Customer Reviews

College Girl

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

Stop me if you've heard this story before: A beautiful, young, over-achieving student from a poor family feels out of place at her fancy East Coast college. She's embarrassed by her background, her appearance, and her lack of sexual experience. She meets a boy. He pressures her for sex. Her grades suffer. She becomes depressed, she hates herself, she engages in self-destructive behavior. Finally, she loses her virginity, and hates herself more than ever. Times are hard for a while, but eventually she gets together with the "nice guy," who's been in the background all along. This pretty much fixes everything, and she slowly grows comfortable in her own skin.

If this synopsis reminds you of I Am Charlotte Simmons by Tom Wolfe, you're not alone. One big difference is that College Girl is told in the first person, which only makes the protagonist's whining more prominent--and more annoying. It's hard to feel any sympathy for Natalie Bloom; she's self-absorbed and judgmental, and constantly sabotaging herself. In some ways, this is realistic and relatable; most college students have probably experienced the embarrassment of infatuation, dating, and awkward sex. Readers will cringe at Natalie's poor choices and constant humiliation.

While reading, I couldn't help thinking Natalie might have benefited from taking a Women's Studies course. Perhaps instead of throwing around words like "slut" and "whore" and buying into the idea of sex as a form of "leverage" in relationships, she could have stood up for herself a lot sooner. Instead, she keeps quiet about unwanted sexual attention from her roommate's boyfriend, and caves to her own "boyfriend" when he pressures her into performing oral sex despite her protests.

Even the "nice guy" in the novel, Jack, doesn't take no for an answer:

"...I squeezed my eyes shut, hard, and lay my head back on the pillow. Tears started to fall as my pants slipped over my hips, followed by my underwear. 'Stop,' I said. He didn't stop. 'Please?' I begged. He kept going, and after a minute, I relented..."

The truly disappointing thing is that Natalie is actually grateful to Jack for not respecting her wishes. This kind of "I said no, but I really meant yes" rationalization is an incredibly irresponsible message. Ultimately, College Girl is a thoroughly depressing book. It may, in fact, be a realistic depiction of a young woman's first romance -- which may be the most depressing part of all.

[...]

For any girl who has sought self-confidence in the arms of a boy, who has lost sight of her own identity in the face of love, who has struggled to balance ambition with a romantic relationship, "College Girl" is (at least at first) the story of her life.

Undergoing a constant inner battle, Natalie Bloom is an intelligent, yet self-conscious 20-year-old girl. And, at age 20, she has yet to bloom. The novel tells the story of her journey to womanhood, including typical trials scattered along the road.

The novel begins strongly. The reader is interested in a girl who spends all her free time in the library. There is hope that the Russian history major will be able to branch out and overcome her social insecurity. With Natalie's sole focus on academic work, she has little need for good looks. At the beginning of the narrative, Natalie admits her physical attractiveness and is unable to ignore the obvious approval voiced by many a male passerby. She discounts all appeals to her good looks, feeling undeserving of genuine interest because of her working-class roots and her meagerly educated family.

The youngest of eight, Natalie is the epitome of Freudian dysfunction. Natalie is the product of her parents' inability to express love and her brothers' constant needling. Upon her return home for winter break, readers witness the gravity of her brothers' demeaning jokes. As amateur psychologists, readers draw the conclusion that Natalie has become the fragile, timid young woman she is because of her childhood.

Her propensity for mental instability (attributed to a family disposition to such) is amplified when she becomes obsessed with her "first love." From the beginning, she pushes him away, feeling undeserving as a result of her perception of his elevated social and intellectual position. Despite his growing dislike and obvious emotional apathy, Natalie continues to give her body to him. She tries to convince herself that he will one day love her in the way that she loves him.

Natalie's downward, self-destructive spiral at first translates as sympathy from the reader. But as Natalie forfeits her virginity, her intellectual curiosity and even her hair, the reader herself may echo the main character's depression. Natalie seems so absolutely committed to her own unhappiness that it is irritating. One of her dorm mates even tells her, "You were cooler when you just studied. Now you walk around like a scared dog. People can smell your fear."

Natalie does escape from her own prison, but by that time the reader has already given up on the possibility of Natalie standing up for herself. Her "happy ending" seems to come too late in the story to matter. Readers may be reassured by Natalie's self discovery, but one would hope that she could have reached such a conclusion in a shorter, or at least less painful, way.

In Patricia Weitz's first novel, she employs a voice to which many college girls can connect. The book is interspersed with references to drunken hookups, literature and drugs, all of which are prominent features of many college experiences. Weitz has created an accurate portrayal of the insecurities that pervade the lives of so many twenty-something women. However, what "College Girl" achieves in accuracy, it lacks in creativity.

The heroine's first boyfriend was so well-drawn -- convincingly attractive, intelligent, charming, and heartless -- that I couldn't put the book down until she was done with him. But the book seemed overly long, and I had trouble believing that the protagonist's circumstances could be as dire as represented. Were all five of her brothers utter clods? Were all the women in her dorm sexually promiscuous? Would a college professor speak so unprofessionally to a student? Etc. Actually I think even the horrible boyfriend would have been nice enough to pay for her hamburger at McDonald's; he drove a Saab, for goodness sake.

Also, the protagonist herself seemed less convincing and less appealing as the book wore on. This girl must have had some moxie and curiosity to be able to get into college and earn A's in her coursework...but all of that goes out the window as soon as her bad love affair begins. She ends up looking like an intellectual zero. I left the book not understanding why she was interested in Russia or even what kind of a person she was.

This wasn't a bad read, just not the kind of book I would read twice.

I know a lot of people are comparing this book to Prep, and I'll have to sort of take the same route, even though that's not really fair. The thing is, Prep is one of my favorite books and I happened to re-read it right before reading College Girl. So it was extremely fresh in my mind, and I had hoped College Girl would be just as satisfying a read. Unfortunately, it was not.

The book started out ok. It seemed like a fun and scandalous tale of a straight-laced 20-year-old young woman who would inevitably go wild and start enjoying herself.

But quickly, the book took an extremely depressing turn. It just seemed liked everything that could possibly go wrong *would* go wrong for poor, pathetic Natalie. I felt like the author was trying to heap as many ridiculous things on the girl as possible. The parts that took place at her home, amidst her 5 brothers, were almost laughable. A 20 year old woman begging her probably 30-something brother to let her clean his truck for $10? Eek. I just really hated all those types of scenes. And the character of Patrick... he went from charming to a cheerless sex monster very fast. And Natalie was completely under his spell. Yes, I understand that it happens. Afterall, the same situation happened to Lee with Cross Sugarman in Prep. But Prep portrayed the situation just so much more realistically! Everything in College Girl seemed so over the top and harsh. I found it difficult to read without laughing and thinking "oh, come on!"

Many reviews praise Patricia Weitz's writing style, but I wasn't so into it at all. Nothing was subtle; nothing had any sense of mystery. Like another reviewer mentioned, the fact that Natalie comes from a poor family is beaten into the reader over and over in a glaring and ugly way. This was off-putting to me. In the middle of a sex scene, Nat feels the need to mention her white underwear, "the kind you buy three to a pack". Ok, we get it, she doesn't have much money.

All in all, College Girl will keep you turning the pages, and it ends nicely. But the substance just isn't there in my opinion.

Having read "I Am Charlotte Simmons" and "Prep" within the last several years, the sense of deja vous could not be shaken. I see from previous reviews that others felt the same way! Wolfe, a reporter, writes a novel where the reader is a distant observer. A thoroughly enjoyable novel about what it's really like at an ivy-league school, Charlotte, I believe, is meant to be a prototype. Weitz, on the other hand, creates Natalie Bloom as painfully real. We feel everything she feels, cringe when she makes horrific decisions about her love-life, and sympathize with with her "outsider" status.

I loved the female characters in this novel, especially the roommate stuck in the eighties. Weitz truly excells at drawing the reader into the college world. Unlike Charlotte Simmons, I was deeply immersed in the life of Natalie Bloom.

However, the story has already been told at least twice. A fresh plot would've made this a superb novel. And Weitz's villification of all males was over-the-top. Even Natalie's brothers come off as mysogynistic pigs. The constant howling and barking from male spectators as Natalie walked through her campus made a point, but was excessive.

I enjoyed it, felt horribly uncomfortable reading it (glad days of tests and papers are over with) but am tired of the same-old story.

I honestly can't believe I read this book the entire way to the end. It's filled with poorly developed characters and loaded down with every possible cliche about college life. In general, the plot is very similar to Tom Wolfe's "I am Charlotte Simmons," only without the benefit of Wolfe's solid writing skills. The main character was unlikeable at best, as were most of the secondary characters. I wish I'd listened to some of the other reviewers and skipped this one.

I just read the hardcover version of this book and loved it. I get why people say the main character is "whiny," but I think even the author gets that. The fact is, how many twenty-year olds aren't whiny? I think Weitz did a great job at depicting the discomfort with self that is true for so many young women, myself included, and I think by the end the character isn't whiny and has successfully made the long journey to finding a better self. That's my take, anyway.

This book was surprising in its depth, and I couldn't wait to find out what would happen next. Natalie, the main character, may have been self-absorbed, but I still rooted for her throughout.

This book was almost painful to read. Not because of the writing - that was pretty good; almost stream of consciousness but with better grammar and sentence construction. No, the painful part of this was the main character, Natalie Bloom. A twenty year old college student just going to UConn after spending time at community college first, Natalie has no self-esteem and isn't sure how to interact with the other students around her. Weitz makes us feel her pain, her uncertainty. The novel covers the semester that Natalie "grows up" if you will, and describes, in painful detail, all the false steps Natalie takes.

Maybe the reason this was so hard to read is that many of the feelings expressed by Natalie are so familiar. I imagine that most every woman in the world has felt them at some time.

This book could spark many lively discussions in book clubs.

Having attended UConn during roughly the same time that this novel takes place, I feel that Patricia Weitz gets it all right. The hairsprayed roommate, the skanky neighbor, the brusque professors, the desperation to fit in - even the horrible weather has a role in this book. While I did not always agree with Natalie's choices, I still felt her pain and rooted for her.

A great read!