At times, American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld is a good and interesting read. At other times, the story-telling seems to drift. I found sex descriptions in the earlier sections of the book very off-putting — they were way too graphic and seemed to add nothing to the telling of the story. Arguably they even take away from the impact of otherwise powerful incidents. Admittedly, I may be in a minority on this point given the huge popularity of Fifty Shades of Grey. I felt that this could have been a better book if it had been more vigourously edited. That said, I found it for the most part a quick and easy read and is moderately entertaining.