Curtis Sittenfeld is one of my all-time favourite authors. I love her books passionately. There’s a quality to her writing I find addictive, in a way I can’t quite explain. I like the way she puts her sentences together, I like her (often times infuriating) characters, I like the way she captures little details about people or places that bring them to life.

If you’ve never read Sittenfeld before, I’m here to guide you through the process. Here’s the order in which I recommend you read her books (and why):

1. American Wife

If you’ve never read any Curtis Sittenfeld before, her third novel, American Wife, is an excellent place to start. It’s the safest place to start – and I don’t mean that in a bad way. Sittenfeld’s writing can be divisive, but everyone I know who has read American Wife has really enjoyed it. It’s a big, juicy, sweeping novel that covers the lifetime of a one woman, Alice Lindgren, as she faces an early tragedy in her teens and grows up to marry a powerful man. Based loosely on the life on former First Lady Laura Bush, it’s a fascinating look at the personal and political, and a powerful portrait of a marriage.

2. Prep

I love this novel so much. Prep is Sittenfeld’s first novel, and it’s my favourite of her books. 2015 is the book’s 10 year anniversary, which inspired a range of think pieces about it, including this one where four writers discuss what Prep meant to them, and this one which includes a long extract from the book, and finally this one in which Sittenfeld reflects on the things she learned since writing the book.

Prep is a novel tells the story of one girl’s experience during her four years at an elite boarding school as a scholarship student. It’s smart, funny, wonderfully detailed, and driven by a cast of compelling characters. It’s maybe my favourite coming-of-age, boarding school novel ever. Don’t be put off by the beret-wearing girl on the current cover – go and look at the first, iconic cover of this novel with a pink and green belt, which was perfect.

3. The Man of My Dreams

This poor novel. It’s so great, and it never got the praise it deserves. (Sittenfeld doesn’t even list in her Twitter bio along with the titles of her other books. This outrages me more than it probably should.) The Man of My Dreams follows the life of Hannah, from age eleven through until her early thirties, as she struggles with her family, her relationships, and her discovery of who she is and what matters in her life. The title is ironic, and in hindsight perhaps a mistake, because this book isn’t romantic, or light, or fluffy, or anything you think it’s going to be (unless you’ve already read Prep and then you’ll be a little more prepared). Hannah is difficult, introverted and deeply flawed. Sittenfeld digs into her most awkward encounters in a way that should be off-putting, but isn’t.

I will sometimes just pluck this book off the shelf and read a couple of pages. I love the opening lines: “Julia Roberts is getting married. It’s true: Her dress will be an eight-thousand-dollar custom-made two-piece gown from the Tyler Trafficante West Hollywood salon, and at the reception following the ceremony, she’ll be able to pull off the train and the long part of the skirt to dance. The bridesmaids’ dresses will be sea-foam green, and their shoes (Manolo Blahnik, $425 a pair) will be dyed to match. The bridesmaids themselves will be Julia’s agents (she has two), her makeup artist, and a friend who’s also an actress, though no one has ever heard of her. The cake will be four-tiered, with violets and sea-foam ribbons of icing.”

4. Sisterland

Sisterland is Sittenfeld’s most recent book. It’s definitely my least favourite of Sittenfeld’s books, but I’m such a gushing fan of the other three that it’s not a terrible thing to be my least favourite. This is still a good, interesting novel. The plot just didn’t come together in the right way for me. But I found the central relationship between twin sisters Kate and Violet to be compelling, and Sittenfeld’s real strength in this book is writing about being a mother. She digs into the details of the small, mindless, thankless tasks that motherhood entails with precision and insight, and as usual, her writing brings the book to life.

If you’ve read and enjoyed Sittenfeld’s other three books, then you should definitely delve into this one too.

Bonus: Look out for Sittenfeld’s next book, a retelling of Pride and Prejudice, coming out later this year.

Nina Kenwood