Scan barcode
A review by kairosdreaming
American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld
3.0
I had a really hard time with this one. Even trying to classify it I have trouble. Is it fiction? Yes, mainly. Is it non-fiction? Also yes, it's apparently VERY loosely based on the Bush family. It reads in memoir format but is not truly a memoir. And as other reviews before mine recount, it has some steamy scenes reminiscent of a romance novel.
So it is all those things, but ultimately it is the fictional recounting of the life of a woman who became the First Lady. And to be honest, she's not very compelling; she even calls herself dull. There are so many times I wanted to shake her and remove herself from her doormat personality. Even when we get glimpses of spirit, they are quickly gone again. Which sure, if you're partnered with someone with a more vivacious personality, you might get shadowed. It just set me up for a lot of frustration throughout the book.
Which was a lot of frustration period, because this is a surprisingly long book. We start in the high school years, and those seem to stretch on forever, to her young adult life and the meeting of her husband, to the years in between, and finally the years of the presidency. It was very reminiscent of how life flows in general; when you're young it seems to pass by so slowly and as you age events speed up and fly by. While I did find some of the details of her life to be interesting, particularly those that showed her trauma or gave her motivation behind her actions, they were far and few between. Her husband was downright unlikable to me, and never really improved.
Which leads me into this fiction vs non-fiction debate; which I don't want to spend too much time on, but am also a bit bothered by. Regardless of your political affiliation, it seems unfair to a person to take certain true events from your life, that are known to be associated with you (and you being a very well-known figure that even with character names being different can still be a stand-in for you) and mix it with events that are in all probability not true. Even framing it as fiction, it blurs the lines quite a bit. Which don't get me wrong, they made the character more interesting, but as the person itself, that may not be a desire.
Very solidly written, but just not for me I guess.
Review by M. Reynard 2023
So it is all those things, but ultimately it is the fictional recounting of the life of a woman who became the First Lady. And to be honest, she's not very compelling; she even calls herself dull. There are so many times I wanted to shake her and remove herself from her doormat personality. Even when we get glimpses of spirit, they are quickly gone again. Which sure, if you're partnered with someone with a more vivacious personality, you might get shadowed. It just set me up for a lot of frustration throughout the book.
Which was a lot of frustration period, because this is a surprisingly long book. We start in the high school years, and those seem to stretch on forever, to her young adult life and the meeting of her husband, to the years in between, and finally the years of the presidency. It was very reminiscent of how life flows in general; when you're young it seems to pass by so slowly and as you age events speed up and fly by. While I did find some of the details of her life to be interesting, particularly those that showed her trauma or gave her motivation behind her actions, they were far and few between. Her husband was downright unlikable to me, and never really improved.
Which leads me into this fiction vs non-fiction debate; which I don't want to spend too much time on, but am also a bit bothered by. Regardless of your political affiliation, it seems unfair to a person to take certain true events from your life, that are known to be associated with you (and you being a very well-known figure that even with character names being different can still be a stand-in for you) and mix it with events that are in all probability not true. Even framing it as fiction, it blurs the lines quite a bit. Which don't get me wrong, they made the character more interesting, but as the person itself, that may not be a desire.
Very solidly written, but just not for me I guess.
Review by M. Reynard 2023