After slowly reading this one for a few months, I am 60% through and putting it down for good. While it was really interesting to see where Sittenfeld pictured Hillary without Bill, that is the only thing that kept me going. I just wanted to know how to it would end, but the process of getting there was too slow for me. It was well researched and I kept having to remind myself it was fiction. Especially during the very graphic sex scenes. I feel like Hillary and Bill are my grandparents and I don't need to picture them having sex. I really think a lot of people will enjoy this read, but it just wasn't for me.

I misheard the premise of this book. I thought it was supposed to be the story of Hillary without Bill so imagine my surprise when he appeared almost immediately! It took me a bit to adjust my expectations and I did not particularly like the young Hillary. I am glad I stuck with it because I flew through the second half of the book. I can see how the first half set the scene for who Hillary becomes. I really loved some of the twists Sittenfeld puts into this alternate political universe. It was fun to see which political figures she raised up and who got put in their place!

Well, I'll give you this: Rodham is one of my most-highlighted books of the year.

Overall: Rodham gets a lot right. But I also felt like some real life moments or lines were needlessly shoehorned in, and that kept me from entirely loving it. And I found the ending anti-climactic.

I found reading about Hill and Bill's relationship painful. I never compared an ex of mine to Bill before reading Rodham, but from Hillary's conflicted feelings to the relationship's painful aftermath... it just felt so visceral. And that's a breakup I stopped reliving in my head two years ago! Alas, Sittenfeld brought it right on back.

I also felt that she so deftly described what it might be like to be a "career woman" at the time, and then one who enters politics.

And yet: That's why I was so disappointed by moments when it felt like things were forced, and when the ending was sort of "meh" - because in so many places throughout the book, Sittenfeld displays that she's better than that. She has the chops, but things just...fell short for me a few times throughout. (I do wonder if she was on deadline, and those parts received less attention, or if an editor encouraged her to add some of the more extraneous "real life" stuff in.)

A fine fictionalized account of Hillary Rodham's life, but not the 5-star read I was expecting. (Of course, it may be for you!)

An alternate narrative as to what would have happened if Hillary never married Bill? Color me intrigued.

I will say, it's a bit difficult to read an alternate version of something you lived through when the character's names have not been changed - it's hard to separate this story from fan fiction and to not feel "icky" about some moments when the real people have been prominent figures in your country. All that aside, Rodham was thoroughly enjoyable - and made me wistful for the way things could be right now.

Sittenfeld is a wonderful writer and Rodham is definitely proof of this. Was it a favorite for me? No. Am I glad I read it? Absolutely.

I've seen some mixed opinions on this book, and while it's not without its faults, personally I really enjoyed reading it. As someone who's read two of Hillary Clinton's memoirs, I think Sittenfeld perfectly captured her logical, matter-of-fact voice in this book (as well as her relentless commitment to service--one of the reasons I greatly admire her). Is it wish fulfillment? Certainly, Do I mind that? Not one bit. I will say, however, that if you weren't a big fan of Bill Clinton going into this book, his characterization will leave you feeling even more unfavorable of him. If you enjoyed this book or simply felt intrigued by it, I highly recommend watching Hulu's 4-part documentary on Hillary Clinton. It serves as an interesting contrast to certain parts of RODHAM, and it definitely helped me to analyze it more critically. Nonetheless, I still enjoyed it for what it is: a work of fiction.

Brilliant read by the impeccable Curtis Sittenfeld. If you like Hilary you will love this book and if you dislike Hilary you will love this book. Five star read. Beautifully written with generous prose and characters you can see, hear and know.

Disclaimer: The election year of 2016 is going to be something I will be sad and mad about forever.

In Rodham, Curtis Sittenfeld writes alternate history and gives us an alternate present: what if Hillary Clinton hadn't married Bill Clinton?

I wasn't sure entirely what to expect of this book, but the premise intrigued me. Sittenfeld always succeeds at making her characters very human, flawed and fierce. Hillary Rodham is no different. She's full of self-doubt and internal drive. At times, especially early on, it's easy to forget that this is fiction and not a memoir, what might exist if Hillary Clinton was ever allowed to be completely candid. The story takes us on a path down a different set of modern US Presidents, a different historic feminist rise in politics for Hillary.

The first half of this story was much more appealing than the second half. I loved the early relationship between Hillary and Bill, knowing this book was going to take them on different paths. The second half, set closer to now, introduces Donald Trump, the only character that felt unreal to me. Knowing what happened in this timeline makes this theoretical one like a a car wreck in progress -- I found myself bracing for impact. A series of events unfold that felt both rushed and implausible close the story and make the novel's different path of history feel a bit less lived in than I was anticipating after the gorgeous first half of the story. 

This book is really fun, though, and a quick read. The writing is golden and the characters are compelling. I'd be friends with this Hillary. Truthfully, I'd read an entire book where Curtis Sittenfeld explains how and why this book happened. In fact, I'm always interested in the next thing that Sittenfeld comes up with, whether it's veiled (thinly, in this case) historical fiction, updated takes on classic literature, short stories, or whatever else. If you enjoyed this book you should absolutely check out more of her work.

This book was a huge miss for me. I was really uncomfortable with the personal liberties the author took with the life of a living, breathing person. I really did NOT need to read about Bill and Hillary's sex life and, at the end of the day, the book still revolved around Hillary's relationship with Bill, even to the point where she considered giving up her presidential run for him. It seems the aim to present a life where Hillary's future was reimagined without Bill was not at all fulfilled, which was a big disappointment. The fact I finished this book is an accomplishment (?), because I was ready to give up fairly early on.

Thank you Random House for the free book. In Rodham, Curtis Sittenfeld imagines an alternate future so mind-bending, when you finish you may or may not want to get bent back again.

The 2016 presidential election will go down in history as one of the most bizarre displays of politics to ever hit the American national stage. When billionaire turned reality TV star Donald Trump won the election, Hillary Clinton supporters were in tears after their hopes of witnessing the first woman President elected were dashed. In an attempt to rewrite history, Curtis Sittenfeld offers up her new novel Rodham as solace to those who threw their support behind the former first lady. But there's a plot twist, because in Sittenfeld's Rodham, Hillary never marries Bill Clinton, and history is forever changed.

Weaving factual events with vivid re-imagination, Sittenfeld takes readers through Hillary's early days with Bill, chronicling their dates, vacations, and numerous sexual encounters. But when Bill proposes, Hillary says "no," and that's where Rodham deviates from the well-known script of Hillary Clinton's life. Just how would the world and political scene be if Hillary Rodham hadn't married Bill Clinton? Well, vastly different according to Sittenfeld.

Rodham is admittedly, a strange book to read, being that Hillary Clinton is very much alive and still married to her husband Bill Clinton. Thus this novel often feels like fan fiction and serves more to soothe the souls of anyone still mourning the loss of a Clinton presidency of the female variety, rather than to provide any real insight into Hillary's personal life. While the early chapters were rather interesting, sticking close to fact and re-imagining Hillary and Bill's private moments, the novel becomes tedious once Hillary decides not to go down that road with Bill, instead forging out on her own and making her own destiny. From there, the novel is strictly political, and may be a bore to anyone without an invested interest in politics. For those that enjoy that sort of thing, and especially those who wanted to see Hillary in the highest office in the nation, this novel is good at best. Thought-provoking and inventive, Rodham asks the "what if" questions, but reads as a flattering, albeit heavily-biased, portrayal of the woman who was almost President.

Rodham has Curtis Sittenfeld's signature writing style that perfectly captures the awkward reality of being a human but it just misses the mark. Sittenfeld is a favorite author for me but it was hard to read about a real-life public figure that I admire being fictionalized and even accepting an endorsement from Donald Trump. It seems like this is being marketed more as an escapist book but that did not help me escape. I enjoyed this book for it's entertainment value and found some of the sections to be poignant and reflective. But I think this book could have had a bigger impact if it was written more in the vein of American Wife.

Speculative fiction is one of my favorite sub-genres and Sittenfeld’s latest book plays around with the idea of what Hillary Rodham’s life would look like had she not married Bill Clinton. Throughout the book, I had to keep reminding myself that this was fiction and not a memoir. Sittenfeld wrote Hillary’s character with such depth that it totally had that tell-all feel to it. I enjoyed the feminist issues that carried throughout the story – how women candidates are criticized far more than their male counterparts, how a man’s past isn’t nearly as detrimental to his political aspirations as a woman’s is, and how quickly women can be vilified in the media if they don’t properly conform to society’s expectations. I felt like there were parts of the book that drug on a little unnecessarily so, and I was a little disappointed that Bill Clinton continually showed up throughout the book. That particular part of the story started distracting the overall message and felt a little forced to me. Overall, an immersive and satisfying read – perfect for your summer beach bag!

I love Curtis Sittenfeld and have enjoyed all of her other books I have read. I breezed through Rodham but wished that she had told the story a little differently. Why did we need the Trump character, why couldnt we make it really fictional and find another way to tell Hillary's story.

Rodham offer an intriguing look at an alternative future for HRC. Imagine a world where Jerry Brown and John McCain are president, where Hillary's unlikely ally is a fake billionaire/tv huckster and Bill is called to the carpet for indiscretions. With seamless voice, we accompany Hillary on her quest to become the first woman president.

Rodham was one of my most anticipated releases of the year and there were things that I both enjoyed and didn't like about this one.

The premise of this one is so interesting: what would Hillary Clinton's life look like if she hadn't married Bill Clinton? Sittenfeld takes the reader from the time that Hillary is in her first year at Yale Law School (where she meets Bill) up until the 2016 presidential election.

I struggled with the first-person narrative in Rodham. It felt strange to be reading a first-person POV fictional story from a public figure who is still alive and is still very much active. Also, the sex scenes between Bill and Hillary! They felt like reading about your parents or grandparents (yikes).

However, the second half of this story redeemed it for me. I really enjoyed the story once Hillary and Bill split up and the history diverged from reality. I thought Sittenfeld did a good job of sharing the injustices that women in power face, the expectations, the comments, etc. It was inspiring to see a version of the 2016 election where our current president did not win. But Sittenfeld doesn't gloss over the negative parts of politics or the history that Hillary has with questionable decisions in the name of her campaign. While these fictional events were different from what happened, she still was able to show the complexity of Hillary's character and the decisions and lengths she was willing to go to to obtain a historic moment.

Overall, this book was highly readable and there is SO much to talk about! While it wasn't my favorite Sittenfeld book I'd still recommend it because it's pretty fun to reimagine history and then talk with everyone you know about it!

What if Hillary Rodham had never married Bill Clinton? That’s the question Curtis Sittenfeld poses in her latest novel “Rodham.” The author, who wrote about Laura Bush in “American Wife,” begins her novel in 1971 when Life magazine covers Rodham’s Wellesley commencement speech. Later, she attends Yale Law School, and meets and dates Bill Clinton. The author changes history by having Hilary reject Bill’s marriage proposal. Instead, she builds her own political future without him.
Sittenfeld seamlessly blends facts with fiction, managing to give us a greater understanding of Hilary and the political arena.
“

http://www.everydayiwritethebookblog.com/2020/05/rodham-by-curtis-sittenfeld/

Hillary Rodham Clinton is one of the most scrutinized, analyzed and discussed public figures in the world. Most of us are pretty familiar with her narrative at this point, from her Yale Law School days through her years in Arkansas when Bill Clinton was governor, her 8 years as First Lady, and then her post-White House career as senator from New York, Secretary of State, and candidate for U.S. President. But what if that narrative had taken a very different turn? What if Hillary had turned down Bill’s multiple marriage proposals? How would her career have turned out? Would she have run for office, and would she have won? This is the subject of Curtis Sittenfeld’s latest novel, Rodham.

I liked Rodham and found it engaging and thought-provoking. Sittenfeld is a master storyteller, and she doesn’t disappoint in this latest book. There’s a lot to unpack here – Hillary’s relationship with Bill, the origins of her public service career, the misogyny she has faced from the beginning of her professional life. The book is very sympathetic to Hillary, offering her perspective on some of the statements that have dogged her for years (remember the “home baking cookies” comment?) and expressing her own confusion over why she often provoked such enmity. And of course, it’s interesting to think about the ways in which our history would have changed if Hillary hadn’t taken the path she had: the elections she would have fun for, the offices she could have held, the presidencies (ahem!) she could have prevented. I had to remind myself often of Sittenfeld’s timeline, replacing history in my mind with this new fact pattern.

I did have a few issues with Rodham First, I am not sure Sittenfeld sufficiently made the case for why Hillary was so polarizing beyond just being an accomplished, smart woman. Without Whitewater, her failed health care reform and the scandal of Bill’s presidency, the foundation for why she was so hated by the time she ran for president was a little shaky. Second, I think Bill gets a raw deal here. (This Bill is pretty awful.) I mean, the man has flaws, but there were some great things about Bill Clinton. And finally, Trump plays a role here too – not the one he’s in now, thank god, but one that felt inconsistent with the rest of the book. (Sittenfeld does portray him pretty accurately, though.)

Overall, Rodham was a very good read. It kept my attention and I’ve been thinking about it a lot since I finished it. I will read anything Sittenfeld writes, but I did seek this one out and was particularly excited to read it. It’s well-researched and never boring. And it will certainly get you riled up by the end, angry at the way women are treated in politics, the double standards and the extra hoops women jump through that men don’t even think about.

Wonderful book. I reviewed it for The Boston Globe here: https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/05/14/arts/new-novel-rodham-imagines-hillary-without-bill/

There are few literary questions I find more engaging than “What if?” I’ve always been drawn to narratives that offer a glimpse at an alternative version of our world, guessing at what might have been had something – anything, really – been different.

These questions tend to be more the purview of speculative fiction, but sometimes become devices used in the telling of altogether different kinds of stories.

That’s the category in which “Rodham,” the latest from bestselling author Curtis Sittenfeld, falls, a book that asks and answers a singular question:

What if Hillary Rodham never married Bill Clinton?

From this fundamental premise, a complex and inventive narrative unfolds, spread over three time periods – the early ‘70s, the early ‘90s and the 2016 presidential campaign – following the career of Hillary Rodham as she works her way through the American political landscape of the last half-century. Sittenfeld offers a portrait of a political life unlived, one that paints an engaging and sometimes surprising picture of what might have been.

We start with Hillary’s graduation from Wellesley in 1969. At the time, her speech at commencement – the first-ever by a student at the school – received a good deal of attention, including national coverage. We follow her to Yale Law School, where she carves out a niche for herself as one of the brightest minds at the institution, though many of her peers and professors still carried some less-than-enlightened views regards a woman’s capabilities.

It was there that she met and fell for a young man in the year behind her, a genial Southern charmer by the name of Bill Clinton. His combination of good looks, brains and aw-shucks charisma made him an object of much desire, but to Hillary’s surprise, he seeks to be with her. Their relationship is impassioned and stimulating, with each confessing their ambitions to the other (Bill’s in particular were grand goals). As a couple, their future seemed to be unlimited.

She followed him to Arkansas, where he sought to begin his political career, taking a teaching job at the University of Arkansas law school. In their time there, he proposed several times, with Hillary putting him off. And here we have our point of divergence: instead of eventually accepting Bill’s proposal and wedding him, she embraces her doubts and breaks off their relationship.

From there, a new and different path unfolds in front of Hillary Rodham. It’s a path that sees plenty of similarities – time in the Senate, presidential campaigns, etc. – but numerous differences as well … and not just for her. The changes wrought by that one decision reverberate throughout a significant portion of American history, a near-half-century that puts some familiar figures in unfamiliar places (including a few that are VERY unfamiliar).

And in the midst of it all is Hillary Rodham, a woman who is building a career – and living a life – that is undeniably her own.

“Rodham” is an interesting reading experience. This version of Hillary Rodham serves as the narrator of her own story; Sittenfeld endows her with a distinct voice, one consistent with what we know of her life but also very much its own. Hillary as character is certainly engaging, with an inner life defined largely by her devotion to the law and public service. All in all, this version of Hillary feels plausible, meaning that “Rodham” clears the most onerous obstacle to its success.

What Sittenfeld has created is essentially an alternative rendering of American history. The ripple effects of Hillary refusing Bill’s proposal are wide-ranging, leaving a number of important political figures to land in very different positions; one of the things we get during the jump from the early ‘90s to 2015 is a listing of U.S. Presidents and Vice Presidents from 1988 through 2012 – a listing that bears some significant differences from our own. All of it through the eyes of a person with the intelligence and savvy to offer a compelling view of it all.

This isn’t Sittenfeld’s first go-round in imagining the interior life of a prominent American political figure, having offered up a fictionalized take on Laura Bush in 2008’s “American Wife,” though this one benefits from eschewing the cosmetic changes and embracing Hillary as a real person. Sittenfeld’s Hillary is smart and observant, a good person with good intentions who is also a cunning political animal that occasionally succumbs to cynicism. And the history that unfolds along the way is well-constructed and thoroughly thought out; every shift makes sense in the grander scheme, both in terms of the individuals involved and the overall political structure.

It doesn’t hurt that Sittenfeld can put together some gorgeous sentences, exquisitely evoking the internal self-policing that comes part and parcel with being a powerful woman; she finds the words for the delicate dance on the wire, where one side is “shrill” and the other “slut.”

Now, “Rodham” might not be as immersive as it could be. At times, it feels as though the two big pieces of the book – Hillary as an individual and the world in which she operates – just miss connecting. Both are strong when viewed on their own, but there are definitely some connective misses. It’s also worth noting that while Sittenfeld’s explorations of Hillary’s personal life are engaging for sure, they don’t always connect to the larger picture as cleanly or clearly as they might.

It’s interesting to see the speculative “What if?” being addressed in this way, with the sort of literary sophistication that you don’t always get from alternative history – particularly when dealing with real-life figures with whom we have a longstanding familiarity. Yes, “Rodham” has its issues, but they are largely outweighed by a thorough and compelling portrait of what Hillary might have become and a political world brought forth with real verisimilitude.

All in all? I’m with her.

An interesting concept and take on an alternate reality. It is an unique read that surprised me several times.