Curtis Sittenfeld

I have had Sisterland by Curtis Sittenfeld on my shelves for a very long time. In fact, it was the oldest audiobook I had in my Audible library. With the safer-at-home mandates, I figured there was no time like the present to pull some of these oldies out and finally get around to them.

Unfortunately, Sisterland is not good. I want to be nice and say I did not like it because I could not connect with the main protagonist, Kate/Daisy. I found her to be selfish, controlling, and interfering all show more while she spends the entire book justifying her behavior. I want to say that Ms. Sittenfeld's story would be exceptional if you like Kate/Daisy. But I cannot do so because she IS the story. Hers is the only story we see, and she is the only narrator. If you don't like her, well, you are going to be like me and not like the book.

Since all my problems hinge around my reaction to Kate/Daisy, here is why I found her to be a horrible person. And yes, I am going to spoil the hell out of this story. She is self-absorbed to the point where she thinks of herself and only thinks of others in relation to herself. All of her junior high angst occurs because she wants to hang out with the cool kids and never thinks how her going off with a different group of friends might affect her identical twin sister. The same occurs in high school and in college. We see Vi only as how Vi's behavior affects Daisy's life. I mean, she changes her name in college to her middle name because she is so embarrassed by being associated with her old life. The worst thing to happen to her is that the middle school girls called her a witch because she made her ESP known to others in an effort to appear cool and likable. For that, she maintains an eternal loathing of certain girls, well into adulthood, and lives in fear of being recognized as Daisy rather than Kate.

This selfish behavior escalates when Vi predicts the earthquake. From that moment, Kate spends all of her energy trying to manipulate Vi's behavior so that it doesn't embarrass her. She thinks nothing of Vi's feelings. Hell, she spends $15,000, which she and her husband don't have, in order to hire a publicist for Vi to control her behavior. Who does that? She does this without any discussion with her husband and just assumes he forgives her, which he sadly does. If that isn't bad enough, she tries to prevent her husband, who has the patience of a saint, from going to a professional conference, at which he is presenting a paper, because this conference occurs on the day the earthquake is supposed to happen. She gets so bad at trying to guilt him into staying that she pulls out every stereotypical action in the book. Then, when he goes to the conference and nothing happens, she ends up having an affair with one of their best friends and justifies it because she was angry that her husband left. WHAT. THE. FUCK.

Kate/Daisy is one of those characters for whom I cannot muster one ounce of sympathy, nor can I empathize with her because her behavior is so far from logical and normal that I cannot put myself into her shoes. The fact that she ends up getting what amounts to a happily ever after ending - the husband forgives her betrayal and agrees to raise the illicit baby spawned by this one affair as his own - makes me sick to my stomach. Sure, Vi gets her happy ending too, but it is not because of anything Kate does for her. I wanted to see both Vi and the husband drop her like a hot potato and refuse to go near her ever again. That would have been the best ending, the only one that makes sense given Kate's behavior throughout the course of the book.

So, yeah. I can't like the book because I pretty much loathe the main character/narrator. I don't have a sister, and most times I read about sister relationships, I feel like I am missing something. Not in this case though. I am so glad I don't have a sister. There are enough things in our lives that control our actions every day. The last thing I need is an overbearing sister who is more worried about how I might embarrass her than care for who I am and whether I am happy. Two thumbs WAY down for Sisterland. show less

i went in to this with a really cynical attitude. I like Curtis Sittenfeld's work a lot, and was a fan of American Wife, which was a similar undertaking to Rodham, but with a clearly fictionalized Laura Bush. But that is the difference; American Wife was clearly fiction inspired by a real person. I was deeply uncomfortable with the idea of creating an alternate life for a living breathing universally known woman. It seemed really unfair to Hillary who has seen her life hijacked and recast by show more so many people and ought to be able to reclaim her own narrative without anyone, whether it be Rush Limbaugh or Curtis Sittenfeld, putting their grubby hands all over her truth. A secondary concern, I assumed it would he a hagiography. Hillary is a goddess divine and everything would have been great if it wasn't for men (particularly men like the randy -- possibly rapey Bill Clinton.) Honestly maybe it was sort of a hagiography, but it was more too. It was a great story that stuck surprisingly close to to real life, it was funny and charming, and gave us a behind the curtain look at politics rooted in public service (as opposed to DJT politics rooted in personal gain and ego masturbation) that made me really miss West Wing. More than that, it was a clarion call to women to claim their lives, to tune out as much of the static as possible about needing a man and needing to please others all of the time, to stop judging other women by standards set by men for their pleasure, and to stop overlooking the boys-will-be-boys behavior that got us into the seething pit of hell in which we currently find ourselves. I loved it. I found myself excited to listen to this whenever I had a moment. Speaking of which, I did listen to this, and the reader, Carrington MacDuffie, was absolutely amazing. It felt like Hillary was talking, but MacDuffie was not doing an impression. The reading was lively and straightforward, and she did other voices of both genders without sounding absurd which is often and issue in audiobooks. This should definitely be an Audie candidate! show less

It took me about 26 hours to read this book over the weekend, and I could not put it down except for a few hours of sleep. Rodham is a historical counterfactual: what would happen if, instead of understanding Bill Clinton's infidelities, accepting his third proposal of marriage, and staying in Arkansas to become first lady and everything else we know from history, Hillary had left the state after a year and Bill had married a sweet second-grade teacher instead? It's hard to describe much of show more the book without spoiling, but suffice it to say that their paths do cross again and she still goes on to run for president before the end of the book, after several times being tempted to take the easy way out (in that way, she almost reminded me of Jesus, not a comparison I think the author necessarily intended!).

I see that a lot of people who read this book are fans of Hillary. I picked it up more because I don't particularly love her, and I wondered how I'd feel about a Hillary who made different choices. The answer is, she's a lot more impressive and relatable. But what made me love this book was the stab of recognition in a scene early on where she contemplates staying in Arkansas with Bill. She has always felt she doesn't quite deserve to be with his devastatingly handsome and magnetic self (for the record, I never saw the appeal but I know he was considered quite the pantymelter). Her harsh (or pragmatic?) self-appraisal is so devastating in the way it internalizes the prejudices of the world and tries to bargain with that world that after that I had to stick with her and see what happened.

Some readers say it was inappropriate for Sittenfeld to write so intimately about people who are still alive, including explicit imagined details of their sex life, but I'm OK with it. It's safe to say that Hillary and Bill's public lives have passed into the realm of history. Sittenfeld never claims to know anything beyond what they've revealed in their memoirs, so their imagined romance is no more wrong than a novel about any of the kings or queens or movie stars or murder victims of history. And then, by leaving Bill and taking a different path, the Hillary of the book becomes a different person from the real one who became First Lady of Arkansas and the country. Reimagining how things might have gone differently makes incredibly fruitful reading for the rest of us. I'm glad Curtis Sittenfeld didn't shy away from it. show less

Dual review with Swedish first and then English!

SWEDISH REVIEW

Sanning och skvaller är en förtjusande och underhållande modern tolkning av Stolthet och fördom. Curtis Sittenfeld har lyckats modernisera handlingen på ett sådant sätt att man känner igen handlingen från originalet i denna berättelse men allting har förflyttas fram i tiden och speglar dagens livssituationer och moderna problem.

Mrs. Bennet är lika jobbig som i originalberättelsen, Mr. Bennet lika frånvarande och show more Kitty och Lydia är lika odrägliga och Mary lika nördig (om inte värre). Liz och Jane är de som har lyckats komma undan och flyttat hemifrån men till deras mors förskräckelse börjar de närma sig 40 utan ring på fingret. Skandal! Tursamt nog verkar det som om två läckra ungkarlar, Chip Bingley och Fitzwilliam Darcy dyker upp lägligt när de är hemma för att se över sin far som har haft en hjärtattack.

Jag njöt storartat av boken. Den är humoristisk och dagens moderna problem har ersatt originalets problem på ett lysande sätt. T.ex. så har Jane beslutat sig för att hon vill ha barn och eftersom nuförtiden kan man fixa det på egen hand med insemination så försöker hon med det, hon har gett upp om kärlek men så träffar hon Chip Bingley. Kanske är han den rätte? Liz däremot har mindre tur och finner Darcy oerhört dryg och jobbig och han verkar inte gilla henne heller. Men vem vet, kanske har de missförstått varandra...

Sanning och skvaller är en charming och rolig bok som kommer tilltala båda fans av Stolthet och Fördom och de som inte har läst boken.

Tack till Wahlströms och Widstrand förlag för recensionsexemplaret!

ENGLISH REVIEW

Eligible is a delightful and entertaining modern interpretation of Pride and Prejudice. Curtis Sittenfeld has managed in a good way to modernize the story in such a way that you recognize the original story, but everything has moved forward in time and reflects today's modern life situations and problems.

Mrs. Bennet is as bad as in the original story, Mr. Bennet as absent and Kitty and Lydia are just as pesky and Mary equally geeky (if not worse in this version). Liz and Jane are the ones who have managed to get away and moved away from home, but to their mother's horror are they starting to approach 40 without a ring on her finger. Scandal! Fortunately, two delicious bachelors, Chip Bingley and Fitzwilliam Darcy show up timely when Liz and Jane are at home to look over their father who has had a heart attack.

I truly enjoyed reading this book. It is humorous and the modern problems have replaced the original problem in a brilliant way. For example. has Jane decided that she wants to have children and because nowadays you can fix it on your own with insemination so she tries that. She has given up on love, but then she meets Chip Bingley. Perhaps he is the right man? Liz, on the other hand, has less lucky and find Darcy extremely annoying and difficult and he doesn't seem to like her either. Although who knows, maybe they misunderstood each other...

Eligible is a charming and funny book that will appeal to both fans of Pride and Prejudice and those who have not read the book.

Thanks to Wahlströms och Widstrand förlag for the review copy! show less