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d_ae's review against another edition
emotional
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Abortion and Sexual content
Minor: Homophobia
emcheym's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.0
This book was nothing like what I thought it would be. Based on the cover, the title, and the blurb, I thought this would be a historical fiction. I thought it would be based more on the plot and character interactions. Instead, this book spent a lot of time on vulgar humor, crude language, and sex scenes. I was 18 hours into the book before her husband was finally voted into office as president, and it really skimmed over the whole process of him campaigning and his time in office. This book wasn’t really my cup of tea, and I wouldn’t recommend it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcoholism, Pregnancy, Toxic relationship, Abortion, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, Classism, Addiction, Cursing, Drug use, Infertility, Misogyny, Sexism, Sexual content, Homophobia, and Lesbophobia
Minor: Racism, Car accident, War, Dementia, and Death of parent
laurennom's review
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Abortion, Alcoholism, Sexual content, and Car accident
Moderate: Racial slurs and Racism
Minor: Drug use
nothingforpomegranted's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
American Wife is the creative retelling of Laura Bush's life. I was skeptical about this book from the outset because I know that I struggle with books that are "based on a true story" or, as seems to be more accurate in this case, "inspired by real events," and I maintained my skepticism to the very end.
The story is told in four parts, beginning with Alice Blackwell's childhood in small-town Wisconsin where she lived with her parents and eccentric, liberal, loving grandmother. Alice is well-liked but not popular in school and seems relatively content with her friends and her studies and her extra-curriculars until she is involved in a car accident in which her classmate--and long-time crush--is killed. Racked with guilt, Alice retreats socially, uncertain how to express herself after the tragedy. The second part of the book sees Alice as a well-adjusted single woman in her 30s, happily working as a librarian at an elementary school and well on her way to buying her first house. It is in this section that she meets Charlie Blackwell, her future husband and the supposed stand-in for George W. Bush. Charlie comes from an immensely wealthy Wisconsin family with a sausage brand and several terms of governorship to their name. After a whirlwind romance, the unlikely match marry, and the rest of the book follows their married life, including Charlie's buying a baseball team and eventually being elected President of the United States.
As evidenced by my uneven summary, I found the first two sections of the book far more interesting and engaging than the last two. Teenage Alice felt raw and honest (a well-honed skill of Sittenfeld's, whose debut novel Prep is one of the books I clearly remember reading as a middle schooler, mostly because I was shocked that a book that contained an explicit blowjob scene was available in my 7th grade English teacher's classroom library!), and I was immersed in her reflections on love, life, and death as she understood it at age 17. Sadly, I know far too many 17-year-olds who have had similarly close contact with death, and the confusion and desperation of the grieving process, especially at that age, felt so true to life. Likewise, I connected with 31-year-old Alice, and I loved how much she loved her work. The librarian at my most recent school also worked extra hard to make book-themed sculptures that would excite the children, and I was so enthused by the idea of Alice's papier-maché characters.
And then Charlie entered the picture.
Clearly, Sittenfeld is not a fan of George W. Bush. Charlie was the most indulged, selfish, inconsiderate characters I have ever read, and he was hardly granted any complexity of character. Indeed, he seemed to suck all of Alice's complexity right out of her. Rather than the passionate, scarred, curious Alice that I had come to appreciate in the first half of the book, in her relationship with Charlie, Alice basically became a piece of wet tape. Repeatedly, she mentioned how often she held her tongue, stopping herself from disagreeing with Charlie or his family members and, most of the time, from expressing an opinion at all. I was so disappointed to see this shift, and I was frustrated by the absolute misogyny that it suggested. If this was a fictionalization that totally imagined Laura Bush's life save for a few key events and fully invented her emotional responses to most of them, why was it written such that Alice put up no fight whatsoever about quitting her job which she loved to stay at home with her unemployed and unmotivated husband? I didn't buy it, and I didn't like it. That this boring version of Alice filled so many more hours of reading that the interesting, younger, unmarried version was incredibly upsetting.
To that point, I thought the book was entirely too long, and, frankly, I think the entire fourth section could have been cut. I understand that Sittenfeld's intention was to write an alternative history of the Bush's life, but there was absolutely no transition into Charlie's presidency, and it seemed to be tacked on just to hammer home the point that THIS BOOK IS ABOUT GEORGE AND LAURA BUSH! More than once, I flipped back in the book to check that, no, I hadn't missed anything; Part 3 really did end that abruptly.Charlie addressed his drinking. Alice and Ella came home. Happy marriage was restored, and now Charlie is President. His decision to run for Governor was alluded to only briefly in flashbacks, and there was no description of their time in the Governor's Mansion. The Presidency was similarly (not) addressed. In a book that totals nearly 25 hours of listening (555 pages), to jump around so much seemed unnecessary and bizarre, especially after reading detailed descriptions of practically every single day of Alice and Charlie's courtship.
Perhaps the fourth section was supposed to be Alice's moral reckoning, but I was unimpressed. Disoriented as I was by the sudden White House setting, I was, admittedly, distracted from some of the deeper plot points while trying to get my bearings, but nonetheless, the drama of Gladys Wickham's return and the reunion with Dina didn't hold weight for me, nor did, sadly, the conversation with the anti-war father protesting on the steps of the Capitol. I was interested in Alice's story, but the last third of the book totally lost me, and I almost certainly would have preferred the novel without the Bush parallels.
The story is told in four parts, beginning with Alice Blackwell's childhood in small-town Wisconsin where she lived with her parents and eccentric, liberal, loving grandmother. Alice is well-liked but not popular in school and seems relatively content with her friends and her studies and her extra-curriculars until she is involved in a car accident in which her classmate--and long-time crush--is killed. Racked with guilt, Alice retreats socially, uncertain how to express herself after the tragedy. The second part of the book sees Alice as a well-adjusted single woman in her 30s, happily working as a librarian at an elementary school and well on her way to buying her first house. It is in this section that she meets Charlie Blackwell, her future husband and the supposed stand-in for George W. Bush. Charlie comes from an immensely wealthy Wisconsin family with a sausage brand and several terms of governorship to their name. After a whirlwind romance, the unlikely match marry, and the rest of the book follows their married life, including Charlie's buying a baseball team and eventually being elected President of the United States.
As evidenced by my uneven summary, I found the first two sections of the book far more interesting and engaging than the last two. Teenage Alice felt raw and honest (a well-honed skill of Sittenfeld's, whose debut novel Prep is one of the books I clearly remember reading as a middle schooler, mostly because I was shocked that a book that contained an explicit blowjob scene was available in my 7th grade English teacher's classroom library!), and I was immersed in her reflections on love, life, and death as she understood it at age 17. Sadly, I know far too many 17-year-olds who have had similarly close contact with death, and the confusion and desperation of the grieving process, especially at that age, felt so true to life. Likewise, I connected with 31-year-old Alice, and I loved how much she loved her work. The librarian at my most recent school also worked extra hard to make book-themed sculptures that would excite the children, and I was so enthused by the idea of Alice's papier-maché characters.
And then Charlie entered the picture.
Clearly, Sittenfeld is not a fan of George W. Bush. Charlie was the most indulged, selfish, inconsiderate characters I have ever read, and he was hardly granted any complexity of character. Indeed, he seemed to suck all of Alice's complexity right out of her. Rather than the passionate, scarred, curious Alice that I had come to appreciate in the first half of the book, in her relationship with Charlie, Alice basically became a piece of wet tape. Repeatedly, she mentioned how often she held her tongue, stopping herself from disagreeing with Charlie or his family members and, most of the time, from expressing an opinion at all. I was so disappointed to see this shift, and I was frustrated by the absolute misogyny that it suggested. If this was a fictionalization that totally imagined Laura Bush's life save for a few key events and fully invented her emotional responses to most of them, why was it written such that Alice put up no fight whatsoever about quitting her job which she loved to stay at home with her unemployed and unmotivated husband? I didn't buy it, and I didn't like it. That this boring version of Alice filled so many more hours of reading that the interesting, younger, unmarried version was incredibly upsetting.
To that point, I thought the book was entirely too long, and, frankly, I think the entire fourth section could have been cut. I understand that Sittenfeld's intention was to write an alternative history of the Bush's life, but there was absolutely no transition into Charlie's presidency, and it seemed to be tacked on just to hammer home the point that THIS BOOK IS ABOUT GEORGE AND LAURA BUSH! More than once, I flipped back in the book to check that, no, I hadn't missed anything; Part 3 really did end that abruptly.
Perhaps the fourth section was supposed to be Alice's moral reckoning, but I was unimpressed. Disoriented as I was by the sudden White House setting, I was, admittedly, distracted from some of the deeper plot points while trying to get my bearings, but nonetheless, the drama of Gladys Wickham's return and the reunion with Dina didn't hold weight for me, nor did, sadly, the conversation with the anti-war father protesting on the steps of the Capitol. I was interested in Alice's story, but the last third of the book totally lost me, and I almost certainly would have preferred the novel without the Bush parallels.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content
Moderate: Alcoholism and Racial slurs
questingnotcoasting's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
I picked this up in a charity shop because I knew I'd enjoyed Curtis Sittenfeld's writing and I didn't realise until I started it that the main character was based on Laura Bush. So while I did really enjoy it, I can't help but think I might have liked it more had I not been thinking about the characters' real life counterparts, which often took me out of the story. It made for a strange reading experience and is the reason I'm not interested in reading Rodham.
I do love Sittenfeld's writing though. It's extremely readable and the story was very compelling, especially in the first three sections. I love The West Wing, so I was expecting to enjoy the final section at The White House the most but actually I felt that part of the story was the least interesting. Overall though it was an enjoyable read.
I do love Sittenfeld's writing though. It's extremely readable and the story was very compelling, especially in the first three sections. I love The West Wing, so I was expecting to enjoy the final section at The White House the most but actually I felt that part of the story was the least interesting. Overall though it was an enjoyable read.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death and Grief
Moderate: Alcoholism and Sexual content
Minor: Homophobia, Misogyny, Racism, and Sexism
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