Review: American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld

Goodreads: From her husband's desk in the Oval Office, Alice Blackwell can contemplate the deep incronguities of her own life. How, for example, did a quiet, bookish girl from small-town Wisconsin become involved with the gregarious, charismatic Charlie Blackwell? Their politics, their backgrounds couldn't have been more different: Charlie was the carefree even boisterous son of a wealthy Republican family; she was a registered Democrat who paid her bills with the modest salary of a school librarian. Nothing had trained her for her job as a First Lady and certainly nothing had prepared her for the painful controversies of her husband's second term.

Kritters Thoughts: An interesting read that after a day of reflection, I still find myself not absolutely enjoying this book. A piece of fiction loosely based on Laura Bush's life, but at times felt not so loose and not so fiction.

A story of a woman from a small town who ends up married to the President of the United States. In her younger years, she causes an accident killing a classmate and has an abortion at a very young age. While her future mate is working for the family company and drinking away his days. They meet, fall in love and marriage follows soon after. Unlike the Bush family, they have a child quickly. Although like the Bushs, he purchases a baseball team, leaves the family business and then gets into politics.

For my thoughts - this is the first time I have read a book that is loosely based on a real person and I have read her biography. If I pitted the two books against each other, I would hand her biography off to anyone I passed. I guess I am just not a fan of books where I am unsure as to whether it truly happened to the person. I either want true fiction or true story.

Rating:enjoyable but didn't leave me wanting more

Pages: 555

Cover Challenge April-June: United Nations