[CNB]⇒ [PDF] Vinegar Girl A Novel Hogarth Shakespeare Anne Tyler 9780804141260 Books

Vinegar Girl A Novel Hogarth Shakespeare Anne Tyler 9780804141260 Books

Download As PDF : Vinegar Girl A Novel Hogarth Shakespeare Anne Tyler 9780804141260 Books

Vinegar Girl A Novel Hogarth Shakespeare Anne Tyler 9780804141260 Books

Vinegar Girl is a retelling of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew. In this version, we meet Kate Battista, who is in her late twenties, never married and taking care of her unappreciative widowed father and teenage sister. She’s discouraged with her life and doesn’t see things improving for herself any time soon. When her father approaches her with a ludicrous suggestion, Kate is angry and indignant. But a series of circumstances has Kate reconsidering Dr. Battista’s offer.

Vinegar Girl is a book that’s full of quirky characters that at first drew me in with their wacky behavior and oddball idiosyncrasies. It’s a fairly short read and the storyline was engaging for the most part. The author’s style of writing was compelling enough for me to breeze through the book quickly.

I had some trouble connecting with Kate’s character. She was far too wishy-washy for my taste. She allowed herself to be swayed this way and that, and I found myself wanting her to stand up for herself more. In contrast, Bunny, who is just fifteen and considered an “airhead”, had the backbone and guts to speak her mind throughout the book. As far as Dr. Battista went, there’s absentmindedness and forgetfulness, and then there’s selfishness and thoughtlessness. The doctor bordered on the latter in my opinion. Pyotr’s character (whose name troubled me throughout…I’m still not sure how it’s pronounced) started off as being charming and likable, but along the way he turned a nasty switch, which dropped my opinion of him several notches.

There was one passage where Kate gives an impromptu speech about how difficult it is to be a man. This just didn’t ring true to me. I found it fake and ridiculous. This was a woman who’d been pretty much ignored and unappreciated by men all her life and she’s suddenly compelled to come to their defense. There were a few times where Pyotr was downright rude to Kate, so I really could have done without her speech by then.

I think the reason for the abrupt character changes was because the book was shorter than it could have been. It didn’t give me a feeling that the characters were as developed as they might have been in a longer book. It felt rushed and the character development suffered because of it.

Having said all of this, I do have to say that Vinegar Girl was funny here and there, and I found myself laughing out loud a few times while reading. Anne Tyler is clearly a skilled storyteller, but I’d venture to say that this might not be one of her best works. Yet, I would still recommend giving it a try. It was a good way to pass a couple or so hours. Therefore, I’d give it a three and a half star rating.

eBook Review Gal received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.


Tags : Vinegar Girl: A Novel (Hogarth Shakespeare) [Anne Tyler] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. <b>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.</b>   Kate Battista feels stuck. How did she end up running house and home for her eccentric scientist father and uppity,Anne Tyler,Vinegar Girl: A Novel (Hogarth Shakespeare),Hogarth,0804141266,Father-daughter relationship;Fiction.,Man-woman relationship;Fiction.,Man-woman relationships,Married people,Sex role,Contemporary Women,FICTION Humorous General,FICTION Literary,FICTION Women,Fiction,Fiction - General,Fiction-Humorous,FictionContemporary Women,FictionHumorous - General,GENERAL,General Adult,Humorous - General,Literary,Monograph Series, any,TYLER, ANNE - PROSE & CRITICISM,United States,William Shakespeare;Shakespeare;classic;the classics;drama;retelling;series;Hogarth Shakespeare series;Baltimore;family life;father daughter;marriage;arranged marriage;scientist;Kate;reinvention;visa;immigration;research;award winning books 2017;literary fiction;classic books;gifts for women;funny books;funny gifts;fiction;fiction books;gifts for her;classics;humor;women;classic literature;humor books;women gifts;literature;humorous books;satire;satire fiction;contemporary;contemporary fiction

Vinegar Girl A Novel Hogarth Shakespeare Anne Tyler 9780804141260 Books Reviews

What a charming, quirky story. Tyler is again writing about a family, but such a different family from the others she'd written previously. Kate, the "Vinegar Girl", grew up too quickly. Her mother died when she was young and her father is totally consumed with his inventions, staying in his lab most of the time. Kate dropped out of college to oversee and help raise her much younger sister in their childhood home. A no-nonsense person, Kate became an assistant at a school when her sister was old enough to be by herself. Her manner is straight forward and quiet, though some people might think she is a bit gruff. She is often on the fringes and not particularly comfortable with others. At the same time we are privy to her thoughts and feelings about people around her. This book quickly picked up when her father's lab assistant Pyator who had been in the US for about 3 years. He "happened" to come behind her one morning when she was out walking home. They seemed to talk easily with each other and led to a friendship between them - pleasing both of them. The story became much more interesting from that point on as we view the growth of each of them.
This book seemed shorter than the other books I'd read by Tyler. I was a little sorry that it ended so soon, but the story was complete. What a fun read! It was easy to imagine these people - and what characters!
I love the concept of the Hogarth Shakespeare series. Ask a bunch of veteran authors to write adaptations of Shakespeare plays in book form. Vinegar Girl is the adaptation of Taming of the Shrew. It took a while for me to get into. I didn’t particularly like it, until Pyotr (the Petruchio character) showed up. In this version he is a brilliant immuno-biologist from Russia working as a research assistant for Kate’s father (a professor at Johns Hopkins) who is having visa issues. As an outsider struggling to fit in, he and Kate find common ground. Taming of the Shrew is probably my favorite Shakespeare play, but it doesn’t work very well when told from a modern view point. In this adaptation, however, the whole thing gels surprisingly well.
Anne Tyler seems incapable of writing a bad book. The Vinegar Girl proves she CAN write a mediocre one. Still, even mediocre Tyler is better than so many others' best, which is why I gave it three stars. The first half of the novel is a slog, but it does pick up. Maybe the problem is that Kate is not really a shrew, just aimless and unhappily buried in obligations to her father and sister. I found it hard to believe that an intelligent woman who had not done something unforgiveable would submit to such a penitential life. The second half is fast, funny, and much more fun. Still, this project was a mistake. If I had borrowed it from the library, it would have been okay. Since I preordered the version out of loyalty to one of my favorite authors, I was disappointed.
I have loved Anne Tyler's work from the first of her books I read. I've read a score of them now, but this time I'm reading Vinegar Girl to my mother who has Alzheimer's. She has loved Anne Tyler as long as I have, but this is the first time she has listened, instead of reading the book herself. I confess that it has been a bittersweet experience, but we pause to laugh, to compare this book to our memories of The Taming of the Shrew in the many performances we have each seen, and we both know how special this experience is. Sometimes I re-read a chapter because she has forgotten how Kate and Pyoter ended up planning a wedding, and we laugh and pause to discuss memories of our own family foibles and celebrations. I know this is not a review I am writing; that would be far different, filled with praise for her skills as a fiction writer. Oh, yes, the book is wonderful. But my gratitude is for a history of Tyler books and for the way this book, which will be our last together, has been the best.
Vinegar Girl is a retelling of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew. In this version, we meet Kate Battista, who is in her late twenties, never married and taking care of her unappreciative widowed father and teenage sister. She’s discouraged with her life and doesn’t see things improving for herself any time soon. When her father approaches her with a ludicrous suggestion, Kate is angry and indignant. But a series of circumstances has Kate reconsidering Dr. Battista’s offer.

Vinegar Girl is a book that’s full of quirky characters that at first drew me in with their wacky behavior and oddball idiosyncrasies. It’s a fairly short read and the storyline was engaging for the most part. The author’s style of writing was compelling enough for me to breeze through the book quickly.

I had some trouble connecting with Kate’s character. She was far too wishy-washy for my taste. She allowed herself to be swayed this way and that, and I found myself wanting her to stand up for herself more. In contrast, Bunny, who is just fifteen and considered an “airhead”, had the backbone and guts to speak her mind throughout the book. As far as Dr. Battista went, there’s absentmindedness and forgetfulness, and then there’s selfishness and thoughtlessness. The doctor bordered on the latter in my opinion. Pyotr’s character (whose name troubled me throughout…I’m still not sure how it’s pronounced) started off as being charming and likable, but along the way he turned a nasty switch, which dropped my opinion of him several notches.

There was one passage where Kate gives an impromptu speech about how difficult it is to be a man. This just didn’t ring true to me. I found it fake and ridiculous. This was a woman who’d been pretty much ignored and unappreciated by men all her life and she’s suddenly compelled to come to their defense. There were a few times where Pyotr was downright rude to Kate, so I really could have done without her speech by then.

I think the reason for the abrupt character changes was because the book was shorter than it could have been. It didn’t give me a feeling that the characters were as developed as they might have been in a longer book. It felt rushed and the character development suffered because of it.

Having said all of this, I do have to say that Vinegar Girl was funny here and there, and I found myself laughing out loud a few times while reading. Anne Tyler is clearly a skilled storyteller, but I’d venture to say that this might not be one of her best works. Yet, I would still recommend giving it a try. It was a good way to pass a couple or so hours. Therefore, I’d give it a three and a half star rating.

eBook Review Gal received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.