NUMBER: 39TITLE: I Am Charlotte Simmons
AUTHOR: Tom Wolfe
STARTED: May 26, 2005
FINISHED: May 30, 2005
PAGES: 676
GENRE: Fiction
FIRST SENTENCE: Everytime the men's-room door opened, the amped-up onslaught of Swarm, the band banging out the concert in the theater overhead came crashing in, richocheting of all the mirrors and ceramic surfaces until it seemed twice as loud.
SUMMARY: [From barnesandnoble.com] Dupont University - the Olympian halls of learning housing the cream of America's youth, the roseate Gothic spires and manicured lawns suffused with tradition... Or so it appears to beautiful, brilliant Charlotte Simmons, a wide-eyed, bookish freshman from a strict, devout, poor and poorly educated family in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. But Charlotte soon learns, to her mounting dismay, that for the uppercrust coeds of Dupont, sex, Cool, and kegs trump her towering academic achievement every time. As Charlotte encounters the paragons of Dupont's privileged elite - her roommate, Beverly, a Groton-educated Brahmin in lusty pursuit of lacrosse players; Jojo Johanssen, the only white starting player on Dupont's godlike basketball team, whose position is threatened by a hotshot black freshman from the projects; the Young Turk of Saint Ray fraternity, Hoyt Thorpe, whose sense of entitlement and social domination is clinched by his accidental brawl with a bodyguard for the governor of California; and Adam Gellin, one of the Millennial Mutants who run the university's "independent" newspaper and who consider themselves the last bastion of intellectual endeavor on the sex-crazed, jock-obsessed campus - she is seduced by the heady glamour of acceptance, betraying her values and upbringing before she grasps the power of being different and the exotic allure of her innocence.
REASON FOR READING: I've heard so much about it, I just had to see what the rave was about.
THOUGHTS:This is one of the best books I've read in a long time. As a current college student I was drawn into the story. I did not just read this book... I lived its story. I was seduced, just like Charlotte, by the characters, the setting, and the plot. This book is so true to life that it made me really think about and analyze my own college experience.
I think one of the reasons I enjoyed this book so much was that I am very much like Charlotte. Aside from her utter naivete, I am Charlotte Simmons. The nerdiness, the need to impress those I love, and even - at times - the loneliness. Wolfe did a fantastic job of bringing her character to life for me. He allowed me to get inside of her head. Few writers can truly do this.
While I was basically able to foresee the plot ("twists" and all) after the first 50 pages or so, I was still enthralled by this book. I did not just read it, I devoured it. It may have helped that I know the Jojos, Hoyts, and Adams in real life but Wolfe's attention to detail was inspiring. He got every little detail, right down to the "Trolls" who sit in the hall leaching off of everyone else's lives.
In the end, I loved how Wolfe was able to turn the title of his book into the "moral" of the story. It wasn't until the very last page that I truly realized how much people give up, change, or remain the same in college.
This was a phenomenal novel that I will gladly read and recommend.
MISCELLANEOUS: Is it really possible for a book to make you hermit while, at the same time, making you want to go out?
KEEP/SHARE/CRINGE(?): Sadly, this belongs to the library, but I will purchase my own copy one day.
RATING: 9/10 [Excellent! Couldn't put it down]
CR: Fire Me Up by Kate MacAlister
RN: Hopefully something for my thesis
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