It is an odd kind of thing to read a book about teenagers, that is written for adults. Or at least I find it is. I read the book Prep when it first came out, well over a year ago, and to be honest, I still haven't made up my mind about it.

Last week, Curtis Sittenfeld's new novel, The Man of My Dreams came in, so I thought I would give it a go. Its about Hannah, and it begins when Hannah is 14, jumping to various points until the ending, when she's 28. Sittenfeld's heroines tend towards the neurotic, and the obsessive. They can be heartbreaking, funny, and exasperating. I will say that Hannah was slightly less exasperating than Lee.

Hannah spends a lot of her time thinking about whether or not she's normal, especially in her relationships with men. I don't know whether or not she's normal, but she definitely spends a lot more time thinking about it than I can ever fathom doing.

Anyways, the point of Sittenfeld's books, from what I can gather, is not so much that you frequently want to strangle the protagonist, but her writing. Because, really, she is a pretty amazing writer. I have to come to realize that I don't particularly care what the topic is, I just want to read Curtis Sittenfeld's words.

The Man of My Dreams
ISBN 1400064767
269 pages