Looking for Love, But Finding Frustration

Many portrayals of young women in movies or literature today show us to be assertive and self-assured in our pursuit of the opposite sex: it was Natalie Portman’s Sam who first started talking to Zach Braff’s Andrew in “Garden State,” after all.

But for those of us who are not spunky or headstrong, contemporary depictions of young women seem a little unrealistic—not all of us know what we want from guys, and even those who do don’t always know how to get it. Perhaps it’s for girls like me that Curtis Sittenfeld wrote her newest novel, “The Man of My Dreams.”

Exploring what it is to be insecure and introverted in a culture that operates under the assumption that all girls are self-confident, the novel follows Hannah Gavener from her first crush at age 14, to her first kiss at 21, to her present-day life as a 28-year-old.

I attended a reading given by Sittenfeld last year, and she described “Man of My Dreams” as a book where each chapter depicts a different experience in the protagonist’s life that adds up to show how Hannah grows to understand the meaning of “love.”

Reading the book in such a manner makes it easier to understand its format—every chapter is about a specific interaction Hannah has with her family or men in her life (a first boyfriend; the man she who she wants to love her; a fling) over a 14-year period.

Unfortunately, the novel ends on a disheartening note.

Sittenfeld cheapens the book by ending with a letter that Hannah writes to her college therapist with updates on her life. The missive is too well-written to be plausible.

More disappointingly, Sittenfeld leaves Hannah teaching special-needs kids at a school in New Mexico—still single and unattached, yet believing that she “was meant to live in the desert of New Mexico, meant to be a teacher with Vaseline on my blouse.”

Though there may be women out there who are meant to remain single or to work as educators, the ending is both disheartening and unbefitting the character.

Readers will want Sittenfeld to confirm that Hannah’s—and our own—trepidations about love will not keep her away from it forever.

Early in the book, Hannah has a conversation with Henry, the man we’re led to believe is meant for her.

He says that guys like girls who need rescuing.

Hannah isn’t that kind of girl, Henry says, but that’s okay.

“You shouldn’t think you won’t get married because you’re exactly the kind of girl a guy marries,” he tells her.

If that’s the case, what is Hannah—and Sittenfeld—doing writing a letter to her therapist seven years later?

Even a wallflower deserves better.

—Reviewer Brittney L. Moraski can be reached at bmoraski@fas.harvard.edu.
 
The Man of My Dreams
By Curtis Sittenfeld
Random House
Out Now