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james1star's review against another edition
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.25
From the Hogarth Shakespeare titles, I read Margaret Atwood’s Hag-Seed last year and that was great but Anne Tyler’s ‘Taming of the Shew’ retelling was honestly very meh. In Vinegar Girl, we follow twenty nine year old Kate who feels stuck in her life, keeping house for her scientist father and younger sister whilst working at a nursery, living a life she’s not happy with and wanting something to change this. This may come in the form of her dad’s assistant Pyotr who’s about to be deported pending the end of his visa. Her dad is very keen for the two to get hitched so he’ll stay and continue their research… but is he asking for too much?
I’d say the writing was good enough, it flows and generally it was a quick fast paced read. The characters aren’t that developed outside of Kate in all honesty which was a shame, her sister Bunny and Pyotr are to some extent but not really. I did quite like what Tyler (via Kate) was trying to say about the place and societal view of women at Kate’s age, she starts to explores part of the immigrant experience and some other things but all are rather half baked and in the end I gained very little from this. I guess the overall story arc and how things progressed plot wise just wasn’t to my taste and in some ways (like the original which I haven’t read btw) she is ‘tamed’ in some sense which didn’t sit right with me, especially after a certain few things. It also just became rather boring as it went along. I found the xenophobia present in the book wasn’t handled very well and Tyler kinda paints the immigrants in the book in not the best light - Pyotr on many occasions is shown to hold rather ‘backward’ views and the way he speaks is quite harsh and I dunno… I didn’t like it. Also Ms/Mrs Liu wasn’t presented well and how she uses language despite living in America for many years seemed rather unrealistic and yh, I can’t remember the exact thing as I’ve kinda forgotten parts of this book already - and I feel the pandering to stereotypes was rather unnecessary, or at least it didn’t jam well with me. I also don’t understand why Tyler never mentioned where Pyotr was from, he just says ‘my country’ but otherwise there’s proper place/location names, maybe to not offend but then she just should’ve presented him better… no? A final point of negativity was there’s quite a lot of discourse on the animal rights/vegan/vegetarian debate but it’s extremely one sided towards anti-vegan. Characters who share these views are kinda belittled, shown to be the baddie in a sense and also to go back and forth so obviously was never vegan to begin with. I just felt this topic wasn’t given the nuance it deserved and didn’t like it.
Overall, this was fine as a contemporary, romance-kinda book but overall there was more negatives then positives, I wouldn’t really recommend it and felt it was rather half baked. I will probably give Anne Tyler a second chance but this wasn’t for me.
Content Warnings
Minor: Death of parent, Animal cruelty, Xenophobia, Racism, and Mental illness
rory1387's review against another edition
reflective
relaxing
slow-paced
3.0
I just don't know what to think about this book. On one hand, it's a brilliant character study. But at times it falls flat and is downright misogynistic and xenophobic. As an immigrant, the sheer number of times Pyotr's accent was mentioned really felt othering and disheartening.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Emotional abuse, Misogyny, and Xenophobia
Moderate: Death of parent
monica_k's review against another edition
funny
lighthearted
- Loveable characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Xenophobia
Minor: Sexism and Racism
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