Fiction.
Literature.
Romance.
HTML:In her acclaimed debut novel, Prep, Curtis Sittenfeld created a touchstone with her pitch-perfect portrayal of adolescence. Her prose is as intensely realistic and compelling as ever in The Man of My Dreams, a disarmingly candid and sympathetic novel about the collision of a young womanâ??s fantasies of family and love with the challenges and realities of adult life.
Hannah Gavener is fourteen in the summer of 1991. In the magazines she reads, celebrities plan elaborate weddings; in Hannahâ??s own life, her parentsâ?? marriage is crumbling. And somewhere in between these two extremesâ??just maybeâ??lie the answers to loveâ??s most bewildering questions. But over the next decade and a half, as she moves from Philadelphia to Boston to Albuquerque, Hannah finds that the questions become more rather than less complicated: At what point can you no longer blame your adult failures on your messed-up childhood? Is settling for someone whoâ??s not your soul mate an act of maturity or an admission of defeat? And if you move to another state for a guy who might not love you back, are you being pluckyâ??or just pathetic?
None of the relationships in Hannahâ??s life are without complications. Thereâ??s her father, whose stubbornness Hannah realizes sheâ??s unfortunately inherited; her gorgeous cousin, Fig, whose misbehavior alternately intrigues and irritates Hannah; Henry, whom Hannah first falls for in college, while heâ??s dating Fig; and the boyfriends who love her more or less than she deserves, who adore her or break her heart. By the time sheâ??s in her late twenties, Hannah has finally figured out what she wants mostâ??but she doesnâ??t yet know whether sheâ??ll find the courage to go after it.
Full of honesty and humor, The Man of My Dreams is an unnervingly insightful and beautifully written examination of the outside forc… (más)
I enjoyed Man of My Dreams more than I expected to, given the unflattering reviews I’ve seen online. The story was okay and many of the characters were well-drawn. I don’t typically enjoy angst in novels but I am amazed with how well Sittenfeld captured all of the insecurities of youth. I have been Hanna in so many situations and I struggled with so many of the same fears when I was around her ages in the story. I bumped up to 4-stars because those emotions were spot-on. ( )
I enjoyed this every bit as much as American Wife. There is such a calm, steady, captivating voice to Sittenfeld's stories. I have yet to read Prep, but I will. I hope she's working on a new one. ( )
I kept reading this thinking that Hannah was going to change or grow up a bit or be redeemed in some way, but it didn't really happen except that at the end suddenly (with her degree in art history??) she was a selfless teacher in a school for autistic children. The novel consisted of stories of Hannah's emotionally abusive father, then her obsession with her own attractiveness and that of the various boys/men she is interested in, then her relationships with Mike (too nice), Oliver (unfaithful to her with her consent due to being a "sex addict") and Henry (leads her on but is unavailable).
Throughout this period she has therapy once week, so goodness knows what her life wold have been like otherwise. Disappointing. ( )
I was worried I might not like this as much as Prep, but I needn't have been. Sittenfield is amazingly perceptive and I couldn't have enjoyed or empathized with Hannah's journey more. I had no idea how this book would end but when I got there, well, it felt absolutely perfect.
1 June 1991 Julia Roberts is getting married. It’s true: Her dress will be an eight-thousand-dollar custom-made two-piece gown from the Tyler Trafficante West Hollywood salon, and at the reception following the ceremony, she’ll be able to pull off the train and the long part of the skirt to dance. The bridesmaids’ dresses will be sea-foam green, and their shoes (Manolo Blahnik, $425 a pair) will be dyed to match. The bridesmaids themselves will be Julia’s agents (she has two), her makeup artist, and a friend who’s also an actress, though no one has ever heard of her. The cake will be four-tiered, with violets and sea-foam ribbons of icing.
Being raised in an unstable household makes you understand that the world doesn’t exist to accommodate you, which, in Hannah’s observation, is something a lot of people struggle to understand well into adulthood.
Fiction.
Literature.
Romance.
HTML:In her acclaimed debut novel, Prep, Curtis Sittenfeld created a touchstone with her pitch-perfect portrayal of adolescence. Her prose is as intensely realistic and compelling as ever in The Man of My Dreams, a disarmingly candid and sympathetic novel about the collision of a young womanâ??s fantasies of family and love with the challenges and realities of adult life.
Hannah Gavener is fourteen in the summer of 1991. In the magazines she reads, celebrities plan elaborate weddings; in Hannahâ??s own life, her parentsâ?? marriage is crumbling. And somewhere in between these two extremesâ??just maybeâ??lie the answers to loveâ??s most bewildering questions. But over the next decade and a half, as she moves from Philadelphia to Boston to Albuquerque, Hannah finds that the questions become more rather than less complicated: At what point can you no longer blame your adult failures on your messed-up childhood? Is settling for someone whoâ??s not your soul mate an act of maturity or an admission of defeat? And if you move to another state for a guy who might not love you back, are you being pluckyâ??or just pathetic?
None of the relationships in Hannahâ??s life are without complications. Thereâ??s her father, whose stubbornness Hannah realizes sheâ??s unfortunately inherited; her gorgeous cousin, Fig, whose misbehavior alternately intrigues and irritates Hannah; Henry, whom Hannah first falls for in college, while heâ??s dating Fig; and the boyfriends who love her more or less than she deserves, who adore her or break her heart. By the time sheâ??s in her late twenties, Hannah has finally figured out what she wants mostâ??but she doesnâ??t yet know whether sheâ??ll find the courage to go after it.
Full of honesty and humor, The Man of My Dreams is an unnervingly insightful and beautifully written examination of the outside forc
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