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josie_wu 's review for:
The Aviator's Wife
by Melanie Benjamin
A marriage. A kidnapping. An exile from America. Hard to make these events bland, right? Well, The Aviator's Wife surprisingly makes all of these hard to read not because of the content, but because they are perceived from the eyes of a whiny, boring character.
Anne Lindbergh is the wife of the famous aviator, Charles Lindbergh. The novel starts from before they met to his death - however, though I was falling asleep, I eagerly read to the end. Although Anne continuously complains about her husband (and does nothing, which infuriated me), I always wondered what would happen next. How could Anne's life get worse? Perhaps I liked to torture this character in my mind, as she had tortured me with her dull narration.
The Aviator's Wife depicts a dysfunctional couple that appeared perfect to the entire world, but the author attempts to display the true nature of the marriage. Painting Charles as a megalomaniac and Anne as a submitting wife, I just could not understand why Anne did not stand up for herself. The author struggled to fully portray Anne as someone that thought of herself too weak to even talk back to her husband. Perhaps even more confusing was how at the end, Anne finally stands up to her husband but continues to imply that she loves him. No evidence in the novel supports that she had ever loved her husband! The self-empowerment that the author claims Charles gave to her was virtually non-existent (believe me, I combed through every line three times trying to find even one sentence that depicted Anne as sure and confident, the polar opposite of her usual self).
If you're reading this for a fun time-waster, go ahead, by all means! It will certainly waste your time, though it is not fun and you will be left wondering why you read it. The only positive aspect of the novel is the overall concept itself: if you're wondering how such an important figure felt and thought during her entire life, then the author does illustrate her emotions, though not artfully. If you're reading this to find out what happened in Lindbergh's life, just read the Wikipedia page - it's more fun.
Anne Lindbergh is the wife of the famous aviator, Charles Lindbergh. The novel starts from before they met to his death - however, though I was falling asleep, I eagerly read to the end. Although Anne continuously complains about her husband (and does nothing, which infuriated me), I always wondered what would happen next. How could Anne's life get worse? Perhaps I liked to torture this character in my mind, as she had tortured me with her dull narration.
The Aviator's Wife depicts a dysfunctional couple that appeared perfect to the entire world, but the author attempts to display the true nature of the marriage. Painting Charles as a megalomaniac and Anne as a submitting wife, I just could not understand why Anne did not stand up for herself. The author struggled to fully portray Anne as someone that thought of herself too weak to even talk back to her husband. Perhaps even more confusing was how at the end, Anne finally stands up to her husband but continues to imply that she loves him. No evidence in the novel supports that she had ever loved her husband! The self-empowerment that the author claims Charles gave to her was virtually non-existent (believe me, I combed through every line three times trying to find even one sentence that depicted Anne as sure and confident, the polar opposite of her usual self).
If you're reading this for a fun time-waster, go ahead, by all means! It will certainly waste your time, though it is not fun and you will be left wondering why you read it. The only positive aspect of the novel is the overall concept itself: if you're wondering how such an important figure felt and thought during her entire life, then the author does illustrate her emotions, though not artfully. If you're reading this to find out what happened in Lindbergh's life, just read the Wikipedia page - it's more fun.