I have read two of Curtis Sittenfeld’s previous novels; the first was American Wife, which is based on Laura Bush’s life (the wife of George W. Bush), and Eligible, which is a modern retelling of Pride and Prejudice set in Cincinnati. I enjoyed reading both of those novels; they are both character-driven, interesting reads, although Eligible ventures into absurdity towards the end. I had been very interested in reading Rodham since it was first published last year, not so much because I am a fan of Hillary Rodham Clinton, but because by now I trust Sittenfeld to write a good book. And Rodham is a good book. I cannot tell you how close Sittenfeld’s Hillary Rodham is to the real Hillary Rodham Clinton, but it is a super fascinating “what if?” novel that I highly recommend. The premise of Rodham is this: What if Hillary Rodham had never married Bill Clinton?

I know very little about the real Hillary Rodham. I know she was First Lady when Bill Clinton was President. I do not even know that much about Bill Clinton as he was president during my high school years. I did not care about my own country’s politics when I was a teenager, let alone US politics. All I remember about Bill Clinton’s presidency is the Monica Lewinsky scandal. I remember thinking at the time, and I still wonder even today, why Hillary did not dump Bill Clinton’s ass after he very publicly humiliated her with his infidelity. This has diminished my respect for her somewhat, not that I am saying she should not have been elected president in 2015. I think she might have been a good president. I also know she was Secretary of State under Obama’s presidency, about the controversy over her use of a personal email server, and that she likes pantsuits.

Rodham follows Hillary Clinton’s early life closely: she attended law school at Yale, where she met Bill Clinton. She gave up her own ambitions to follow Bill Clinton back to Arkansas where he was planning to run for governor. Bill proposed to Hillary three times; the first two times she said no, the third time she said yes. But in Rodham, Hillary ends up leaving Bill after he insists that he is not good for her. She does not really want to leave him, but she knows it is for the best, so she gets in her car and drives away from Arkansas and into a different future where Hillary Rodham never marries, becomes a Senator representing Illinois, and has two failed bids for presidency in 2004 and 2008 before trying again one last time for 2016.

Again, this is a work of fiction, I have no idea how true to this novel is to the real Hillary Rodham Clinton, but in Rodham, Hillary’s morality is somewhat ambiguous. I was rooting for her, but at the same time I was either appalled or cringing at some of her actions: She does not want to leave Bill, even after a woman tells Hillary that Bill raped her; she runs for Senate, even though she knows she would be taking the seat away from Carol Moseley Braun (who was the first Black woman to be elected to Senate in real life); she enlists Donald Trump, of all people, to help sabotage Bill’s campaign for the Democratic nomination for president in 2015 as it is Bill Clinton who becomes Hillary’s biggest challenger for president in Rodham, not Trump (Sittenfeld did a great job with her fictional Trump; it is quite funny to read).

Hillary is a woman caught between wanting a man to love and appreciate her for her mind, like Bill did (because she knows that men are not interested in her looks) and proving that she does not need a man to succeed in life. She also does not stand aside and let any man, even if he is Bill Clinton (who she spends most of her life thinking she might still be in love with), take what she has worked so hard for. But she is still a woman in a man’s world. In her quest for presidency, she has to work harder, she has to be more careful, and she is held up to a higher standard than her male counterparts.

I do not have a good opinion of Bill Clinton, and I certainly do not like Sittenfeld’s fictional Bill. Hillary is absolutely enamoured by him and it mostly because she cannot believe her good luck that he is in love with her. He is handsome, charming, and intelligent, but even Hillary can recognize the self-centeredness in his actions, especially when he is on the campaign trail. He is also a sex addict who cannot keep his hands off women, especially ones who are much younger than him. He may have loved Hillary, but he certainly did not respect her. What if in real life Hillary Clinton had left Bill Clinton after his affair with Monica Lewinsky became public? Would she still have become a Senator for New York? Secretary of State? The Democratic nominee for president in 2015? Who knows? But if Hillary Clinton is as determined as the fictional Hillary Rodham, then I think she could have done it all on her own.