Sunday, April 10, 2016

2016 book 66

Anne Tyler's Vinegar Girl
This is the latest in the Hogarth Shakespeare series--where modern writers rework classic Shakespeare plays. I was pretty excited to see Tyler's take on Taming of the Shrew, since it's a play I'm more familiar with. Of course, can any modern adaptation be better than 10 Things I Hate About You? And the answer is no, but this was pretty good anyway. Tyler cleverly modernizes things by making heroine Kate's father try to pressure her into a green card marriage so he can keep his research assistant, though Kate comes off less as prickly and more as maybe on the spectrum. I also wish Tyler hadn't chosen to kind of drop the younger sister's story entirely--I wanted a lot more from the sister relationship here, and disliked everyone constantly talking about how dumb and pretty the younger girl was (she's only fifteen!). But if you take it as it is, it's kind of a sweet book a la the movie Green Card (which is fine, but not nearly as good as 10 Things I Hate About You). I definitely liked this more than the Winter's Tale one. B+.

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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released in June.

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