Thursday, July 22, 2010

Crazy Hahvahd Antics

School's out for summer, but college freshmen will be heading to campuses around the country soon.  Didn't get into Harvard, Yale, Brown or any of the other ivies your parents were hoping you would? That's ok.  Lauren Kunze & Rina Onur take us on quite a ride (and give quite an education) in The Ivy.

From moving in day, when we meet the four most different girls possible and their equally impossible male counterparts from across the hall, these 2 Harvard alums allow the rest of us to experience what life on the yard might actually be like.  Our heroines: 
     Dana, the Bible-thumper and most sheltered
     Marine Aurelie Clement (aka Mimi), Europe's Paris Hilton, is French, fashionable, and open to any (and maybe all) "relationship" options
     Vanessa VonVorhees, prep-school grad with the same mentality even away from the Manhattan social      scene, is the social-climber who would rather cyber-stalk her classmates than take any actual notes
      Callie, our protagonist, the blonde California transplant who has heard all of the "Legally Blonde" jokes.....thank you very much.

Life seems idyllic in each of their lives.  Sure, one's boyfriend breaks up with her via text message, one's drunk more than sober, one's a bit off, and the last is just trying to do what she was raised to do.  But aren't we all in some way or another?  This is a fun read interspersing the thoughts of Callie with notices from Fifteen Minutes, Harvard newspaper The Crimson's weekly mag that helps "to answer the ever present question of how Harvard students can fill their spare time" (Crimson, Februaury 14, 1992). 

Come September, follow the antics of these four girls, the boys from across the hall, and Harvard at large from Orientation to Thanksgiving break.  Hopefully, there will be follow-ups to finish the ever crazed freshman year.  After all, how does rushing end? Can Callie choose between the multitude of boys now available to her?  Will she survive her first deep freeze of a New England winter?  I NEED to know!!!!!

The Ivy, by Lauren Kunze & Rina Onur, Greenwillow Books, Sept. 2010.  Read, live vicariously, learn what to (possibly) NOT do your first time away from home.