Pony Express book of the week: ‘Rodham’ by Curtis Sittenfeld

Hillary Rodham is a young powerful woman who has made many speeches surrounding the women’s rights movement and student activism. Rodham went to Wellesley college and made her commencement speech. She attends Yale Law School, and furthers herself as a student activist and supporter of the women’s rights movement. During this Rodham meets Bill Clinton. Clinton is a fellow law student, who is handsome and a southerner. Bill is already interested in a political career and has a plan for the future. They experience new things once entering each other’s lives and create a connection that neither of them have ever had with another person. In real life Rodham goes with Clinton back to the south where he is from (Arkansas), and while they are there he proposes several times. Rodham continuously turns him down but as it is known in real life eventually says yes and will marry Clinton. The difference between the real world and Curtis Sittenfeld’s fiction novel is that Hillary decided that she doesn’t feel the same as Clinton about their prospective marriage. Rodham breaks up with Clinton and leaves him in Arkansas. This one choice will change her future where within the next forty years she continuously crosses the same paths with Clinton while trying and succeeding at making a life of her own. This novel takes real life and weaves it with fiction to make a witty story about one of America’s most famous families. 

Review: ★★★★☆

This book is a must read for anyone who likes a witty take on female empowerment and what it takes for a female to achieve her goals. It is also a fun alternative on a well known American family and their reality.

Lauren Dempsky
Curtis Sittenfeld’s novel cover pictures a young Hillary Rodham Clinton. His novel provides a fictional story of what her life would have been like if she had never married Bill Clinton.

Author: Stefania Bitton

Stefania Bitton is a senior and the Co-Editor-in-Chief for the San Marin Pony Express. You will most likely find her singing and rocking out to any song that is playing. Ironically she doesn’t know how to sing but somehow she always knows the lyrics.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s