What I’ve Read: The Pioneer Woman: Black Heels to Tractor Wheels—A Love Story by Ree Drummond
I was so excited when I won Kate’s book giveaway and received this in the mail a few days after. I’m a big Pioneer Woman fan: she’s a smart, savvy blogger and I have often written about her recipes on here. I’ve never made a PW recipe that I haven’t loved…probably because every recipe contains at least one stick of butter and usually a splash of heavy whipping cream to boot. (Yum.)
I know there’s a bit of PW backlash because of her privileged upbringing and some controversy about that (I don’t know the details at all—what I’ve written here is really all I know), but it’s not too apparent from reading her blog. It is VERY apparent in this book. Reading in between the lines, you see “wealthy family” and “spoiled upbringing” all over the place. It wasn’t offensive or very off-putting to me, since I was vaguely aware of that background before I started reading, but I know that many former PW fans are rankled by the whitewashing of her persona that’s taken place over the past few years.
I’m conflicted about this book, honestly. I enjoyed reading it. It’s an entertaining story, and there are funny, touching moments in the book that were genuinely enjoyable. The book overall is genuinely enjoyable! But, back to the whitewashing thing: this feels, most of the time, like a very watered-down, PW-branded version of how she and her husband met and could be at times nauseatingly overwrought (Marlboro Man’s muscles! His smile! I swoon! We made out like teenagers!) and then would swing back to puzzlingly vague or unbelievable (like the fact that they always “made out like teenagers” and she never stayed the night on his ranch prior to their marriage, despite her living with another man before meeting him).
If you read her blog, you’ll recognize her writing style right off the bat. There’s never a question whether it’s her voice narrating the events in the book, but it’s the events that I question. (Or maybe just her telling of them.)
If you’re a diehard Ree fan, you’ll likely enjoy and maybe even love the book. While I enjoyed it, and do consider myself a PW fan, there was something that struck me just a bit…off. As one Amazon reviewer pointed out, she dumbs the story down to a point where these real people in a real relationship feel like movie characters. Or as the reviewer put it, “The writer can do nothing more than turn the love of her live into a ready made caricature, so it is difficult to ask the reader to feel connected, to feel sympathetic towards this shallow, never fully composed character.”
Also, her nicknaming her husband “Marlboro Man” on her blog was something I used to find sweet and gimmicky…but ultimately still sweet. In this book, about halfway through, I was ready to scream, “USE HIS REAL NAME.” This nickname of his only cemented the caricaturization of him and the “perfect love story” plot pounded into your head page after page.
Like I said before, I’m conflicted. I wanted to love this book through and through, but I didn’t. This may also have something to do with my sensitivity to blogger personas. I am the first one to stand up and admit that I keep things in my life private and do not share every single moment of every single day on my own blog. I do draw the line and enjoy living in moments myself without feeling the need to photo-document every dinner Brandon and I have or every meal I cook or every aspect of my life. On the other hand, I don’t feel like I have constructed any particular persona or whitewashed any aspect of my life on my blog in a way that would be misleading or offensive. I am open about the fact that I will discuss any question about anything via email. (I also have Brandon, many family members and real life friends that read my blog and if they noted something that felt too glossy or persona-laden, there is no doubt in my mind that I would be duly corrected and chastised.)
So, when I read this book, and see her constructing years-old conversations between her and her husband, sharing the (apparently) only fight she and her husband have ever had, their almost teenage-like infatuation, Marlboro Man’s apparent perfection both physically and emotionally…it just strikes me as another layer on an Internet persona that has been carefully honed and marketed appropriately over the years.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with marketing yourself a certain way, but in reading the reviews of other readers of this book, I noticed a common thread of, “He’s the perfect man!” “I want to marry a cowboy!” “The perfect love story!”
Promoting that kind of belief in your fans and readers is the danger of the carefully constructed persona. I’m relatively young and have been relatively blessed in my short life, but from what I have seen of friends, family and acquaintances, I can say fairly confidently that there is no perfect anybody, no perfect love story, no perfect life. There are always conflicts and problems, a marriage is constantly adapting and changing and real love happens when you realize that there is a mutual decision between parties to be with someone else despite their many faults, insecurities and bad decisions. It’s humbling to think that someone can know every mistake you’ve made—and still want to be with you. Maybe I’m not giving her the benefit of a doubt: maybe her life really is as she’s portraying it. But, if that’s real life—I’m not interested. I’ve discovered over the past several years that it’s the murky, difficult, gut-wrenching times that strengthen my relationship with Brandon and my family. If everything was handed to me in perfect condition, where do you go from there?
I’ve said this before many times and I’ll say it again: it’s easy to be in love on vacation, or when nothing must be earned or fought for. Love seems easy when life is easy. I would never want to look back on my life and realize that I made choices because they were easy and handed to me in a pretty package.
This book review has gone in an entirely different direction than I intended (err, sorry!), but it got me thinking—and not about her, or her story or her recipes, but about how perpetuating falsified perfection only encourages others to live their lives in a way that may not be the most authentic, genuine or fulfilling.
So, before this gets any longer than it already is—it’s worth a read, if only to satisfy your curiosity. If you’re a big PW fan, you’ll likely really love it and I don’t blame you—she’s an entertaining woman!
(I’ve been playing around with Ree’s Photoshop Action Sets.)
Oh, and you want to know a little secret? Here’s what I wear to bed 90% of the time: one of Brandon’s old, too-big-for-him (but just big enough to cover my tush), over-laundered, super soft buttondown shirts. I’m wearing one of them in this picture in fact. And speaking of bed, I’m headed that way now!
I think that the cold rainy weather, the fact that it’s Monday and our Christmas decorations call for a Pioneer Woman snack fest.
Of course, there’s never a bad time for nachos. Especially when you make them like Ree.
