Customer Reviews

I Went to Vassar for This?

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This novel is standard chick-lit fare with a time travel twist. It would have been more interesting if the author also showed us what was happening to 1959 Cathy in the twenty-first century. Cathy is a cross between a rambling Gilmore Girl and Elaine from Seinfeld, but sometimes her behavior is so over the top that at times it makes her a bit unlikeable and unbelievable. After a misunderstanding ruins her date with Hank, she stands outside his door and proceeds to grope her breasts while screaming that he could not handle a real woman- oddly enough he doesn't get a restraining order and is not deterred by her behavior.

This book has the chick-lit cliche of the hunky down-to-earth guy who also happens to be very rich. Cathy also goes out of her way to show us how enlightened she is, she hires a mouthy black girl of whom she says if it were the twenty-first century this girl would work for me and we would go out for drinks together. This is weird because its before she gets to know her, but just assumes for some reason just because the girl is black that they would be best buds. Also her idea of progress still has the black girl working for her not with her-not as an equal but as a subordinate- but I guess you take your progress where you can. She also stages a sit-in to protest anti-semitism at an exclusive club. This happens near the end of the book, and at this point I got a little tired of Cathy and her grand gestures(racism, gender roles, sexual discrimination/harassment, dating a guy who's on the down-low, healthy eating, the list goes on and on)and stupid behavior and just wanted to finish the book so I skimmed over this part.

All in all not a bad book but not a very good one either. At times I couldn't believe how stupid and clueless Cathy was given that she went to Vassar and has an MBA, but in all the chick-lit books the heroine has to be stupid so I guess that is all par for the course. I think you are supposed to be laughing at how dumb she is but I find this aspect of the genre irritating. Why do all these women have to be written as idiots? It was refreshing however that Cathy didn't carry on too much about her weight or her clothing. Despite the flaws, unbelievable coincidences and the silly ending,the book kept me reading and engaged in the story. It's a good beach read.

I normally don't read chick lit. In fact, until I read I WENT TO VASSAR FOR THIS, I don't think I had ever read a chick lit book. I picked up this novel because the cover happened to catch my eye and when I read the synopsis on the back it intrigued me because I've always been fascinated with time travel.

The heroine of this story is Cathy Voorhees (no relationship to Jason), a twenty-something Manhattanite who is working her way up to the executive level at an advertising agency. However, Cathy isn't all that nice of a person and is full of pride. She looses one of the biggest clients her company was hoping to win over and is promptly personally fired by the CEO. When she gets home she attempts to heat up a tv dinner in the microwave, but forgets to take the aluminum foil off the top and the oven explodes. When she wakes up she finds herself in 1959 and in the body of a Cathy Voight, a woman who looks a lot like herself. Remembering everything she's ever seen or heard about time travel, from WHEN PEGGY SUE GOT MARRIED to BACK TO THE FUTURE, Cathy tries to figure out how to get back to the 21st century while finding herself becoming attached to certain aspects (and a particular handsome landlord) of that age.

I enjoyed I WENT TO VASSAR FOR THIS? The book started off rather slow and the ended felt forced and somewhat unresolved (exactly what became of Cathy Voight, e.g.), but overall I found it to be a good read. I don't know if this is typical of chick lit novels, but the book was chock full of cultural and popular allusions (most of which I knew). There were also several times that I wondered to myself how Cathy could so full of facts, yet so dumb: in her conversations with people she was constantly using references, yet she didn't even know simple historical facts, e.g. Neil Armstrong was the first person to walk on the moon.

I WENT TO VASSAR FOR THIS? isn't a great novel, but it is a good one and makes for a fun read (actually, it could make a decent film if someone adapted it correctly). I'm glad I picked a book like this as my first venture into a new genre of reading.

I happened across Naomi Neale's I WENT TO VASSAR FOR THIS? in a BigLots (discount retail store that sells new merchandise) for $2.00 about a year ago. The title is odd and definitely not the kind I would ever use on a book I write.

Am I glad I came across it? I suppose.

I agree with most of what has been said about this book already. On any critique, it will likely be given 3 or 4 stars out of 5. Its premise (as well as certain elements of the plot) is considerably 'far-fetched', and the writing style and general feel of the book certainly doesn't compare to that of a bestseller or literary-fiction novel. However, it is an interesting read nonetheless because of the situations that arise from the main character, Cathy Voorhees (strange last name), being magically transported back in time.

Depending on what you're looking for in a book, I loosely recommend it as a casual read. It held my interest.

This is one of the best books I have read in a long time. The author was funny and witty and kept the story going. I really enjoyed it. I want to point out that I also listened to the audio book and highly recommend it. The reader was extremly engaging and really brought Kathy to life.

You have to read this book.

Naomi Neale creates an engaging character in Cathy Voorhees trying to cope with the norms of society circa 1950's America. I must admit that a great deal of suspension of reality is required to believe that a mishap with alumninum foil and a microwave would blast Cathy into the past, but as I had already read Neale's "Calendar Girl," I knew the journey would be well worth my time. Neal's witty style is fun as well as humorous, and the sprinkling of pop culture references is always amusing. If you are interested in reading fiction about twenty-first century women who are out to find more than a romance from life, I highly recommend all of Naomi Neal'a titles. "I Went to Vassar for This?" is a guilt-free pleasure and one you'll surely pass along to all your girl friends!

While originally the idea of being able to travel through time would be to see things that happened in the past (or the future), eventually it got around to doing something about. Of course there are all sorts of paradoxes involved with time travel, from going back and killing your grandfather before your father is born to going back to stop the "Titanic" from being sunk only to end up being the one responsible because you distract the captain and crew from the iceberg. But the heroine of "I Went to Vassar for This?" is not up to anything that heavy and neither is writer Naomi Neale.

We start off in New York City today where Cathy Vorhees is looking forward to moving on up in her advertising agency, but instead she is fired, basically because she lost a big account, but also because she is not a very nice human being. Adding injury to insult while making a Retro Freezer TV Dinner it explodes in her microwave, and when she wakes up she is back in 1959 (tin foil will do that, so do not try this type of time travel at home). Not only is Cathy in the past, she is now Cathy Vorhees and she is apparently leading the life she wants, as a brutal office dictator. Her flatmates, Tilly and Miranda, think she is simply suffering from electric shock and not a visitor from the future, but that would not explain why Cathy is complaining about people wearing fur and something she calls "sexual harassment" in the office place. Furthermore, if she is trying to get back to the future, then making friends with Hank, the owner of the apartment building, might complicate things down the road.

What follows is fairly predictable, but that does not stop "I Went to Vassar for This?" from being an enjoyable read. Of course Kathy is going to go out of her way to make things right, which means bucking the time and place in which she finds herself, and in the end she will be a better human being. The self-improvement bit is required, which is why the fun here is as Cathy tries to impose "modern" values on the previous generation. Granted, you have to take all of this with a grain of salt, because sexism, racism, unsaturated fat, and the other evils targeted by Neale were not going to be solved by Kathy's quick fixes. Neale gets bonus points for focusing on large issues than body image and dieting. The more you know about the 1950s and the Eisenhower era of semi-good feelings, the more you will enjoy this one, although you might find yourself thinking about what you would have done in Cathy's place.

In New York City Cathy Vorhees thought she was on the fast track to the executive suite, but instead lost the Retro Freezer account and was fired. Stunned and despondent she goes home with a Retro freezer Classic TV dinner that she tosses into her microwave. However, her day in hell is topped when her microwave fails, emitting a strange light.

When she awakens from the microwave disaster, Cathy finds herself in 1959 living as prim and proper office dictator Cathy Voight. Before she suffers a heart attack or is murdered by one of her frightened employees, Cathy tries to mellow out though pork, sugar and office sexual harassment makes her wonder where the happy days are. Still she expects to wake up from this nightmare and never eat a Retro Freezer dinner again even as her roommates Tilly and Miranda persuade her that they are real and her confusion was caused by an electric shock. Still she confides much in hunky Hank, her landlord, and seeks her way back to the future.

Mindful of Peggy Sue Got Married; I WENT TO VASSAR FOR THIS? is a wonderful time travel chick lit tale starring a heroine who uses sarcasm to hide her fear and to disguise her disgust with conditions at the end of the Eisenhower years. Cathy is a fabulous protagonist unable to cope with the suppressive submissive role of women, seeing fur coats on people walking Manhattan streets, and the lack of non sugared products. To her twenty-first century eyes, 1959 Manhattan is a backwater pig leading her to desperately find a way and Back to the Future.

Harriet Klausner