As I’ve often told others, your college years are THE years to dabble in dangerous activities. Inebriation, drug use, wild sex—you can partake in all of that as long as you take the proper precautions. But, even if you take improper precautions, this is the time for it. Your body is young and that means it’s as resilient, strong, powerful and durable as it will ever be in your lifetime. You can drink all night, party all day and still wake up in time to sleep through your classes. If you miss anything important in academia, you can always crib notes from fellow alumni. Hey, that’s are friends are for, right?
All joking aside, the initial chapters already portray a girl heading for a fall, if she hasn’t fallen off the precipice already. Blake Brenner reeks of the usual adolescent anxiety. Mix this with a girlfriend whom she admires for her vibrancy, good looks and hedonism and yet isn’t certain actually loves her, a sorority she’s desperate to enter for its prestige and possible connection to helpful patrons and an incipient alcoholism and this is a recipe for disaster.
A foolish, albeit expensive prank, is played for laughs and her fellow partygoers cheer. But you feel that her coterie of admiring friends will turn on her swiftly if it’ll get them out of trouble. She’s working a low-end job, comes from working-class people and she’s a lesbian. While the leader of the sorority claims that they’re all about anti-racism, that may be simply lip service. Being “woke” is in these days (except among certain political parties) even if that doesn’t come with actual help beyond the occasional sticker or button. Blake’s place in this rarefied world is extremely precarious and constant drinking isn’t going to help.
The opening chapters are written in a competent voice (no proliferation of the dreaded YA words “cool” or “weird”) and we get a clear look at Blake’s inner nervousness, longing and desperation. It’s a tantalizing look at social anxiety through the lens of a seemingly sophisticated bon vivant. You long to know what good news awaits this wild girl even as you inwardly cringe at the certainty of her downfall.
All joking aside, the initial chapters already portray a girl heading for a fall, if she hasn’t fallen off the precipice already. Blake Brenner reeks of the usual adolescent anxiety. Mix this with a girlfriend whom she admires for her vibrancy, good looks and hedonism and yet isn’t certain actually loves her, a sorority she’s desperate to enter for its prestige and possible connection to helpful patrons and an incipient alcoholism and this is a recipe for disaster.
A foolish, albeit expensive prank, is played for laughs and her fellow partygoers cheer. But you feel that her coterie of admiring friends will turn on her swiftly if it’ll get them out of trouble. She’s working a low-end job, comes from working-class people and she’s a lesbian. While the leader of the sorority claims that they’re all about anti-racism, that may be simply lip service. Being “woke” is in these days (except among certain political parties) even if that doesn’t come with actual help beyond the occasional sticker or button. Blake’s place in this rarefied world is extremely precarious and constant drinking isn’t going to help.
The opening chapters are written in a competent voice (no proliferation of the dreaded YA words “cool” or “weird”) and we get a clear look at Blake’s inner nervousness, longing and desperation. It’s a tantalizing look at social anxiety through the lens of a seemingly sophisticated bon vivant. You long to know what good news awaits this wild girl even as you inwardly cringe at the certainty of her downfall.