By M. Sydnor, Jr.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When those milestone birthdays come around, that\u2019s a time when we take stock of our lives. Are we where we want to be professionally? Do we have the home and the money we want to support us? Do we have the mate we desire, and if it\u2019s a later milestone, is that mate still a keeper? Where are we at in terms of the goals we set for ourselves earlier in life? Such is the inventory illustrated by M. Sydnor, Jr.\u2019s novella, Thirty.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Our story opens with our main character, Shala Caulk, having a torrid, erotic dream featuring her and a smoking hot, bald fantasy brotha. Her dream is rudely interrupted by the bane of her existence\u2014her eccentric downstairs neighbor Olga Swann and Olga\u2019s chihuahua, Pooper, pounding on her apartment door with a bogus claim that water is leaking from Shala\u2019s bathroom. Shala, to say the least, is ticked off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You guessed it\u2014it\u2019s her 30th<\/sup> birthday. The sistah\u2019s career isn\u2019t where she wants it to be, and she\u2019s not married. She\u2019s concerned about her looks starting to fade. Her love life consists of a brotha named Tyler, who was a friend until they slept together, and she is increasingly regretting that action. As boyfriend material, Tyler has not stepped up his game when it came to her birthday by being a no-show. Indeed, the dream man has outdistanced the one she\u2019s stuck with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Among the partygoers for this milestone event were Shala\u2019s sister Sheila and her BFF Patrice\u2014and, to her surprise, the bald man of her sexy dreams, Cory. In the course of the novella, we follow Shala\u2019s conflicted feelings about her dream man Cory, her cheating boyfriend Tyler, and having Pooper working her last nerves. Oh, and let us not forget the enigmatic Olga.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I must say, reading Thirty<\/em> was like having a front row seat at an Alfred Hitchcock movie\u2014humor, suspense, plot twists rolled up into an amazing package, and I couldn\u2019t look away. Just when I thought I had Shala\u2019s story figured out, Sydnor would give me a surprise revelation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n