I couldn't put this book down. It is based on Laura Bush but is a fictional hypothesis on how she, Alice, became first lady to Charles Blackwell (George W). I really liked the beginning about her upbringing and her single life. Her description of the mid-west was spot on. I could have done without the many explicit sexual scenes between her and Charles since I had the visual of Laura and George. Also, I understand how Sittenfeld was trying to show the duplicity of Charles's sweetness with Alice vs the extreme vulgarity and bizzare relationships with his family and in public. That kind of vulgar, crude joking is something I can't stand and made me cringe.
The last third of the book was somewhat rushed, but I really enjoyed the internal struggle Alice had with the political issues. It was worded exactly how I feel as someone who sees a lot of grey and just can't take strong stances on either side and has some envy for those who can be so sure about their positions.
I'll be interested how this book stays with me. A few years ago I read Curtis Sittenfeld's other book, Prep in the same way--couldn't put it down, skipped meals, stayed up late--but could not tell you a thing about it except that it was set at a girl's boarding school ( )

In a nutshell this book was way too long. The concept was interesting, but eventually it got old. I am not a fan of Curtis Sittenfeld to begin with, after reading her novel Prep, and sometimes I find her writing to be unnecessarily grotesque. I actually enjoyed the book when it was about Alice, but once Charlie was brought in to the story it became more about him and by the end I did not really care about either of them or their family. In Sittenfeld's other novel Prep I found her characters to be obnoxious and she continues to create an obnoxious character in Charlie, as well. I think I could have handled Charlie's character if the book had been shorter, but it was a dreadfully long book chronicling far too much. I would not recommend this unless it was to a Sittenfeld fan. ( )

If you've ever wondered how someone like Laura Bush could end up with George W. Bush, Sittenfeld floats a pretty reasonable theory. Very enjoyable. ( )

It always amazes me when Sittenfeld's novels are referred to as "beach books". I wonder if the people who say that have actually read her work, or if they automatically assume that any book about the lives of women must automatically be low-brow chick lit. American Wife, like its predecessor Prep, is anything but low-brow. It is a complex, moving portrait of a young woman--a polite children's librarian with quietly left-leaning politics who marries a charismatic, if buffoonish man from a wealthy family who becomes an unpopular president stuck in a quagmire of an unpopular war.

Sound familiar? Of course, Sittenfeld's heroine is named Alice Lindgren, not Laura Welch. And the man she marries is Charlie Blackwell, not George Bush, but all too true details of the real Laura Bush's life are woven into the narrative remind the reader what the thesis of this fictional novel is REALLY about. What must it be like to have married a man whose politics you disagree with--especially if that man's livelihood is politics. Do you speak out? Do you stay quiet and just be a supportive wife? Do you--gasp--vote against him in both elections?

American Wife isn't all about Alice Lindgren's life as the president's wife--that section only comprises maybe a fourth of the novel. The entire first third describes Alice's youth and teen years, during which the most defining moment of her life occurs: during the summer before her senior year in high school, Alice runs a stop sign on the way to a party and kills a classmate, Andrew, a boy she has a crush on. This is something that actually happened to the real Laura Bush, and it becomes the crux of the entire novel. Although Sittenfeld describes, and later brings up the accident in only a handful of pages, it is the singular event on which the entire book pivots. The unanswered question is, if Alice had not killed Andrew; if they had gone on to date and even marry, would her life have been completely different? The fact that Alice ends up Alice Blackwell seems at times to be a mistake. Alice feels, deep inside, she should have never become the first lady. Her rightful place was to be a children's librarian in Wisconsin and married to her high school sweetheart--not as the incredibly beloved wife of an incredibly incompetent president.

Sittenfeld's novel is filled with restrained emotion and longing, embodied by the quiet, polite, intelligent, and secretly conflicted main character. Like Sittenfeld's other books, the main character is likable enough, but not charismatic. Sittenfeld disarms the reader by creating heroines that come off as a bit boring--heroines that observe more than act--but ultimately seem more real than grandiose, larger than life characters seen in other works of fiction. In this way, Sittenfeld is able to dissect life and relationships in ways that other authors cannot. She doesn't force the reader to like her characters.

In American Wife, Sittenfeld attempts to shed light of what Laura Bush's inner life must have been like before and during George W. Bush's reign. Does she succeed? Who knows. But the novel, though at times melodramatic and its first lady a little too apologetic, never seems untrue. In any case, fiction often rings more true than the reality we think we see in biographies and the news everyday. Maybe Sittenfeld has created a portrait of Laura Bush truer than Laura Bush herself would like to admit. ( )

A fictionalized biography of Laura Bush. The novel had me turning pages as fast as I could until Charley's "conversion". The final section seemed hurried and contrived, esp. w/Dena and Pete. Oh, and what about the doctor mysteriously and suddenly dying. The soul-searching that Laura did regarding the war and also if she could have been a more dynamic first lady seemed genuine. ( )