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A review by shelby
Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld
Did not finish book.
Started reading at the beginning but it read like bad fanfic - the book lost me at the first Hillary/Bill sex scene. Hoping that it got better after the point where it becomes true fiction (Part 2 picks up 20 years after the fictional breakup) I skipped ahead, but did not get much further...
According to this version of events, the couple break up after a woman approaches Hillary in a parking lot and accuses Bill of infidelity and sexual assault. Part 2 sees Bill contacting Hillary regarding his impending presidential bid, asking her to provide essentially a character testimony to the media. As she contemplates doing so, given how their relationship ended, we're unironically hit with this line, "If I believed the woman and Bill had had some kind of physical encounter, did I believe that it had been against her will? ...I understood suddenly that I was freed from deciding what I believed. If I was no longer his girlfriend, and never his wife, I was not responsible for his behavior, not even by extension. This absolution was my reward for losing him."
So, yeah, DNF.
According to this version of events, the couple break up after a woman approaches Hillary in a parking lot and accuses Bill of infidelity and sexual assault. Part 2 sees Bill contacting Hillary regarding his impending presidential bid, asking her to provide essentially a character testimony to the media. As she contemplates doing so, given how their relationship ended, we're unironically hit with this line, "If I believed the woman and Bill had had some kind of physical encounter, did I believe that it had been against her will? ...I understood suddenly that I was freed from deciding what I believed. If I was no longer his girlfriend, and never his wife, I was not responsible for his behavior, not even by extension. This absolution was my reward for losing him."
So, yeah, DNF.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Sexual assault