A review by lauriereadsrom1
An Off Year by Claire Zulkey
2.0
I should preface this by saying that I am far from the target demographic for this book, but one of my favorite humor writers recommended it, so I figured I'd give it a try. There were a few good one-liners, but overall I just didn't care for this book. The only likeable character was Cecily's dad, though he was far from perfect. He really came across as a pushover in the beginning. He started to assert himself and act more like an authority figure later in the book, but it felt like too little, too late to me.
It would have been really nice to see Cecily actually do something with her year off, aside from sitting around watching trash TV and walking the dog. I kept expecting her to have some kind of an epiphany and realize why she had suddenly decided not to start college, but it never happened. She ended up going back to school in the end basically because she didn't have a better idea of what to do.
I'm not sure what lesson teenagers are supposed to take away from reading this book. Cecily didn't really seem to learn anything at all, nor did she suffer any major consequences. Sure, the transition from high school to college can be scary for anyone, but sometimes in life we all have to do things that scare us in order to grow. That's a lesson I wish Cecily had learned.
It would have been really nice to see Cecily actually do something with her year off, aside from sitting around watching trash TV and walking the dog. I kept expecting her to have some kind of an epiphany and realize why she had suddenly decided not to start college, but it never happened. She ended up going back to school in the end basically because she didn't have a better idea of what to do.
I'm not sure what lesson teenagers are supposed to take away from reading this book. Cecily didn't really seem to learn anything at all, nor did she suffer any major consequences. Sure, the transition from high school to college can be scary for anyone, but sometimes in life we all have to do things that scare us in order to grow. That's a lesson I wish Cecily had learned.