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Vinegar Girl
by Tyler, Anne
- Used
- Condition
- Used - Good
- ISBN 10
- 0099589877
- ISBN 13
- 9780099589877
- Seller
-
Dunfermline, Fife, United Kingdom
9 Copies Available from This Seller
(You can add more at checkout.)
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
Penguin Random House. Used - Good. Ships from the UK. Former library book; may include library markings. Used book that is in clean, average condition without any missing pages.
Reviews
On Aug 14 2016, CloggieDownunder said:
"She had always been such a handful – a thorny child, a sullen teenager, a failure as a college student. What was to be done with her? But now they had the answer: marry her off. They would never give her another moment's thought"
Vinegar Girl is the twenty-first novel by American author, Anne Tyler, and is written under the Hogarth Shakespeare banner. It is billed as William Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew retold. At twenty-nine, Kate Battista is in a dead-end job she doesn't particularly like, and saddled with looking after her air-head fifteen-year-old sister and her workaholic father. Kate is no shrinking violet though: she lets them know what irritates her in no uncertain terms. Her boss suggests she practice restraint but: "The unsatisfying thing about practicing restraint was that nobody knew you were practicing it"
So when Dr Louis Battista suggests she marry Pyotr Shcherbakov, his brilliant research assistant, whose O-1 visa is about to run out, she lets her father know how she feels: "We are not in another culture, and this is not an arranged marriage. This is human trafficking….You're sending me to live with a stranger, sleep with a stranger, just for your own personal gain"
Pyotr tries to court Kate, despite her irritability, her rudeness and her flat refusal to help. And despite the gross insult she perceives at the suggestion, his enthusiasm, his lack of guile and his straight talking begins to weaken her resolve "…they say you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar" she tells him. "Yes, they would," Pyotr said, mysteriously. "But why would you want to catch flies, hah? Answer me that, vinegar girl"
Anne Tyler's version of this classic Shakespeare tale is an absolute delight. Her characters are ordinary people with flaws and believable quirks; their dialogue is just as ordinary and everyday; and yet, they are endearing, each in their own way. Her descriptive prose is marvellous: "an unhealthy-looking young man with patchy beige chin whiskers that reminded Kate of lichen". And the tale is filled with humour: the reader will find themselves smiling, chuckling and (at least at the wedding ceremony) laughing out loud. Witty and funny.
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Details
- Bookseller
- Better World Books Ltd (GB)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- GRP96777149
- Title
- Vinegar Girl
- Author
- Tyler, Anne
- Book Condition
- Used - Good
- Quantity Available
- 9
- Binding
- Paperback
- ISBN 10
- 0099589877
- ISBN 13
- 9780099589877
- Publisher
- Penguin Random House
- This edition first published
- 2017
Terms of Sale
Better World Books Ltd
30 day return guarantee, with full refund including shipping cost for up to 30 days after delivery if an item arrives misdescribed or damaged. Please keep in mind that because we deal mostly in used books, any extra components, such as CDs or access codes, are usually not included. CDs: If the book does include a CD, it will be noted in the book's description ("With CD!"). Otherwise, there is no CD included, even if the term is used in the book's title. Access Codes: Unless the book is described as "New," please assume that the book does *not* have an access code.
About the Seller
Better World Books Ltd
Biblio member since 2009
Dunfermline, Fife
About Better World Books Ltd
Better World Books generates funding for literacy charities through the sales of second-hand books. Our current partner charities in the UK are READ International, the National Literacy Trust, Room to Read. (Registered Charities no. 1128534, no. 1116260 and no. 1125803 and the National Adult Literacy Agency. Much of our stock is ex-library due to our close relationships with UK libraries. We offer a service that helps them keep their unwanted books out of landfill. All ex-library books will be marked as such in their individual listings. 99% of orders are dispatched within 24 hours and we offer a 100% money back guarantee if you are not completely satisfied.