The Little Book with the Chic Lit Title

Confessions of a Readaholic:

I picked up The Man of My Dreams last week to read in between my Literary Society reading and GRE studying as kind of an entertainment break.  About ten pages into it I was like, I think I've read this before.  

Yep.

I'm getting old.  And possibly suffering from early onset Alzheimer's, but I re-read it anyways because I love Curtis Sittenfield's writing.

I have probably done a book review on it before, too, who knows!  But here we go again.

The Man of My Dreams by Curtis Sittenfield

With the exception of American Wife, Sittenfield's protagonists are young girls who are introspective and analytical to the point of being almost unlikeable.  Similar in some ways to her first book, Prep, this book centers around Hannah as a fourteen year old girl who is weathering the storm of her parents' divorce.  The book follows her through college and into her early twenties as she navigates the challenges of growing up and trying to figure out complicated relationships, especially those with boys.

Although Hannah is not entirely likeable, she is not entirely unlikeable either, and I appreciate her complexity and how deeply Sittenfield digs into her head and shows us what she is thinking and how her thoughts are affecting her actions.  We do this so much in our own heads that it is a pleasant (interesting) escape to get into someone else's head for a while.

Sittenfield's writing is dead-on, just superb.  I think I have mentioned before that she is one of my favorite authors.  She has such a subtle (natural?) way of writing descriptions and dialogue that capture the nuances of real life, how people really think and really talk to each other:

"Allison says, 'You know what I was kind of thinking about while I was asleep?  Remember the Mexican restaurant we used to get that seven-layer salad from?  Mom would pick it up for us if she and Dad were going to a dinner party or something, but actually in no way was it a salad - it was like sour cream on top of cheese on top of beef on top of guacamole.'

At the same time, Hannah says, 'Yeah, that was good,' and Allison says, 'It's amazing how unhealthily we ate when we were little.'

'It did have lettuce,' Hannah says.

'Barely.  And that beef was nasty.  I can't believe I ever ate meat.'  Allison and Sam now eat almost exclusively organic food, and this, Hannah realizes, must be the subtext of Allison's comments - the miracle of her growing up to be such a wise and authentic person in spite of a childhood spent chowing on pesticides and hydrogenated oils.  There are products Hannah didn't even know you could by organic versions of until she saw them in Allison and Sam's apartment: ketchup, say, or pasta."

Not to get all Fem Nazi or anything, but it is nice to read such deep descriptions of female thinking.  It is not all puppies and sunshine and period cramps and which purse should I take with me today.  Hannah's thoughts are often negative and scathing, but are also genuinely curious, as objective as one can be as an individual, and she's so earnest.  Sittenfield has commented in interviews that readers and reporters often say things like, "Yes, the protagonist is clearly smart, but is she pretty?"  or, "Isn't it disturbing that a girl would think such things?"  Sittenfield says that no one would ask such questions of a male character, and I think she's right, and it is somewhat disappointing that this pseudo-sexist paradigm is still an undercurrent in our society.

I would recommend this book as an easy and entertaining read that will also make you think.  I would use bigger and more descriptive vocab words from my GRE studying, but I can't remember any of them and need to go get donuts now.

Happy Reading!

{It is worth noting that 99% of the pictures I put on this blog, unless otherwise cited, are my own via Instagram.  Always with the Instagram.}