Vinegar Girl (Hogarth Shakespeare) by Anne Tyler
ISBN: 9780804141260
Paperback, 240 pages
Publisher: Random House
Advanced Reader Copy
About the book (from Amazon):
Pulitzer Prize winner and American master Anne Tyler brings us an inspired, witty and irresistible contemporary take on one of Shakespeare’s most beloved comedies.
Kate Battista feels stuck. How did she end up running house and home for her eccentric scientist father and uppity, pretty younger sister Bunny? Plus, she’s always in trouble at work – her pre-school charges adore her, but their parents don’t always appreciate her unusual opinions and forthright manner.
Dr. Battista has other problems. After years out in the academic wilderness, he is on the verge of a breakthrough. His research could help millions. There’s only one problem: his brilliant young lab assistant, Pyotr, is about to be deported. And without Pyotr, all would be lost.
When Dr. Battista cooks up an outrageous plan that will enable Pyotr to stay in the country, he’s relying – as usual – on Kate to help him. Kate is furious: this time he’s really asking too much. But will she be able to resist the two men’s touchingly ludicrous campaign to bring her around?
About the author (from the back cover):
Anne Tyler is the author of twenty bestselling novels. She was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1941 and grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina. She graduated at nineteen from Duke University and went on to do graduate work in Russian studies at Columbia University. A Spool of Blue Thread, Anne Tyler's New York Times bestselling twentieth novel, was short-listed for the Man Booker Prize; her eleventh novel, Breathing Lessons, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1988. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She lives in Baltimore, Maryland.
More about this Hogarth Shakespeare series (from the inside flap):
For more than four hundred years, Shakespeare's works have been performed, read, and loved throughout the world. They have been reinterpreted for each new generation, whether as teen films, musicals, science-fiction flicks, Japanese warrior tales, or literary transformations.
The Hogarth Press was founded in Virginia and Leonard Woolf in 1917 with a mission to publish the best new writing of the age. In 2012, Hogarth was launched in London and New York to continue the tradition. The Hogarth Shakespeare project sees Shakespeare's works retold by acclaimed and bestselling novelists of today.
My thoughts:
Thankfully, one doesn't have to know Shakespeare's play, The Taming of the Shrew, to understand the book; but it does help. I found it very difficult to get into the book. I haven't read Shakespeare's play but I know the premise and have read many summaries. This is one of my daughter's favorites of Shakespeare so I let her read the book first. She really liked it!
I'll just be right upfront here: I did not like the book. That is until I was mostly done with it. I was trudging through it because 1) I requested it as a review book and it was given to me for free, and 2) dd *really* liked it! So I plugged away and eventually liked the book as well.
We are not supposed to like Kate, and believe me, I didn't! But to be honest, I didn't really care for any of the characters. I mean, what is up with her dad? He is the typical absent-minded professor, er, scientist perhaps. And his assistant is...well, a foreigner. That sounds bad, doesn't it? But really that is how he is painted in the book! He is not up to speed on American English phrases or mannerisms, he blunders a lot, but he really is the most likable character. Kate's sister Bunny is an annoying teen girl with serious self-image issues. I don't think she is as ditzy as she lets on though. No, sir.
So, if you have read the original play, you know that there is a plot to marry off the older daughter. I believe in the play, though, that is because someone also wants to marry off the younger daughter. Well, this is the 21st century and you don't do that with 15 year olds. Bunny is 15 (or is it 16? either way- underage!) and while she is interested in boys, obviously, there is no plot to marry her off. Quite the contrary; her father and Kate both mention that she is too young for much of anything (except her clothes; she's much too old for the clothes she wears).
Kate's dad and his assistant apparently have cooked up a scheme to get the assistant a green card so he can stay in the States to continue the research they have been doing for 3 years. In order to get that green card he would need to be married. Well, Kate isn't doing anything important, so why wouldn't she mind marrying this guy? Right? Makes perfect sense!
The book goes through trivial meetings of Kate and (totally drawing a blank on the guy's name) the assistant, as well as a lot of her being confused by what is going on. But there are also strange little 'insights' of Kate tossed in that we really do not get to fully understand how she, being who she has been painted to be, could have come to those conclusions. They don't logically flow. But the story builds up, you move along with the flow, and you get to the end.
My daughter wrote a paper on this play a few years ago in high school and honestly it intrigued me enough to request this book now to review. In her paper she talked about how critics, modern ones mostly, are often up in arms over this whole marrying off a woman to get further in whatever pursuit a man has. Also in the play, but not really so much the book that I could tell, Kate is picked on to the point that she pretty much breaks down her stubbornness. Many find this disrespectful of women. Eh. Like I keep saying, I haven't read the original play, only this book.
I can imagine that there are those who will have a problem with Kate's treatment (and I should hope the portrayal of Bunny! but maybe not so much that one with the push for teens to read/listen to books that advocate teen s*x- but to be clear, there is nothing so extreme in this book) and the general plot to marry her off to some guy that she herself didn't pick, choose, ask to, or even want to marry of her own free will. To be sure, though, she does marry him of her own free will. She isn't forced.
At the end Kate grows into a much better, likable person. I think, if this were all a real story, even if she didn't marry the guy, she would have grown a lot.
And so, a book that I had to force myself to start reading came out to be a good book worth finishing. Now I really need to read the original play!
I'll just be right upfront here: I did not like the book. That is until I was mostly done with it. I was trudging through it because 1) I requested it as a review book and it was given to me for free, and 2) dd *really* liked it! So I plugged away and eventually liked the book as well.
We are not supposed to like Kate, and believe me, I didn't! But to be honest, I didn't really care for any of the characters. I mean, what is up with her dad? He is the typical absent-minded professor, er, scientist perhaps. And his assistant is...well, a foreigner. That sounds bad, doesn't it? But really that is how he is painted in the book! He is not up to speed on American English phrases or mannerisms, he blunders a lot, but he really is the most likable character. Kate's sister Bunny is an annoying teen girl with serious self-image issues. I don't think she is as ditzy as she lets on though. No, sir.
So, if you have read the original play, you know that there is a plot to marry off the older daughter. I believe in the play, though, that is because someone also wants to marry off the younger daughter. Well, this is the 21st century and you don't do that with 15 year olds. Bunny is 15 (or is it 16? either way- underage!) and while she is interested in boys, obviously, there is no plot to marry her off. Quite the contrary; her father and Kate both mention that she is too young for much of anything (except her clothes; she's much too old for the clothes she wears).
Kate's dad and his assistant apparently have cooked up a scheme to get the assistant a green card so he can stay in the States to continue the research they have been doing for 3 years. In order to get that green card he would need to be married. Well, Kate isn't doing anything important, so why wouldn't she mind marrying this guy? Right? Makes perfect sense!
The book goes through trivial meetings of Kate and (totally drawing a blank on the guy's name) the assistant, as well as a lot of her being confused by what is going on. But there are also strange little 'insights' of Kate tossed in that we really do not get to fully understand how she, being who she has been painted to be, could have come to those conclusions. They don't logically flow. But the story builds up, you move along with the flow, and you get to the end.
My daughter wrote a paper on this play a few years ago in high school and honestly it intrigued me enough to request this book now to review. In her paper she talked about how critics, modern ones mostly, are often up in arms over this whole marrying off a woman to get further in whatever pursuit a man has. Also in the play, but not really so much the book that I could tell, Kate is picked on to the point that she pretty much breaks down her stubbornness. Many find this disrespectful of women. Eh. Like I keep saying, I haven't read the original play, only this book.
I can imagine that there are those who will have a problem with Kate's treatment (and I should hope the portrayal of Bunny! but maybe not so much that one with the push for teens to read/listen to books that advocate teen s*x- but to be clear, there is nothing so extreme in this book) and the general plot to marry her off to some guy that she herself didn't pick, choose, ask to, or even want to marry of her own free will. To be sure, though, she does marry him of her own free will. She isn't forced.
At the end Kate grows into a much better, likable person. I think, if this were all a real story, even if she didn't marry the guy, she would have grown a lot.
And so, a book that I had to force myself to start reading came out to be a good book worth finishing. Now I really need to read the original play!
***Disclaimer: I freely received an Advanced Reader Copy from the Blogging for Books program for the express purpose of an honest review. All opinions are my own; I am never required to give only a positive review. See Disclosure/Policies.***
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