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A review by bethreadsandnaps
Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld
4.0
An alternative history of Hillary Rodham where she dated Bill Clinton but didn't marry him.
I loved that this started when she met Bill Clinton and skipped her early years. The reader gets a little of that as she tells Bill about her and her family, but I really liked that we get right to the action. And, oh boy, do we with some sexual escapades! Let's just say that Bill teaches her a few things in the bedroom.
A few random thoughts about this novel:
- I wonder how she got away with a fictionalized alternative history version of Hillary's story using Hillary's actual picture on the cover. I tried to look it up, and Sittenfeld said that it was vetted by the publisher's legal team. I still wonder though. And I wonder if Hillary has read it.
- The time jumps post breaking up with Bill were a bit much for me to keep track of - for example, the Bush years. I'm not a huge political afficionado, so I was trying to remember the real-life timeline and how it jived with this alternative history timeline. I think if I was a bigger 1990s
and early 2000s political watcher (granted, I was young at the time), I would have appreciated those sections more.
- Trump is in the latter part of this novel quite a bit. And he doesn't speak in the novel like he actually speaks. I would have preferred that it had more of his wording because he's quite easy to replicate once you get his speech rhythm. A great orator he is not!
I loved that this started when she met Bill Clinton and skipped her early years. The reader gets a little of that as she tells Bill about her and her family, but I really liked that we get right to the action. And, oh boy, do we with some sexual escapades! Let's just say that Bill teaches her a few things in the bedroom.
A few random thoughts about this novel:
- I wonder how she got away with a fictionalized alternative history version of Hillary's story using Hillary's actual picture on the cover. I tried to look it up, and Sittenfeld said that it was vetted by the publisher's legal team. I still wonder though. And I wonder if Hillary has read it.
- The time jumps post breaking up with Bill were a bit much for me to keep track of - for example, the Bush years. I'm not a huge political afficionado, so I was trying to remember the real-life timeline and how it jived with this alternative history timeline. I think if I was a bigger 1990s
and early 2000s political watcher (granted, I was young at the time), I would have appreciated those sections more.
- Trump is in the latter part of this novel quite a bit. And he doesn't speak in the novel like he actually speaks. I would have preferred that it had more of his wording because he's quite easy to replicate once you get his speech rhythm. A great orator he is not!