Friday, March 25, 2016

better than the original

Vinegar Girl by Anne Tyler
Rating: 4 stars (out of 5)
Genre: fiction
Review: Knowing that Vinegar Girl was a "modern re-telling" of Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew, I made the mistake of reading the play so that I would be able to understand the allegory.  Never mind that Shakespeare should not be held to a modern-day standard when it comes to something like gender equality (feminism is much too strong a word to even wave in the direction of The Taming of the Shrew), but the play doesn't even make sense.  What is the point of Christopher Sly, and why do people keep using fake names?  Fortunately, Anne Tyler had the good sense to leave those parts out, not to mention making her characters human and sympathetic, in further contrast to the original.

FTC Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher in exchange for this review.