Delaware County District Library

Who asked you?, Terry McMillan

eng

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fiction

Who asked you?

830367619

Terry McMillan

"Transplanted from New Orleans in her youth, Betty Jean (BJ) is now a middle-aged, well-established Angeleno, living in a racially diverse working-class neighborhood with her share of heartaches and hardships. She works for room service at a hotel and cares for her husband, a former UPS driver, as he succumbs to Alzheimer's. Her oldest son, a doctor, maintains his distance from the hood, which has taken its toll on another son (incarcerated) and a daughter (drug-addicted). BJ is now stuck raising her daughter's two sons amid worries about crumbling schools and neighborhood drug-dealing and gangbanging. BJ's two sisters, Arlene and Venetia, are much better off economically but have their own marital and childrearing challenges. Tammy, BJ's best friend and longtime neighbor (the last remaining white person on the block), hangs in there for her friend, although she has plenty of problems of her own. Told from the perspectives of several of the characters, the novel offers an array of personalities and everyday life challenges within a story of close friends, family, and neighbors as they grow and change over many years"--Booklist

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