Hausfrau is one of the few very contemporary books that has managed to crack my reading list so far this year, and that is thanks in large part to my husband buying me a copy after hearing an interview with the author on NPR's Weekend Edition. Normally my inclination is to wait until the end of the year to pick and choose from the best reviewed and most talked-about literary fiction from the year prior, but there is a unique kind of satisfaction that comes from reading something while it's shiny and new and being buzzed about.

I would describe Hausfrau as one part Madame Bovary and one part Anna Karenina, but although I still haven't finished it, I am not assuming it will end in any similar fashion. It doesn't function as the same kind of morality tale, but it is a story about a housewife and mother who becomes increasingly alienated from her husband and seeks solace in affairs. That is a total oversimplification of what is a very complex and psychological novel, but those comparisons immediately came to mind when I started it, and they place Hausfrau in excellent company.