Joe College

Synopsis
A humorous account of the exploits of an Ivy League student from a blue collar background in the '80s.

My thoughts
I read Tom Perrotta's Little People a couple years ago and really enjoyed it right up until the end, a large part of which felt too contrived to me. He's written quite a few critically acclaimed books, including Election and The Abstinence Teacher, but I decided to read Joe College. One of my old college buddies recommended this to me shortly after we graduated. I wish I'd read it then; it would have been a whole lot funnier and I would have been able to relate more. It was still a fun read, but it's disappointing if you read it as anything but quick vacation filler.

Perrotta is at his finest when he's describing the everyday inanities of college dorm life. (One of my favorite scenes involves kids trying kim chee for the first time.) He's less successful when he tries to make his characters deal with issues straight from a teen soap opera. Jonathan Tropper is much better at this; his characters live in something that resembles real life, but he ramps up the absurdity and isn't so damn earnest.

That said, the characters are nicely fleshed out and flawed. Danny, the main character, is a Yale student who finds that his New Jersey working class background makes him a novelty among his privileged peers. But he's also a callow jerk, which made me kind of hate him. I wanted to reach through the pages and throttle him. And that's part of the beauty of the book - Danny is a typical selfish teenager who has mistaken his insulated collegiate bubble for the real world.

Final thoughts
Pass on this one, although Perrotta's worth reading. Little Children was better and I'll read some of his more recent novels someday.

Fine print
Joe College, by Tom Perrotta
Genre: contemporary fiction
Photo from Goodreads
I borrowed this book from the library