Showing posts with label j courtney sullivan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label j courtney sullivan. Show all posts

Wednesday, June 24, 2015

Commencement by J.Courtney Sullivan


Title: Commencement
Author: J. Courtney Sullivan
Publisher: Knopf
Publication Date: June 16, 2009
Source: personal purchase

Summary from Goodreads

Assigned to the same dorm their first year at Smith College, Celia, Bree, Sally, and April couldn’t have less in common. Celia, a lapsed Catholic, arrives with her grandmother’s rosary beads in hand and a bottle of vodka in her suitcase; beautiful Bree pines for the fiancĂ© she left behind in Savannah; Sally, pristinely dressed in Lilly Pulitzer, is reeling from the loss of her mother; and April, a radical, redheaded feminist wearing a “Riot: Don’t Diet” T-shirt, wants a room transfer immediately.

Together they experience the ecstatic highs and painful lows of early adulthood: Celia’s trust in men is demolished in one terrible evening, Bree falls in love with someone she could never bring home to her traditional family, Sally seeks solace in her English professor, and April realizes that, for the first time in her life, she has friends she can actually confide in.

When they reunite for Sally’s wedding four years after graduation, their friendships have changed, but they remain fiercely devoted to one another. Schooled in the ideals of feminism, they have to figure out how it applies to their real lives in matters of love, work, family, and sex. For Celia, Bree, and Sally, this means grappling with one-night stands, maiden names, and parental disapproval—along with occasional loneliness and heartbreak. But for April, whose activism has become her life’s work, it means something far more dangerous.


My Review:

You may have noticed that this novel landed a spot on my 30 Before 35 list.  Perhaps it seems like an odd choice, nestled in there with the likes of Ulysses and The Color Purple.  However, I added Commencement because it's been on my TBR list for several years...and it's on my TBR because it tackles one of my favorite time periods: the college and post-college years.

Shortly after I graduated from UConn, I read I Am Charlotte Simmons by Tom Wolfe.  It really resonated with me, and still holds a spot on my favorites list.  However, I soon realized that the number of books that focus on college/post-college life (without a primary focus on New-Adult-style, almost-erotica romance) is not high.  Commencement is one of them, and I was happy to finally get around to it!   (And what better time to read it, just after cap-and-gown season??)

This novel will certainly appeal more to a female audience, though I hesitate to attach the "chick lit" label.  The book has its fair share of hookups, girly fights, etc., but they are worked into the plot with a higher level of seriousness than "chick lit"implies (at least by my definition).  For example, the broad subject of "dating" is discussed in a whole host of contexts: how to balance your love life with your career after graduation; how to reconcile the fact that the love of your life happens to be a woman, which is a situation that your conservative family will never approve; and how to cope when what starts as a wonderful first date, ends in rape.

Yes, one of the best things about this book is that it takes primarily-female issues, and gives them the weight that they deserve, without the frills you may have come to expect from other women's fiction novels.  I suppose this appeals to me because college was a significant time in my life.  Not to sound like a nerd (never mind, I am a nerd), but it truly was the best of times AND the worst of times in many ways.  I made a lot (A LOT) of mistakes, and had a lot of successes (thankfully more than the mistakes).  Plus, I worked in higher education for 8 years afterwards, and saw other students going through a whole slew of social and emotional changes through that work.  I know this is not the case for every college grad, but it gives you some idea why novels in this genre, written without a sense of frivolity, click so well with me.

The novel is broken into two parts, with the first part covering most of Sally, Bree, April, and Celia's 4 years at Smith College, as well as their reunion at Sally's wedding.  The second half focuses on what happens to the women after they go their separate ways post-wedding.  The first half was definitely stronger for me than the second.  I feel like the plot took a rather far-fetched direction in the later chapters, and the ending is incredibly abrupt, given how well-developed the rest of the book is.  That said, I suppose the second half is where most of the "action" happens, so I can't knock it too much, given that I never felt like I hit a slow point as I was reading.

Overall, Commencement is the perfect blend of head vs. heart.  Sullivan confronts some important issues in the novel, and does so with passion and humor.  If you have a recent female college grad in your life, this would be an excellent book to pass on!

Is there a certain time period that you love to read about in novels?  Childhood?  High school?  College?  Parenthood?  What makes that stand out for you?

Monday, June 22, 2015

Where I've Been...And Where I'm Going

Hello, reader friends!  I hope you've hung with me while I went on a bit of a vacation.  While part of my absence was accounted for by an actual vacation for the last week, I've admittedly been a bit flighty 'round these parts for longer than that.

During the last few weeks of my race training, I was just too tired to get much reading (or blogging) accomplished.  Then the race happened, and I took a full week off from running, but instead of spending that time reading, I spent a load of time with my family and just loafed around, catching up on Netflix.  (Ain't no shame in my game.)

Then we left for vacation, which consisted of 1 day at Sesame Place in Langhorne, PA (basically preschooler crack. I was more tired this day than all other days combined):

Followed by 7 days in Cape May, NJ.  Which was 95% running around the beach with 2 very happy kiddos, and 5% reading and day-drinking:
Kindle, keys, beer, and baby monitor. CHECK.
That 5% was pretty amazing though.  I read ONE AND A HALF BOOKS during the week!  Unheard of for me these days.  The one I finished was Commencement by J. Courtney Sullivan, and the one I half-finished was Day Four by Sarah Lotz...which my reader friend Julie alerted me to during vacation, because it's Lotz's latest release after The Three, which you may remember I ADORED last year.

(For my running compadres, I also managed 3 early-morning runs while on vacation...I even ventured onto the sand for the first time!  That is HARD WORK!  Not only because of the soft surface, but the slope of the shoreline near the water made it hard to balance.  Oh, and let's not forget the humidity.  Quite the sweat sessions, they were.)

Anyway, now I'm home, and looking forward to reconnecting with all of you.  I have some book reviews to write, and would also like to make time for a few bookish non-review posts that I've had in mind for a while.  I have only one book tour that I'm doing all summer, so I'm really looking forward to some free-range reading over the next few months!  I would also like to bring The Well-Read Runner back every few weeks, as I am in the midst of figuring out my next race plans...especially because I'm back from vacation and something needs to be done after I ate all that fudge and drank all that wine all week.  HA.

So, the moral of the story is...I'm back, so let's talk books!  :)

Sunday, August 26, 2012

A quick and dirty survey.

I saw this brief book survey on The Broke and the Bookish today, and I had to repost.  An easy way to give you some insight into my latest reading habits.

The book I'm currently reading: Look Again by Lisa Scottoline.  I saw a brief summary of this book a year or two ago, and have been dying to read it ever since.  Unfortunately, it's not all that I thought it would be, but I have another 100-ish pages for it to change my mind (I'll keep you posted on how that goes). 

I'm also listening to The Confession by John Grisham on audiobook, and it's been an excellent way to spend my commutes these last couple of weeks.

The last book I finished: Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman--you saw my happy-customer review here.

The next book I want to read: I am hoping to get my hands on a copy of Emily Giffin's new one, Where We Belong.  I'm a big fan of her other work.  I've been on the library wait list for a while now, I should be up soon!


The last book I boughtCommencement by J. Courtney Sullivan--I do indeed have a professional life in higher education (book bloggin' JUST DON'T PAY), so books about colleges/universities, undergrads, recent grads, etc. always catch my interest (I Am Charlotte Simmons by Tom Wolfe is one of my absolute favorites, all-time).  I haven't read this one yet but it's on my Kindle and I'm looking forward to it.


The last book I was given: Left Neglected by Lisa Genova.  Cari gave me this book a few months ago, and it was an excellent recommendation for me.  It's about a high-powered working mom whose life is turned upside down when she is in a terrible car accident, leaving her with a traumatic brain injury.  The physical and emotional changes she goes through in the novel are amazing.  A great read for anyone who loves Jodi-Picoult-style family dramas.
 
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