A review by lumos_libros
An Off Year by Claire Zulkey
4.0
So I must talk about the cover first. Pretty eye catching but maybe too much huh? I'm here to tell you that main character does have fuzzy slippers and a pink rug in her room but of course this is not what the book is about. Well the main character does sort of scuffle around in those slippers, but I didn't read the book because of the cover but the premise.
Cecily is a normal smart girl and is set to go to college. She has spent all summer preparing, buying, and packing to set herself up for this chapter in her life. She and her dad drive together to the college and they are at her dorm room door, but she just can't do it. Cecily does something that nobody can fathom; she has decided not to go to college, at least for now.
I'm not sure why I kind of responded well to this book. For some reason I thought it was going to be more fun and light-hearted but it wasn't. I think what I appreciated was that it was realistic. Cecily can be kind of infuriating because there is no clear cut reason she gives for why she just decides not to go school and have a gap year. She doesn't do anything particularly special either, but again this was okay for me. I think as a society we are kind of obsessed with having so much going on and though it’s important to be productive, people shouldn’t do something for the sake of looking busy. I think that may have been the appeal for me because not everybody has epiphanies and great things planned for themselves. Real life is not that well planned out. Then there is the dynamic of the family, which is not ideal but definitely realistic. Cecily is the youngest of three. She has a brother away at college and an older sister who lives at home and has already graduated and is looking for a job. Then there is her dad, who is a college professor, so you can imagine that being surrounded by so many college people can make her decision to have a free year inconceivable.
The novel also explores how people can drift apart and by the same token come back together. Even though this not a "college" book per say, there is a lot of college talk so it feels like the reader is experiencing some of the college feel without having the character be in the actual environment. There was so many topics touched at but not fully answered and I think this may frustrate some readers.
With that in mind I can't highly recommend it to everyone because it really won't be for everybody. People going away to college or thinking about going to college may get something positive out of the book. This is the first book that I have encountered that even breaches the topic of a gap year so it gets brownie points for that alone, and I'm interested to see what else this author has to offer.
Side note: Now this point is irrelevant to the actually writing of the book, but I can’t let this slide. Cecily has an old friend who goes to Harvard but then transfers to the University of Kansas. When they talk about the school together they talk about the chant the school has: Rock Chalk Jayhawk UK! WRONG! It's KU not UK. UK is the University of Kentucky. I live in a town where people follow Kansas college basketball religiously, so I easily caught that. What makes it worse is that it's mentioned more than once, and they even talk about the guy's shirt saying UK. *puts head in hands in disbelief* It shows a lack of research on the author's part. Again I know it's not a big deal, but my gosh it bothered me to pieces.
Cecily is a normal smart girl and is set to go to college. She has spent all summer preparing, buying, and packing to set herself up for this chapter in her life. She and her dad drive together to the college and they are at her dorm room door, but she just can't do it. Cecily does something that nobody can fathom; she has decided not to go to college, at least for now.
I'm not sure why I kind of responded well to this book. For some reason I thought it was going to be more fun and light-hearted but it wasn't. I think what I appreciated was that it was realistic. Cecily can be kind of infuriating because there is no clear cut reason she gives for why she just decides not to go school and have a gap year. She doesn't do anything particularly special either, but again this was okay for me. I think as a society we are kind of obsessed with having so much going on and though it’s important to be productive, people shouldn’t do something for the sake of looking busy. I think that may have been the appeal for me because not everybody has epiphanies and great things planned for themselves. Real life is not that well planned out. Then there is the dynamic of the family, which is not ideal but definitely realistic. Cecily is the youngest of three. She has a brother away at college and an older sister who lives at home and has already graduated and is looking for a job. Then there is her dad, who is a college professor, so you can imagine that being surrounded by so many college people can make her decision to have a free year inconceivable.
The novel also explores how people can drift apart and by the same token come back together. Even though this not a "college" book per say, there is a lot of college talk so it feels like the reader is experiencing some of the college feel without having the character be in the actual environment. There was so many topics touched at but not fully answered and I think this may frustrate some readers.
With that in mind I can't highly recommend it to everyone because it really won't be for everybody. People going away to college or thinking about going to college may get something positive out of the book. This is the first book that I have encountered that even breaches the topic of a gap year so it gets brownie points for that alone, and I'm interested to see what else this author has to offer.
Side note: Now this point is irrelevant to the actually writing of the book, but I can’t let this slide. Cecily has an old friend who goes to Harvard but then transfers to the University of Kansas. When they talk about the school together they talk about the chant the school has: Rock Chalk Jayhawk UK! WRONG! It's KU not UK. UK is the University of Kentucky. I live in a town where people follow Kansas college basketball religiously, so I easily caught that. What makes it worse is that it's mentioned more than once, and they even talk about the guy's shirt saying UK. *puts head in hands in disbelief* It shows a lack of research on the author's part. Again I know it's not a big deal, but my gosh it bothered me to pieces.