THE MAN OF MY DREAMS was all about reality

I read Curtis Sittenfeld's PREP a few years ago and loved the awkward honesty with which she portrayed adolescence. So when I found a hardcover of THE MAN OF MY DREAMS at a thrift store, I snapped it up and binge read.

The same awkward honesty from PREP is omnipresent in THE MAN OF MY DREAMS and was heart-breakingly relateable to my twenty-something self. Reading about Hannah felt like reading about myself.

The way Hannah refuses to follow a mediocre man even if she is comfortable with him. The way that she chooses "the love of her life" but take no action towards capturing it. The way she accepts inferior love because she is afraid to ask for more. All of this felt like parts of my own existence. I was so acutely aware of the detailed feeling that I filled in the gaps in the poetic prose, knowing the nuances underneath the broad strokes made by the Sittenfeld's descriptively sparse but when aimed sentences.

I also really loved Hannah's therapy experiences as well as her extreme reluctance to admit she was seeing a therapist at all. Although I have never been to a therapist, her experiences are exactly how I would want mine to go. Those scenes made me feel like maybe I don't need to be so scared to talk to someone.

Finally, I loved Hannah's ending or beginning. Whatever you want to call it. But I won't say to much about that because you should go read it!