Strange to read a novel that is perfectly well executed, even rather brilliantly done in terms of its attention to detail, plot and character development, at the same time that it is also entirely predictable. Everything seems to come at you exactly as and when you might have expected it to. I feel like I'm watching a gameshow in which I not only know all the answers, I know them before the questions have even been posed. It's as if this novel came out of the high-end novel factory. It's really good, and it's pretty slick, but it's not in the least bit surprising, sort of like buying a Volvo.

Furthermore, as I come toward the end of the novel, I'm almost offended to discover the accretion of Alice's first-person narrative adding up to what feels like a defence of the Bush administration, for reasons along the lines of, "We don't know what they're really like." Blech.

UPDATE: A very late twist, however, takes things in an interesting direction which makes me somewhat re-consider the foregoing remarks. So now instead of feeling disappointed in the novel's predictability and its Bush-regime apologism (is "apologism" even a word?), I now find myself wondering to what extent I was duped and whether that's reason to like the novel after all, or to dislike it for merely rather different reasons.

So, three stars because I still don't know if I loved it or hated it.

Damn you, Curtis Sittenfeld. A Volvo would never make me feel this way.