Ash's Reviews > Rodham

This book was the perfect storm of a two-star read. There were plenty of things I liked about it in theory, but put together, I was extremely underwhelmed. It took me nearly a year to finish this book because I kept putting it down, entering a deep reading slump during which I read nothing for months, picking it back up, reading less than a chapter, and repeating the cycle.

I was intrigued by the concept of this book: an alternate political history where Hillary doesn’t marry Bill Clinton. I went in wanting to read that story. So I was disappointed that the first third of the book was all about Hillary’s relationship with Bill, their whirlwind romance and eventual breakup. I will admit, in the beginning, I actually enjoyed some aspects of the romance between Hillary and Bill, which I never would have expected. But by the time they’d fallen in love, I was deeply bored and ready to move on. I put the book down several times, entering months-long reading slumps in between, before doing something I never do: I skimmed.

Normally, if I find myself skimming through parts of a book, it’s an automatic DNF. But I wanted to give this book one chance to redeem itself by getting to the end of Hillary’s relationship with Bill and into the actual alternate history part. There was a time skip to the 90s that disappointingly focused far more on Hillary’s (view spoiler)[affair with a married coworker (hide spoiler)] than the start of her political career. Her entire Senate campaign was glossed over in a few paragraphs. Does Sittenfeld think people picking up a book about Hillary Clinton don’t want to read about politics? That’s exactly what I want to read about!

The second half of the book focused on Hillary’s Senate career and presidential campaign, and finally we got some actual politics. I wish the first half of the book had been majorly condensed and the rest had focused on this. Unfortunately that wasn’t the case, so by the time I started enjoying the book, it felt like a consolation prize. And although I enjoyed the content far more in the second half, I had an issue with the writing style throughout the entire book, which often felt more like reading Hillary’s diary than reading a book about her, complete with boring extraneous details that bogged down the story.

In addition to the political focus of the second half, I thoroughly loved the way Sittenfeld wrote Hillary’s voice. Her experiences as a woman in the legal field and, later, a woman in politics were very well-written. The related feminist themes were also explored well, woven into the narrative seamlessly. I never felt lectured to. The book touched on race as well, though far less. The things I liked about this book were enough to convince me that it had so much potential, but it needed to go through at least a few more drafts. Cut out much of the first half, trim down the unnecessary details, focus in on the politics, and it could have been at least a four-star read.