The Man of My Dreams

I just finished reading The Man of My Dreams by Curtis Sittenfeld. I thought it was going to be one of those light breezy chick-lit reads, but it wasn’t. When I first started to read this book, I couldn’t decide if I liked it or not. I guess since I was expecting it to be a chick-lit novel, I was at first disappointed by it and then the more I read it the more I really disliked the book. But I decided to stick with the book and read it to the end.

I still can’t decide if I liked this book or not. The book is about a character named Hannah, and it follows her through critical years of her life - first as a teenager, then in college, and then in her early 20’s. Hannah is very critical of those around her and has a very sour outlook on life. The more and more I read this book; the more I hated Hannah and everything that she represented. I finally realized why I didn’t like Hannah – she reminds me of me.

I’m not as bitter as Hannah is (or at least I hope I don’t come off like that) and I hope that I’m not as critical as she is, but there are parts of her that I could really relate to. Hannah is definitely a Debbie Downer and has such a hard time looking at things from other people’s perspective, which I know I tend to do a lot. I tend to look at the world in my own eyes without really thinking about someone else’s perspective. She is very insecure and questions everything about herself and questions the motives of those around her. During those parts, I wanted to gauge my eyes out because it got really repetitive, but was also very realistic to a person’s train of thought. I know that I have my bouts where I question myself and question those around me, but I felt Hannah was so extreme about it. She can’t accept simple gestures and when people are being nice to her. It got extremely annoying.

So not sure how I would rate this book. It’s definitely not chick-lit though.