Joe College

Tom Perrotta pens what feels like a semi-autobiographical novel (the protagonist, Danny, is attending Yale, Perrotta went to Yale; Danny is an English major, Perrotta taught English, yadda yadda). It isn't that great. The book is full of "quirky" college students, contrasted with the folks back home in New Jersey where Danny spends his spring break driving his father's lunch wagon to office parks and construction sites.

There are not many good novels set at college -- probably because it is an "unreal" time of life, as the student moves from childhood to adulthood, but in a setting where things are both unreal (no mortgages, usually no kids) and yet are desperately important (learning to love, to succeed or fail solely on the strength of one's own self-discipline) and with obvious repercussions that influence the rest of one's life. In this case, Danny is not much of a role model. Which may be the point.

Danny makes a lot of stupid decisions, as college students often do, and doesn't seem to know what he wants or who he is, as college students often don't. But is he wiser at the end than he was in Chapter 1?

As a writer myself, I have always believed that a stand-alone novel is supposed to depict the most important event in the character's life. It is what changes him, teaches him, strengthens him or kills him -- sometimes all of these. But Danny isn't significantly changed by the events in the novel. While that may be the author's point, in my opinion a novel that is about nothing much is worth nothing much.