love
again, but she at least needed closure. With the urging of
her BFF, Wanda, Georgia made a list of the men she’d once
loved, and she promised herself she’d find them - not
because she wanted to rekindle anything, but because she had
so many questions for them and for herself.
Finding her ex-husbands was easy. Michael happened to be
moving back to California, and Niles was out of jail for his
white-collar crime; both were happy and had moved on with
their lives. Georgia was even able to stop hating them.
But Abraham wouldn’t be easy to find. Neither would Lance.
There were two Jameses, two Harolds, Thomas, Horace, and
others, and one white guy that Wanda remembered, and added
to the list. Georgia knew she’d never find them all,
especially since she had a business, a busy family, and a
life to live.
Still, they were all men she’d remember forever. But would
they remember her?
Show of hands: who hasn’t spent girlfriend-time talking
about boyfriends? Probably nobody, so I Almost Forgot
about You is a comfortably familiar story.
That’s not to say that it’s same-old, though. Like she did
in many of her other novels, author Terry McMillan gives
readers a cast of strong-minded, smart women who lean on
other strong-minded, smart women. In this book,
however, we see a few more bruises from living, rather than
from relationships: Georgia and her friends are looking
toward retirement, a little less stress, and no more drama.
Even so, they get drama anyhow, and you’ll be glad for it.
Definitely, this is a novel for anyone who’s lost a love and
wondered, “What if…?” It’s a book you’ll want to share with
your BFFs. I Almost Forgot about You is a book you
shouldn’t let get away.
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