Customer Reviews

Cum Laude

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I'm a big Gossip Girl and the It Girl fan. When I went to BEA in May, one of the authors I was thrilled to see on the author signing list was Cecily Von Ziegesar. I was extremely excited when I was able to be 5th in line to meet her. I was geeked when I finally got the table and was able to actually have a mini conversation with her and give her my business card. I was so looking forward to reading this new book of hers.

Right before I first started reading, I went to look at other reviews to see what everyone else thought of the book. I was alarmed to see so many negative reviews but I didn't let that taint my reading experience. I knew this wasn't going to be the next literary classic but was prepared for some light chick lit escapism. However when I finished reading, I was quite glad that I had looked beforehand. Otherwise I would have thought I was the only weird person in the world that really did not like this book.

Right from the beginning of the book, I began to roll my eyes. First off there are some pretty ridiculous first names in this book. I mean really...Shipley and Tragedy? Second, the whole college experience portrayed in this book had pretty much every single stereotype thrown in for good measure. I didn't know a single person my freshman year of college who came to school with only one bag to last them the entire year. No food? No furniture? Just one change of clothes? I guess I can understand the lack of parents not helping but it's sad that they weren't involved at all. Also the whole drinking AS SOON as you move in bit is not true at all.

One huge discrepancy throughout the book is that it is supposed to take place in 1992. There are many references to Clinton/Gore sprinkled throughout the story, almost as if they are the new answer to bringing back the Kennedy era. However there are many details that seem as if the story takes place in the present time. One example is the fact that there is a Starbucks on the college campus. I don't know why in 1992 there would be a Starbucks on a tiny college campus in Maine?

I was just very disappointed in this book. It was nothing more than a Gossip Girl book with different character names. I mean really: Shipley = Serena, Eliza = Vanessa, Tom = Chuck, Nick = Nate, Adam = Dan, Tragedy = Jenny. Honestly, they acted JUST like each other. It was quite disgusting to see Tom's parents blatantly ignore the fact that their son has a drug problem. I mean he was right there in their face, high as a kite and doing things that are just not normal if you are completely sober and they choose not to acknowledge this. Also, (and this is a pretty big spoiler), I was disgusted at the fact that Shipley chose to remain with him in the end even though she knows he will be bad for her. I would not consider this book to even be an "adult book" as the characters are all barely 18 years old.

I'm really sad that I didn't like this book. I think Von Ziegesar needs to move away from writing books that are like Gossip Girl. The formula may have worked for that series but it's time to step away and start afresh. I'm hoping that this book is NOT the first book of a new series and that her next book will be a lot better.

I got this book free in the gift bag at an event I went to. The event was 21 and older - and I'm not sure who this book is aimed at. The characters are boring, simplistic, and have no depth. This is marketed as a coming of age story, but we never get any glimpse into the characters inner life - just the fact that they've "grown" because once they got to college, they partied, had sex, and did drugs. Not once does the author even explore any reasons why the characters felt driven to do these things, or the ways in which having sex and doing drugs impacted them. I get the feeling that this book is meant for young adults - but I would never give it to them, because rather than exploring these adult themes in a mature and educational way, they just will get the feeling that when you go to college you are supposed to do drugs, have sex, steal cars, and generally do anything and everything that you've never done before - as an end in itself. One character even has a major trauma happen to her, and it's treated like "oh well - I guess life sucks sometimes." This book is an utter waste of time and brain cells. I can't believe it's even made it to print.

NOTHING happens in this book!

Slow beginning, slower middle, finally some action happens in the last few pages, terrible ending.

If you're thinking of buying this book, DON'T. It's as bad as all the reviewers say it is.

This book is amazing but don't get confused as it is the same book as "Cum Laude." I thought it was a sequel so I bought it and then realized it's the same book just with a different title/cover. If you love Gossip Girl you will love this book!

I saw this book at the library on the bestseller shelf and was so excited because I loved the Gossip Girl books. Wow what a let down! There's no plot, names are ridiculous, it's one of those books you just keep waiting to get into. Do not waste your time.

i love fluffy books that read like movies. I actually prefer them. And being a fan of the gossip girl tv series, and finding out that this book is von Ziegesar's first adult novel i was extremely curious to check it out.

WHAT A BUNCH OF GARBAGE. if books like this can get published then it just blows my mind how brilliant authors struggle with getting their works even noticed.

The characters had no depth. There was NO plot point. It didn't flow at all and i struggled SO BAD to get through it. Usually a telltale sign of a good book is that you just read and read continuously, dying to find out what's going to happen next. Well, with this book I kind of didn't care what was going to happen next. I was bored. If it wasn't for the fact that it is short in length i would have probably given up after the first couple of chapters. I just kept thinking it HAS to pick up... well, i'm still waiting.
I have no idea what made the publishers really believe that this could be classified as an adult novel, other than the fact that the characters are college students. They could have easily been students at a boarding school, and i wouldn't have known the difference. And even if it was to be classified as a young adult novel; i've read other books that are much better and worth reading.
And, another thing that just bothers me; i think this book takes place in the 90s? Really?? Why? I don't understand!

i wanted to like this book. i REALLYYY wanted to like this book, but it was just terrible all around. I don't even see how making this into a series could save it. save your money or maybe pick up "Looking for Alaska" by John Green instead.

****Spoilers****

As a huge fan of the Gossip Girl and It Girl series, I was excited when I first heard about Cum Laude. It was constantly checked out from the library when it first came out, but I finally got it last week and couldn't wait to begin reading. Sadly, this book is nothing like von Ziegesar's others. It was uneventful and I couldn't get myself to like ANY of the characters since they were all so weird. I somewhat hoped Tragedy would die, Patrick would be stuck in jail forever, Tom's drug use would leave him with permanent brain damage, and Shipley would lose both guys because of how she'd treated them...I couldn't stand these characters! And then they all got the happy endings they didn't deserve!
What was most disappointing was the fact that I was expecting a book similar to Gossip Girl...a fun, easy read. I think that if it had been by a different author, or if it didn't advertise itself as being like Gossip Girl in college I wouldn't have been so upset.

"Cum Laude takes the rich and beautiful out of the private schools of New York and into college. Cecily von Ziegeasar is the author of The Gossip Girl Series and does a grand job of showing the underside of the haves in a world where have nots want to have their way too."

It's easy to think that Cecily von Ziegesar's first book for adults is merely Gossip Girl gone to college. But in many ways it's better. The novel takes place in the '90s, before Bill Clinton was elected and before its characters can rely on text messages and gossip blogs to do their dirty deeds.

CUM LAUDE begins as a story about Shipley Gilbert, a poor little rich girl on her way to Dexter College, an affluent liberal arts school in small-town Maine. Determined to be what her prodigal brother, Patrick, was not when he attended Dexter (he has since disappeared without finishing school), the shy Shipley just wants to make some friends and do well in school. She has no idea that she will be breathtakingly beautiful to all the guys she meets.

Enter Tom and Nick, Shipley's dorm neighbors, and Eliza, her roommate. The four students bond quickly on their orientation camping trip, when they steal a professor's car and end up at the Gatz house, home to Adam, another Dexter freshman; his younger sister, Tragedy; and their hippie parents. It's freshman year, of course, so all six get drunk together until their androgynous professor manages to find them and gives them the closest thing to detention you can get in college --- none of them are allowed to leave campus for a week.

The rest of the book continually changes perspectives to show us what freshman year is like for each of our five heroes. Tragedy, in the meantime, makes friends with a homeless young man she meets at Starbucks. Shipley learns how hot she is and soon has a boyfriend, while Eliza becomes a nude model for an art class in an effort to be the most interesting person she can be. Adam spends his time mooning over Shipley while acting in a play with her boyfriend, and Nick just tries to make his college experience worth remembering.

You almost don't notice that CUM LAUDE takes place in the '90s, though von Ziegesar inserts little clues, like denoting that the school is receiving its first Starbucks rather than its 101st, and then she brings up an oncoming election and casually drops that students are discussing Bill Clinton and Ross Perot. From political awareness to sexual awareness, this book is an excellent depiction of what the first year of college often brings to people. Still, there doesn't seem to be any greater meaning behind any of it.

In some ways, the novel is no better than the worst parts of Gossip Girl; namely, adoption is treated unrealistically, and von Ziegesar's understanding of the middle class is fairy tale-like. She also sets her characters in worlds where there are no people of color to be seen. However, it's also better than the best parts of the original Gossip Girl, and that's nothing to sneeze at. The lack of 21st-century technology is refreshing because it forces the characters to take more action, and the plot twists and the ways that they meet each other are fun and clever. You just need to get past the book cover, which resembles a YA novel, and have faith in its plot and characterization.

CUM LAUDE is a low-key summer read, good for a couple days of lounging around poolside. I wish its plot had been more cohesive, but I definitely had fun with it.

Cecily von Ziegesar has offered her first follow-up to the insanely popular Gossip Girls books. In this novel (is it going to be a series? I don't know, but it could be), she turns her attention again to young characters, this time college students at a small liberal arts school in Maine on the eve of Bill Clinton's first election.

I'm not entirely sure who the audience of this book is supposed to be. I enjoyed it, although I was in high school at the time in which the book is set so I'm close in age to the characters. I've read (and enjoyed) all the Gossip Girl books, although I grew up in the middle-class midwest.

While the characters occupy a very different world than Manhattan's Upper East Side, von Ziegesar still writes about their world with ease. The story focuses on a few students, in particular, who are thrown together during the school's orientation right before they begin their freshman year: Shipley, an attractive girl from Greenwich, CT, and her alternative roommate Eliza; Tom, a jock-type, also from Greenwich, and his raised-by-a-single-hippie-mother roommate, Nick. A local "townie" named Adam, his sister Tragedy, and Shipley's estranged brother Patrick (who disappeared by his own volition from the same college 4 years earlier) are also characters.

The book is a little slow at the beginning, as von Ziegesar introduces us the characters through their initial interactions before time passes quickly into the winter. The action of the book, predominantly in the last 50-100 pages, takes place during the lead-up to finals and shows how the lives of these seemingly unrelated characters have come together - just as does happen in college.

Ultimately, when I got to the end of the book, I realized that not much had happened in it, plot-wise. It didn't feel that slow, though. My only problems with it were slight problems with the tone (is it supposed to be somber? upbeat? I honestly couldn't tell!) and also some anachronism, like the predominance of Starbucks despite the fact that they hadn't taken off yet at that point.

Although when I overall enjoyed the book, I kind of felt like something was missing. The resolution didn't feel complete, nor did the emotional development of any of the characters - they seemed to veer too frequently into caricatures of college students. Shipley, who was arguably the focus of the book, showed the most depth as a character, but even she didn't feel fully developed. It seemed like von Ziegesar was having trouble striking the right tone: she obviously wanted to go for something more serious and less flippant than the Gossip Girl books, but the book lacked the depth or emotional sincerity of similarly-themed (and highly recommended) books like Prep or Commencement.