Read by Kirsten Potter
5 hours, 57 minutes
Published June 2016 by Hogarth Shakespeare Series
Publisher's Summary:
Kate Battista feels stuck. How did she end up running house and home for her eccentric scientist father and uppity, pretty younger sister Bunny? Plus, she's always in trouble at work - her pre-school charges adore her, but their parents don't always appreciate her unusual opinions and forthright manner.
Dr. Battista has other problems. After years out in the academic wilderness, he is on the verge of a breakthrough. His research could help millions. There's only one problem: his brilliant young lab assistant, Pyotr, is about to be deported. And without Pyotr, all would be lost.
When Dr. Battista cooks up an outrageous plan that will enable Pyotr to stay in the country, he's relying - as usual - on Kate to help him. Kate is furious: this time he's really asking too much. But will she be able to resist the two men's touchingly ludicrous campaign to bring her around?
My Thoughts:
Vinegar Girl is the third book in Random House's Hogarth Shakespeare project, with contemporary writers retelling Shakespeare plays. Vinegar Girl is very loosely based on Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew.
Here Kate is less a shrew and more of a woman trapped by circumstances. While she is by no means a willing participant in her father's plot to find a wife for Pyotr to keep him from being deported, she's lured by the idea of a way out of her father's house, out of having to mother her fifteen-year-old sister. Truly, her father is something of a mad scientist, who has the family eating a hash meal every evening, who has no idea how to take care of himself or his youngest, who relies entirely on Kate to keep the household afloat. Can she be abrupt and a little too honest some of the time? Yes, she certainly can. But who can blame her? And Pyotr, while under the impression that he'll be the boss in the marriage, is also quite a nice guy when it comes right down to it. In this version of The Taming of the Shrew, Kate isn't so much broken, as she is presented with an opportunity that allows her to become a better version of her natural self.
It's a little on the light side; but, overall, I enjoyed it. Now that I've finally gotten around to this one, I'll be looking for others in the series.
The other books in the project are:
Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood, a retelling of The Tempest
Dunbar by Edward St. Aubyn, a retelling of King Lear
The Gap of Time by Jeanette Winterson, a retelling of The Winter's Tale
Shylock Is My Name by Howard Jacobson, a retelling of The Merchant of Venice
New Boy by Tracy Chevalier, a retelling of Othello
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