Not My Cuppa

I am currently reading a book from a few years ago by a woman that moved to London to marry her husband.  She was a writer for the NY Times and continued writing for them from London, mostly about her newly adopted home.  At first glance this book was going to be perfect.  It had everything I look for: mostly a Union Jack and a cuppa tea on the cover.  Now I don't want to spoil anything and seeing as I'm not past the second chapter, this may not be an entirely un-biased opinion but I'm heartily offended on behalf of my future (I hope!) kinsmen.

For someone who claims to love her husband, her British children and her new home, she certainly hates everything that makes them British.  The entire first chapter is nothing but sweeping generalizations of the entire male population of Great Britain, backed up by a few stories and facts here and there.  The author  brought up claims of abuse in boarding schools (this book was written a few years ago), which have been spreading like wildfire over the last few months, which is a completely valid and terrible epidemic that they are now working out.  But then she follows up that valid point, with making the assumption that every upper-class male student, in every boarding school on the continent, had been abused, which will of course make them all abusers.  The second chapter attempts to explain the parliamentary government of Great Britain that has existed for hundreds of years by ridiculing each and every move the lawmakers make, while not only attacking the system but the members of the system as well.

I know I tend to have an idealized view of England in my head and things are much different when you're immersed in them. I also know that everyone is entitled to their own opinions but the way she approached the whole book is just odd...to me anyway.  Each chapter seems to be a litany of reasons why the way they Brits do something is wrong compared to Americans. Her major problem is stating that these things are wrong rather than different.  If she had grown up in Britain, she'd be quite used to them. It's like moving to Spain and complaining that everyone is constantly speaking Spanish:  ridiculous, close-minded and self-centric.