A “happily married” best friend Whitney is a project consultant.īut as the deadline ticks closer, the women wonder if they can withstand another year of looking for love in the media-proclaimed no-man’s land of Atlanta. They resolve to defy the statistic by marrying in a year and have it all by tackling their goal as a project with a vision board, monthly meetings, and more. Like the women in the report, they are career-driven, beautiful black women living in Atlanta who have everything - but a mate. Famous and infamous radio personality Mimi fights with her fans and for the love of her on-and-off-again boyfriend.īut when an ABC News Nightline report, “Single, Black, Female - and Plenty of Company,” asks why can’t a successful black woman find a man? The friends are suddenly hyper-aware of their inclusion in the sad statistic: 42% of black women who have never been married. Hip hop PR guru Jarena praises the Lord and pursues married men with equal persistence.

Bossy bank executive Senalda breaks down men from business to bed no holds barred. In all, a valid successor, if not a stimulating companion, to the vibrant Ludell.Destination Wedding is about three successful best friends in Atlanta who believe they are thriving in the Black Mecca. And young readers will sympathize when Ludell's strict grandmother (''Mama'') keeps her home from games and dances, then when the old woman begins to fail and require Ludell's full-time care, and at last when Mama dies and Ludell's hypocritical, indifferent mother fetches her off to New York just five weeks short of high school graduation. But Waycross, Georgia's, black and white inhabitants are as pertly assessed as ever, and the kids as sassy-Ruthie Mae next door is now the fast-behind despair of her virtuous older brother, our Willie. What's more, however veracious their dialogue, Ludell and Willie-with never a cross word or thought between them-are almost too loyal, considerate, and mutually supportive to be real. Though Ludell still writes poetry, for example, that announcement seems to have little to do with the girl we now hear ringing changes on two basic lines: gee-honey-ain't-we-lucky and oh-Willie-you-crazy.

Wilkinson's eye and idiom are as on-target here as in Ludell (1975), but alas, a sixteen-year-old Ludell preoccupied with her boyfriend and their eventual marriage is just not as interesting as she was at eleven.

Ludell and Willie by Brenda Wilkinson