Weekly Diss - Commencement

J. COURTNEY SULLIVAN

By MATTHEW DEFAVERI

del.ico.us | digg it! | reddit!

print | email | 6 Comments

KNOPF

6.16.09

"What the hell kind of a bridesmaid showed up late to the wedding of a dear friend, and hungover at that?" J. Courtney Sullivan asks in her debut novel, Commencement. The answer is: my kind. This is the fictional story of four whiny, uninteresting freshman girls at Smith whose lives intertwine in a series of events I've dubbed "girly girly fun time." There's Celia, the shitty Catholic; Bree, the naïve twit; Sally, who dresses like Gisele Bündchen 24/7; and April, the radical feminist who wants a room transfer because she's so wacky (April's also a redhead). Sullivan's idea of description is spouting off half-assed, generic observations that evoke a mental image about as vivid and exciting as Stephen Hawking's speech pattern. The foreshadowing is obvious and mostly unnecessary, and the metaphors ("Celia cried until she felt as hollow as a jack-o'-lantern") could be outdone by a small child. Not to mention the run-on sentences they're in there you know. Did anyone proofread this? I'm reminded of a 30 Rock episode where Jenna shows her coworkers The Rural Juror and is lavished with praise despite how horrible it is. To anyone who went to college, you'd think this insider's look at female dorm life would be interesting. Instead, it's mostly depressing.