Vinegar Girl, Anne Tyler

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.