Review #211: Cum Laude- Cecily von Ziegesar

Title: Cum Luade
Author: Cecily von Ziegesar
Pages: 272
Rating: 3.5 Stars
Summary: They're here for a higher education . . . and you won't believe how far they'll go.

Dexter College is a small liberal arts college in the quiet town of Home, Maine. But it won't stay quiet for long with this group of freshmen. There's Shipley--blonde and beautiful, the object of envy and more than a little lust. Determined to assert herself and to shed her good-girl image, she buys cigarettes and condoms, because that's what every self-respecting college girl does. Her edgy roommate, Eliza, came to Dexter to get noticed, and she has the attitude and the mouth to prove it. Then there's Tom. Handsome, privileged, used to getting his own way, he's a jock-turned-artist who thinks his paintings will change the world. Sensitive Nick, Tom's wake-and-bake pot-smoking roommate, wants to follow in the footsteps of his boarding-school hero. And then there are brother and sister Adam and Tragedy Gatz. The freckle-faced farm boy lives at home with his parents and his little sister, who does all she can to stop him from being a wuss.

As Shipley, Eliza, Tom, Nick, and Adam find out, that first year of college is more than credits and cramming. Between the lust and the love, the secrecy and the scandal, they'll all receive an unexpected education. It's a time of shifting alliances, unrequited crushes, and coming of age. Find Yourself is Dexter's motto. And they are determined to do just that.

Review: I have had this book sitting on my shelf for awhile and Bout of books 9.0 was the perfect excuse to pick it up and finally read it. Cum Laude wasn't the best book I have read but it wasn't the worst. It just followed around a bunch of college kids as they partied, drank and did drugs. Is that how university/ college is in the states? Haha. That's not how my college experience was at all. I wasn't connected to the characters or the story. 

This was just an easy, no- Brainer book. I think I would recommend this book to someone who didn't want to think what they were reading and just wants to veg out.

About this author

Cecily grew up in Manhattan and went to an all-girl's school on the Upper East Side.
She resides in Brooklyn with her husband Richard, the Deputy Director of the Public Art Fund, their children, Agnes and Oscar, and their two Cornish Rex cats. Von Ziegesar also owns an Appaloosa horse, Golden Rain. She is dreams of having a 'ranch full of cattle' when retired.