Excerpt from A Day Late and A Dollar Short by Terry McMillan, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

She is. Ain't big as a minute, and prettier than a chile is supposed to be. But folks been telling her for so long that sometimes I can't hardly stand her behind either. She thirteen going on twenty. Can have a nasty attitude. Just like her mama. Ask her to do something she don't wanna do and she'll roll them eyes at you like a grown woman. I threw a shoe at her the last time I was there and accidentally hit her in the eye, which is probably one more reason why me and her mama ain't speaking. The child stays in the mirror. Change her hairstyle at least two or three times before she leave for school, which is apparently the reason she don't have no time left to do her homework. Every time I see her she washing and rolling a ponytail or cascade and putting it in the microwave to dry, which is why the whole upstairs smell like burnt hair. I told her, Being pretty and dumb won't get you nowhere in this day and age. There's millions of pretty girls in the world. You just one. Put something else with it.

Reprinted from A Day Late and a Dollar Short by Terry McMillan by permission of Viking Books, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc. Copyright (c) 2000 by Terry McMillan. All rights reserved. This excerpt, or any parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.