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3.76 AVERAGE
3.76 AVERAGE
It might be bad that after reading this I now feel very familiar with Laura Bush, since this is supposed to be only a fictional account of her life. It was quite convincing.
Read this once before, when I was 16, and loved it then - thought I'd give it another go now that I am older, wiser (I should hope) and above all, know a ton more about American politics. I can now proudly say time has cured me of at least part of my teenage stupidity: On second read I was no longer swayed by the book, its style, and, terrifyingly enough, its George W. Bush-stand-in, Charlie Blackwell - thank god.
It's a work of contradictions, I'll give it that - it's simultaneously profound and trashy, riveting and mundane, compelling and repulsive, sympathetic and incredibly unethical (multiple reviews here have discussed this aspect, and rightfully so). It's a masterclass in making nearly all your characters vivid and well-rounded, and utterly unlikable in a myriad of different ways, a masterclass of saying everything and nothing at all in a feeble attempt at dissecting class, racism, sexism - you name it. It's maddening, because in spite of everything, I couldn't put it down, and had it had more of a backbone, more of a moral standpoint, been entirely fictional - it could have been very, very good. As it stands, though, it left me feeling empty, for all the above reasons.
It's a work of contradictions, I'll give it that - it's simultaneously profound and trashy, riveting and mundane, compelling and repulsive, sympathetic and incredibly unethical (multiple reviews here have discussed this aspect, and rightfully so). It's a masterclass in making nearly all your characters vivid and well-rounded, and utterly unlikable in a myriad of different ways, a masterclass of saying everything and nothing at all in a feeble attempt at dissecting class, racism, sexism - you name it. It's maddening, because in spite of everything, I couldn't put it down, and had it had more of a backbone, more of a moral standpoint, been entirely fictional - it could have been very, very good. As it stands, though, it left me feeling empty, for all the above reasons.
Thinly disguised novel about a recent President's wife. meh.
Entertaining and well written, if not revelatory, fictionalised account of the life of Laura Bush.
Totally fun vacation read. I finished it (500+ pages) in less than a week. She tells a great story
Curtis Sittenfeld has yet to write a character that I can stand. Prep was AWFUL and this book was NOT much better. This was a book based on the life and times of Laura Bush, but if it's an accurate representation of her personality, she should have thrown herself in front of a bus long ago. This character, like the main character in Prep, NEVER asserts herself, ever. She is the living embodiment of a doormat. Flat, unlikeable, WHINY. She marries into an INCREDIBLY wealthy family, and can't stop bitching about it the entire time. The 'George Bush' character is drawn like a 10 year old boy. Throughout the novel, the main character makes claims that imply she believes that she is a better person than he is (morally), but her tolerance of his racial slurs and class-based elitism, etc. make her just as culpable. Furthermore, she often chalks these enormous character flaws as endearing quirks, which is simply maddening. The final section of the book, when her husband is in the White House, is the worst of all. Two hundred pages of rationalization for a lifetime of sucking. The interesting characters die off or are rarely featured. There are 3000 unnecessarily explicit sex scenes. Just..don't do it.
Oh but this was hard work, there's little joy and little humour in here, it's just a long introspective whiny meander leading nowhere. Yes, I know it's Barbara Bush and Charlie is the idiot Bush but the constant wandering off to nowhere got me down. Only finished it because I'm reading it for my Book Group.
I feel a bit conflicted about this book. I went into it not realizing that it was loosely based on a real president and first lady, instead thinking it was a completely fabricated story. I realized around the halfway point that it is in fact based on George and Laura Bush, which made the rest of the read (especially the sex scenes) interesting, and not necessarily in a good way.
I really liked the first three sections of the book. I liked Alice. I thought she was a reasonably strong, fleshed-out, and believable character. The story was believable and the relationship painted between Alice and Charlie was understandable, even at the times I didn't like either of them all that much. They seemed like real people with real issues and real ties.
The last quarter felt purely perfunctory, written largely by the actual life of the Bush's. I hated Charlie by that point, as he had done a lot of asshole things by then, and they didn't justify any of it. Charlie promised he'd be a good husband to Alice once she comes back etc etc and then there is NO EXPLANATION as to how he and Alice "compromised" on him suddenly having a political career. We just know Alice didn't want him to do it, she told him she didn't, and then he did it anyways. Which is GREAT behavior for a husband supposedly reformed from not taking your wishes into account, right? Alice was always a bit of a doormat, but it was taken to the most extreme of extremes in the last quarter without any reasons given. She almost leaves him, decides not to, and then she just spends the rest of her life bending and scraping to him despite the fact that his expectations that she would do this were what motivated their separation in the first place.
I think this book would have largely benefited from being a fictionalized account of the life of a fictional first lady - supposedly Curtis Sittenfield once said in an interview that this was what the book was meant to be anyways, and she just used the real-life Bush's as inspiration. That's all well and good, until it became more important to fit in the real (and implied) controversies of the real-life Bush administration than it is to adhere to the logic and storyline that your novel has already set up.
The ending was unsatisfying, because nothing was resolved. All we know at the end is that Alice and Charlie will always disagree with each other, even though they also love each other. This was also established in the prologue, so the intermediate 550 pages would have been completely superfluous (rather than mostly superfluous) if not for the decent storytelling up until Charlie's presidency.
I really liked the first three sections of the book. I liked Alice. I thought she was a reasonably strong, fleshed-out, and believable character. The story was believable and the relationship painted between Alice and Charlie was understandable, even at the times I didn't like either of them all that much. They seemed like real people with real issues and real ties.
The last quarter felt purely perfunctory, written largely by the actual life of the Bush's. I hated Charlie by that point, as he had done a lot of asshole things by then, and they didn't justify any of it. Charlie promised he'd be a good husband to Alice once she comes back etc etc and then there is NO EXPLANATION as to how he and Alice "compromised" on him suddenly having a political career. We just know Alice didn't want him to do it, she told him she didn't, and then he did it anyways. Which is GREAT behavior for a husband supposedly reformed from not taking your wishes into account, right? Alice was always a bit of a doormat, but it was taken to the most extreme of extremes in the last quarter without any reasons given. She almost leaves him, decides not to, and then she just spends the rest of her life bending and scraping to him despite the fact that his expectations that she would do this were what motivated their separation in the first place.
I think this book would have largely benefited from being a fictionalized account of the life of a fictional first lady - supposedly Curtis Sittenfield once said in an interview that this was what the book was meant to be anyways, and she just used the real-life Bush's as inspiration. That's all well and good, until it became more important to fit in the real (and implied) controversies of the real-life Bush administration than it is to adhere to the logic and storyline that your novel has already set up.
The ending was unsatisfying, because nothing was resolved. All we know at the end is that Alice and Charlie will always disagree with each other, even though they also love each other. This was also established in the prologue, so the intermediate 550 pages would have been completely superfluous (rather than mostly superfluous) if not for the decent storytelling up until Charlie's presidency.
American Wife is a novel/fake memoir about a First Lady who is possibly/definitely supposed to be Laura Bush. I knew next to nothing about Laura Bush before reading this and it did lead me down a bit of a rabbit hole after reading to learn more about what is true in the book versus what is fiction. However, the actual history itself seems less central to the book; even the fact that this is the story of a First Lady is of secondary importance to the themes of the novel. The novel's main merit is the exploration of how a woman's life and priorities can be sidetracked by her husband's without her necessarily even realizing it until much later. These parts of the novel felt authentic, complex, and quietly heartbreaking. It's also an intriguing peek into the lives of the rich and famous, which I always find voyeuristically pleasing.
I'm not sure if this book should be 3 or 4 starts. So let's say it's 3.5. It was really great for probably the first 2/3 of the book. You come to know and love this character and all her strengths and flaws. I didn't know until after I started reading that the main character, Alice, is based on Laura Bush. Now I want to read some of the recommended books the author gave on Laura Bush, who I've always thought of as a beautiful, kind, intelligent, caring woman. No matter your politics, people love Laura Bush. The last portion of this story, however, ran dry. Once the couple was in the White House it was less about telling a story than giving flash backs and a giving a lot of introspective rambling. It was quite boring. And the story just kind of ended. I felt like we were really starting to get somewhere, and suddenly THE END. There is language and a little bit of sex, but otherwise was a pretty good read.