Getting to the Good Part

Files's attempt at a Waiting to Exhale is an amusingly superficial but mainly unrealistic sequel to her first book, Scenes from a Sistah, about the same couple of flawlessly beautiful good-time ""ghetto"" girls living it up in New York City. ""Corporate bigwig"" Misty Fine has become romantically involved with and ultimately engaged to her boss, Rick, leaving her best ""sistah,"" dancer Reesy Snowden, resentful and wondering what she wants for her own life. Reesy lands the lead in Black Barry's Pie, an off-Broadway musical, and her fantastically successful stage career is launched. Reesy's narration leans heavily on urban slang, which becomes tiresome. Her escapades are entertaining, though outrageously inconceivable, as she hops from one fine lover to another (apparently heedless of AIDS), receives the gift of a Porsche from a boyfriend and even drunkenly flirts with Wesley Snipes--who just happens to be eating at the same restaurant. Reesy's relentlessly silly chatter reveals her as little more than shallow and mean-spirited: though Misty ""was always complaining that she didn't have the high, round sistah booty I'd been strapped with, it apparently never stopped her from getting any play."" The result is a perfunctory performance clearly angling for the movies. Author tour. (Jan.)