I was excited about this retelling of one of William Shakespeare's works, but sadly I rate it as a one star. There wasn't anything compelling or whimsical about the romance or the characters. In retrospect, the characters, the story, and the romance were annoying. The only reason I rushed reading it is to stop myself from getting further irritated. ( )

While I was familiar with The Austen Project, I had no idea Shakespeare's works were getting a modern touch until I came across Vinegar Girl (Anne Tyler's take on "The Taming of the Shrew")

A quick look on GoodReads shows the general consensus is that the book is pretty good, but not great. I'll go out on a limb and say I really enjoyed it! Not sure it resonated because this is my first Anne Tyler (gasp!), because I can have some shrew-like tendencies myself, or because the book I read just prior to this one was so bad that anything was bound to look good in comparison.

Tyler has crafted a humorous novel that honors the original story, while creating adapted characters that are unique in their own way. I particularly enjoyed the character Pyotr, and found him to be reminiscent of Don Tillman in [b:The Rosie Project|16181775|The Rosie Project (Don Tillman, #1)|Graeme Simsion|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1371651741s/16181775.jpg|22084678] (a book I loved).

The entire book itself is like a romantic comedy, which means it's not at all realistic and some plot points are pretty far-fetched. The reader just has to accept this and go along for the entertaining ride (if this kind of stuff drives you crazy, this isn't the book for you).

4 stars

Thank you to NetGalley and Crown Publishing for a galley of this book in exchange for an honest review. ( )

I really, really enjoyed this book. I had the advantage of never having read any of Anne Tyler's other books, so I was able to enjoy it without comparing to her previous work. My understanding is that if you're an Anne Tyler fan, this book will be somewhat of a disappointment.

I liked her characters. Kate was - well, she was a shrew. I mean, the book is a retelling of The Taming of the Shrew, so of course Kate is a shrew. But bit by bit Tyler reveals why she's a shrew and within a few chapters I was totally embracing her shrewishness. And Pyotr is such an endearing, bumbling character, I liked him from the beginning.

This would make a great RomCom movie. ( )

Vinegar Girl is a twist on Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew. I never read the original version of the story, but I enjoyed this one.

As 29-year old Kate, who has walked away from her higher education, toils taking care of her father and young sister’s household needs, including laundry, shopping, cooking, cleaning, etc., while working as a teacher’s assistant at a pre-school. Younger sister Bunny is footloose and fancy free at 15 and the girls’ Father is working tirelessly as a research scientist.

Kate is endearing with her mater-of-fact way and comments but walks a thin line with her employer because of it. When her father plays matchmaker with his lab assistant, Pyotr, Kate agrees to a marriage on paper for purposes of immigration. There’s a debacle at the lab on the day of the wedding, but like all good and decent rom-coms, all’s well that ends well.

Vinegar Girl is an easy read with some cute, quirky characters written wonderfully by Anne Tyler. ( )

A fun update to The Taming of the Shrew - even more appreciated after reading an interview with Tyler about her struggle with Shakespeare's original treatment of Kate. Hopefully someone in Hollywood picks this up as a good rom-com. As usual with Tyler's more upbeat novels the protagonist starts off stuck and then works their way to getting unstuck. Charming and zips right along. And I just loved Ptyor's question "why would you want to attract flies?" when Kate shares the American saying that "you catch more flies with honey than vinegar." ( )