The Taming of the Shrew Gets a Modern Makeover in Vinegar Girl

In case it has been a while since you last cracked open the 10th-grade English mainstay, here’s a quick refresher: Renaissance-era Italian noblewoman intimidates area suitors with her intelligence, attractiveness, and impressive command of sarcasm. Younger sister is also attractive but decidedly less opinionated, ergo suitors are smitten. Father decrees older sister must marry before younger sister, as anything else would be unseemly. Younger sister’s suitors put heads and coin purses together to pay off a gentleman brave enough to woo (and hopefully marry) older sister; battle-of-the-sexes-style hilarity ensues.
From 16th-century Padua, Tyler has updated the setting for Vinegar Girl to a modern-day Baltimore suburb. Kate Battista is a 29-year-old preschool assistant who lives at home with her father, Louis, and her 15-year-old sister, Bunny. Kate is no-nonsense, quick-witted, and beautiful, with interests that include gardening and calling things as she sees them. Louis Battista is a research scientist who is brilliant in his lab but hapless in his own home, relying on Kate to take care of the cooking, finances, and anything else that doesn’t involve correlations or genetic testing. Since the girls’ mother passed away when they were young, Kate also bears most of the responsibility for parenting Bunny. At 15, Bunny is many things Kate is not: approachable, earnest, and exceedingly popular with the boys. Most of Kate’s Bunny-related duties involve chasing would-be paramours away and enforcing curfew—while Bunny would just as soon see her take a long vacation.
Kate’s in a place in life that will be familiar to anyone who didn’t have it all figured out before age 30. She likes her job…sort of. She doesn’t dislike living at home. Yet it’s clear she hasn’t really chosen to end up where she has, it just kind of…happened. She feels unfulfilled and left behind, as though everyone but her got a memo about what they were supposed to do with their lives. Kate is stagnant, doing the same tasks and following the same routine, day after endless day. So, naturally, something (or someone) has to enter the scene and shake things up.
That someone is Pyotr Scherbakov, a handsome, good-humored research assistant in her father’s lab. At first, Kate can’t figure out why her father is suddenly tripping all over himself to push the two together, especially since she finds Pyotr somewhat boorish and patronizing (even if he can be a little charming sometimes). Then, the update: instead of it being her sister’s scheming suitors trying to push two lovers together, it’s Kate’s own dad, who’s trying to save Pyotr from deportation. All they need is for Kate to agree to a sham marriage. The only problem? Kate’s having none of it. What follows is a story about how two people with big personalities can bring out the worst and the best in one another.
Although Vinegar Girl keeps the spirit and tone of the bard’s classic tale, Tyler has smartly reshaped it to be more egalitarian than the original. For one, Kate (happily never referred to as a shrew) is the actual focus of the novel—everything is told from her point of view. We feel her hurt at being treated like she’s invisible simply because she has her own mind and refuses to act the way society dictates she should. Conversely, we see through Kate’s eyes the way men struggle to live up to society’s expectations of rigid masculinity, even when they’re desperate to show their true emotions. Also, the sisterly relationship between Kate and Bunny gets a good deal more attention than that of The Taming of the Shrew’s Katherina and Bianca. The result is a loosening of the stereotyping of both, as seen through their and the reader’s eyes.
With its combination of Shakespeare’s classic plot and Tyler’s easy, fluid style, audiences are treated to a lively, fun reimagining of a timeless tale. Vinegar Girl reminds us that, while most flies might prefer honey, some can’t seem to resist a little vinegar.