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Book Review: Commencement by J. Courtney Sullivan (Bottom of TBR Pile Challenge)
Summary:
Celia, Bree, Sally, and April wound up on the same small hall their first year at Smith College. Celia is from a traditional Irish Catholic Massachusetts family, although she doesn’t consider herself to be Catholic. Bree arrives at college from the south with an engagement ring on her hand. Sally arrives full of mourning and despair over the recent loss of her mother to breast cancer, and April arrives as the only work-study student on their floor. Paying her own way through school and with a whole slew of issues and causes to fight for. Their friendship is traced from the first weeks at Smith through their late 20s.
Review:
I picked this book up because it was compared favorably to Mary McCarthy’s The Group
What the book does well is evoking the feeling of both being in undergrad and the years immediately after graduation. Sullivan tells the story non-linearly, having the women getting back together for a wedding a few years after college. This lets them reminisce to early years of college and also present current life situations and hopes for the future. After the wedding, the story moves forward to cover the next year. The plot structure was good and kept the story moving at a good pace. It feels homey and familiar to read a book about four women going through the early stages of adulthood. It was hard to put down, and the storytelling and dialogue, particularly for the first half of the book, read like a fun beach read. However, there are a few issues that prevent the book from being the intelligent women’s literature it set out to be.
First, given that the premise of the book is that four very different women become unlikely friends thanks to being on the same hall of a progressive women’s college, the group of women isn’t actually that diverse. They are all white, three of the four are from wealthy or upper-middle-class backgrounds (only one must take out loans and work to pay for school), none are differently abled (no physical disabilities or mental illnesses), and not a single one is a happy GLBTQ person. Given that The Group
The book has a real GLBTQ problem. One of the characters has two relationships. One is with a man and one with a woman. She is happy in both and attracted to both. She takes issue with being called a lesbian, since she states she definitely fantasizes about men and enjoys thinking about them as well. Yet, in spite of the character clearly having both physical and romantic attractions to both men and women, the word bisexual is not used once in the entire book. The character herself never ventures to think she might be bi, and no one else suggests it to her. She struggles with “being a lesbian” and “being out as a lesbian” because she doesn’t think she is a lesbian. The other characters either say she’s in denial in the closet due to homophobia or that she really is straight and she needs to leave her girlfriend. It is clear reading the book that the character struggles with having the label of lesbian forced upon her when she is clearly actually bisexual. This is why she is uncomfortable with the label. But this huge GLBTQ issue is never properly addressed, swept under the rug under the idea that she’s “really a lesbian” and is just suffering from internalized homophobia. The bi erasure in this book is huge and feels purposeful since the character’s bisexual feelings are routinely discussed but the option of being non-monosexual never is. It’s disappointing in a book that is supposed to be progressive and talking about modern young women’s issues to have the opportunity to discuss the issues of being bisexual and instead have the character’s bisexuality erased.
The second half of the book makes some really odd plot choices, showing a highly abusive relationship between one of the characters and her boss. It probably is meant to show the clash between second and third wave feminism, but it feels awkward and a bit unrealistic. Similarly, the book ends abruptly, leaving the reader hanging and wondering what is going to happen to these characters and their friendship. Abrupt endings are good when they are appropriate to the book and mean something, but this ending feels out of place in the book, jarring, and like a disservice to the reader.
Overall, this is a fast-paced book that is a quick, candy-like read. However, it is held back by having the group of women in the core friendship be too similar. Opportunities to explore diverse, interesting characters are missed and bisexual erasure is a steady presence in the book. The ending’s abruptness and lack of closure may disappoint some readers. Recommended to those looking for a quick beach read who won’t mind a lack of depth or abrupt ending. For those looking for the stronger, original story of a group of friends from a women’s college, pick up The Group
3 out of 5 stars
Source: PaperBackSwap
Series Review: Sookie Stackhouse / Southern Vampire Mysteries Series by Charlaine Harris
Introduction:
I post series reviews after completing reading an entire series of books. It gives me a chance to reflect on and analyze the series as a whole. These series reviews are designed to also be useful for people who: A) have read the series too and would like to read other thoughts on it or discuss it with others OR B) have not read the series yet but would like a full idea of what the series is like, including possible spoilers, prior to reading it themselves or buying it for another. Please be aware that series reviews necessarily contain some spoilers.
Summary:
Sookie Stackhouse is a waitress in the rural town of Bon Temps, Louisiana, and she has a secret. She’s a telepath, and it’s ostracized her from most of the people in her town. But when vampires come out of the coffin, Sookie discovers that she can’t read their minds. Mind reading made her dating life non-existent, for obvious reasons, but with vampires, Sookie can feel somewhat normal. She soon starts to get pulled into their supernatural world, which contains more than they’re letting on to the mainstream public.
Review:
I first want to make it very clear that this series review is talking exclusively about the books and not the tv show inspired by them, True Blood. There will be no spoilers for the show and no comparisons between the books and the show. The show diverged very quickly from the books, so I think it’s fair to keep discussion of the two separate. Moving right along!
This series takes the mystery series whodunit in the vein of Agatha Christie and drenches it in the supernatural and the American south, utilizing it to tell the overarching story of one woman choosing who she wants to be. Perhaps because of the presence of some handsome leading men and the occasional sex scene, some mistake the series for a romance one. But this series is truly not a romance. Sookie’s romantic life (and sex life) is really secondary to the mysteries she solves and her slow discovery of who she is and who she wants to be.
The whodunit plots are generally murder mysteries. The violence is moderate. If you can handle a vampire biting someone or knowing someone is being beheaded without actually getting the gore described to you, you can handle the violence in this series. The whodunit plots start out engaging but gradually become more repetitive and ho-hum, almost as if the author was running out of ideas for situations to place Sookie in. Similarly, Sookie gets kidnapped and has to get saved by her supernatural friends kind of a lot.
The setting of a supernatural American south is well imagined and evoked. Both small town, rural lives and larger southern cities like Dallas and New Orleans are touched upon. The American north is visited once, however, Sookie has a strong aversion to northern women that sours the representation of the north in the book.
The characters can sometimes feel like overwrought caricatures. While some characters are given depth, most are not. This is odd, since Sookie can read minds. one would assume that she, as the first person narrator, would have a very three-dimensional view of those around her. And yet she doesn’t. Sookie likes to say that she’s for equality and seeing the good in everyone but she actually judges people very harshly. For instance, she thinks it’s a shame that women who are not virgins wear white wedding dresses.
Sookie’s character does develop, albeit minimally, over the course of the books. Characters should grow and change, 
particularly over the course of 13 books, but unfortunately Sookie’s character changes to become less and less likable. This is extra frustrating when the book is told from her perspective. Instead of becoming more powerful and strong (emotionally, mentally) over the course of the series, Sookie becomes less and less able to handle the things going on around her. She also continues to act shocked and appalled at the wars and violence she doesn’t just see, but participates in, in spite of it now being a normal part of her life. Perhaps if she was just repeatedly a victim this mentality would make sense, but Sookie enacts violence on those around her and then acts disgusted at what the vampires/werewolves/etc… do, which comes off as hypocritical. Either own your own actions and validate their necessity or stop doing them. Don’t do certain violent actions then deny your involvement while simultaneously judging others for doing precisely what you just did. The fact that Sookie slowly becomes this hypocritical person makes her less and less likable. Similarly, she starts out the books with a firm belief in social justice and equality for supes but over the course of the series clearly comes to believe that humans are better than supes. I don’t blame her for wanting a quiet life or for wanting to stay human or wanting to have babies but she could have 
done all of those things without coming to view supes as inferior. It is frustrating for the reader to have a main character in an almost cozy style mystery series gradually change into someone it is difficult to empathize with.
There is a consistent presence of GLBTQ characters, albeit mostly in secondary roles, throughout the series. Homophobia is depicted in an extremely negative light since only the bad guys ever exhibit it. Unfortunately, there is an instance of bi erasure in the book. One of the characters is identified as gay but everyone also acknowledges that he periodically sleeps with women. Even the character himself calls himself gay, so this isn’t just a case of the author writing a realistic amount of the realities of bi erasure into the book.
The sex in the book is not well-written. It is just awkward, cringe-inducing, and laughable most of the time. But the sex scenes aren’t very often, and they do fit in with the rest of the book. Just don’t go to this series looking to get really turned 
on.
This sounds like a lot of criticism for the series but some of these things, such as the campy, two-dimensional characters, are part of what makes the series enjoyable. It’s kitschy, not to be taken too seriously. It’s a series to come to and read precisely to laugh and roll your eyes. To be utterly bemused at the sheer number of supernatural creatures and the ridiculousness of how they organize themselves. To sigh in frustration at Sookie as she gets kidnapped yet again or is oblivious yet again to who the murderer is. It’s a series that’s candy for those who enjoy camp and not too much violence with a touch of the supernatural in their mysteries.
3.5 out of 5 stars
Source: Amazon, PaperBackSwap, and Audible
Books in Series:
Dead Until Dark
Living Dead in Dallas
Club Dead
Dead To The World
Dead as a Doornail
Definitely Dead
All Together Dead
From Dead to Worse
Dead And Gone
Dead in the Family
Dead Reckoning
Deadlocked
Dead Ever After
This work by Amanda Nevius is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Opinions of a Wolf 