Name: College Girl
ISBN: 9781594488535

Patricia Weitz

Struggling with private demons from her home life in spite of her attractiveness and ambition, sexually nave college senior Natalie Bloom falls for an untrustworthy man who preys on her insecurities, manipulating her into self-destructive behaviors until she finds the strength to reclaim herself. 35,000 first printing.

College Girl

K. Qua

Every once in a while, I’ll absolutely fall in love with a story that gets tremendously bad (or, at the very least, mediocre) reviews. The sort of reviews that are so well articulated and point out such obvious flaws that, after seeing them, you decide to put the book in question back and watch a movie on Netflix instead. College Girl by Rachel Weitz is definitely one of those stories. It has the number one thing I usually hate in a novel: a reactive protagonist with no self-esteem who gets eaten up by boy problems--which the reviews all seem eager to point out. If I’d learned that before reading it, I’d have shelved the book so quickly I never gave it a second thought. But I’m very glad I didn’t.

A lot of people have called Natalie Bloom, the novel’s protagonist, derivative and cliche. To me, that description just seems to miss the mark. I doubt very much those readers have ever had the experience of transfering to a university two years after everyone else seemed to have settled into their place, or felt ashamed of coming from a working class background, or at a total loss when it came to connecting to other people after spending so much time focused solely on getting good grades. 

College Girl is not a fun coming-of-age story about a naive college girl who gains confidence and becomes empowered like any strong, feminist character should after a few brilliant lectures and fun hookups. It’s a dark, not-so-pretty look at what happens when an unenlightened perfectionist who has spent zero time focused on building interpersonal relationships (or an intrapersonal relationship, for that matter) takes her first shaky steps as an adult--and falters terribly while doing so. 

Because of that, this book is not for everyone. People who grew up without her struggles, especially now, in an era where feminism is more widely discussed and understood, will quite understandably find Natalie Bloom insufferably annoying for her flaws, and even disturbing for some of her views. However, I suspect there are more than a few girls who, despite their best attempts at stability, will relate deeply to Natalie Bloom’s unbalanced approach to college life, and will find both solace and strength in reading about her gradual, painful ascent into adulthood--even if her insecurities keep her from ever being anything close to a good role model.

College Girl

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