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alexblackreads 's review for:
Rodham
by Curtis Sittenfeld
I hate how disappointed I was by this book. To start with, it wasn't bad. I want to say that right off the bat because this review is going to be colored by my disappointment. I read American Wife, a novel inspired by the life of Laura Bush, which I adored so I expected to love this book as much. I did enjoy a lot of it. At the beginning, it was really cool to see Hillary and Bill's relationship grow. I enjoyed seeing a young version of Hillary come into her own and see how she became the politician we know today (although a slightly different version).
The beginning of the book was very dialogue heavy and felt like a lot of exposition, but I was willing to look past that because I figured the bulk of the book was going to be after Hilly and Bill broke up, since their break up was the alternate history. But I feel like the further I got into this book, the less I enjoyed it.
After they broke up, it felt like it skimmed Hillary's life. She's sad for a bit and then she works at a university as a law professor, and then all of a sudden she's in her forties and decides to run for senate and the rest of the book is the broad strokes of her political career. And I do mean broad strokes. I never felt like I was close to her, or able to see her life unfold and build to her 2016 presidential campaign. Instead I felt like I got brief moments and then summaries of large scale events, like her entire 2008 campaign against Obama. It lost the character of Hillary and her personality. I didn't feel close to her or like I was seeing her as a person for the second half of the book.
So much of American Wife existed solely as a portrait of the main character and it was gorgeous. I knew this book was very different in terms of story, but I was hoping for that same exploration of the main character. It felt entirely lacking. I don't feel like I walked away from this book knowing Hillary as the main character. I don't feel like this book got much deeper than her current public persona.
For me, the point of an alternate history is to explore the differences that stem from one decision, in this case the breakup. But this book didn't feel like it was doing that. So many events were the same, and I mean exactly the same. Hillary's entire 2008 campaign against Obama was identical. Just straight ripped from reality. She had a slightly different political route and no marriage or kids, but apart from that she seemed like exactly the same person in exactly the same political atmosphere. There are differences to the 2016 election, but those seemed more like jabs at irony than true reimaginings. Like haha, isn't it so funny that she's running against Bill Clinton and he's the billionaire whose crowds chant 'shut her up' at every rally. And isn't it hilarious that Donald Trump endorses her? It didn't feel like a genuine attempt at a 'what if' alternate history so much as a kitschy twist on the 2016 election.
To wrap this up, I'll keep my other issues short. It lacked narrative. Like the point of the story was just the 2016 election and everything else existed to exist. Also this book failed to humanize Hillary but simultaneously failed to criticize her character very much. There were a number of points, specifically around race, that were brought up, but it felt like they were mostly skated around in the narrative. Like at one point, Hillary decides to run against Carol Mosely Braun who was running for Illinois senate in the wake of the Anita Hill testimony. In real life, Braun was the first female African American senator. In the book, Hillary won and lost a close African American friend over it. There could have been an interesting commentary on that, but it felt like every time something like that happened in the book (there were a few occasions), it pulled back just short of actual discussion.
This would didn't feel well thought out. I thought American Wife was a masterpiece of literature and was excited to see Hillary get the same treatment, but this book was lacking. I was so bitterly disappointed because while this book was still just fine (even a decent book), I didn't think it was great and I didn't enjoy it nearly as much as I wanted to. It felt like there was so much opportunity for greatness here and it fell flat every time.
The beginning of the book was very dialogue heavy and felt like a lot of exposition, but I was willing to look past that because I figured the bulk of the book was going to be after Hilly and Bill broke up, since their break up was the alternate history. But I feel like the further I got into this book, the less I enjoyed it.
After they broke up, it felt like it skimmed Hillary's life. She's sad for a bit and then she works at a university as a law professor, and then all of a sudden she's in her forties and decides to run for senate and the rest of the book is the broad strokes of her political career. And I do mean broad strokes. I never felt like I was close to her, or able to see her life unfold and build to her 2016 presidential campaign. Instead I felt like I got brief moments and then summaries of large scale events, like her entire 2008 campaign against Obama. It lost the character of Hillary and her personality. I didn't feel close to her or like I was seeing her as a person for the second half of the book.
So much of American Wife existed solely as a portrait of the main character and it was gorgeous. I knew this book was very different in terms of story, but I was hoping for that same exploration of the main character. It felt entirely lacking. I don't feel like I walked away from this book knowing Hillary as the main character. I don't feel like this book got much deeper than her current public persona.
For me, the point of an alternate history is to explore the differences that stem from one decision, in this case the breakup. But this book didn't feel like it was doing that. So many events were the same, and I mean exactly the same. Hillary's entire 2008 campaign against Obama was identical. Just straight ripped from reality. She had a slightly different political route and no marriage or kids, but apart from that she seemed like exactly the same person in exactly the same political atmosphere. There are differences to the 2016 election, but those seemed more like jabs at irony than true reimaginings. Like haha, isn't it so funny that she's running against Bill Clinton and he's the billionaire whose crowds chant 'shut her up' at every rally. And isn't it hilarious that Donald Trump endorses her? It didn't feel like a genuine attempt at a 'what if' alternate history so much as a kitschy twist on the 2016 election.
To wrap this up, I'll keep my other issues short. It lacked narrative. Like the point of the story was just the 2016 election and everything else existed to exist. Also this book failed to humanize Hillary but simultaneously failed to criticize her character very much. There were a number of points, specifically around race, that were brought up, but it felt like they were mostly skated around in the narrative. Like at one point, Hillary decides to run against Carol Mosely Braun who was running for Illinois senate in the wake of the Anita Hill testimony. In real life, Braun was the first female African American senator. In the book, Hillary won and lost a close African American friend over it. There could have been an interesting commentary on that, but it felt like every time something like that happened in the book (there were a few occasions), it pulled back just short of actual discussion.
This would didn't feel well thought out. I thought American Wife was a masterpiece of literature and was excited to see Hillary get the same treatment, but this book was lacking. I was so bitterly disappointed because while this book was still just fine (even a decent book), I didn't think it was great and I didn't enjoy it nearly as much as I wanted to. It felt like there was so much opportunity for greatness here and it fell flat every time.