Commencement by J. Courtney Sullivan

() This is definitely a woman's novel, if there was ever a one-gender-only claim to one.

It follows the lives of four very individualistic girls who share a hall together at a small, private, competitive, all-girls college. The young women become very close during their stay, and that close friendship stays with them even some time after they graduate.

Separate but powerful events happen[ed] in the life of each girl. Each of the events effect the others in different but still quite strong ways. To me, this expressed the strong bond that love and friendship shares.

There's plenty of drama, and it's so seemingly random and realistic that it's hard not to be pulled into. Even one of the characters who is depicted as a writer, Celia, (who seems to represent the author of the book most out of all the girls,) claims that something she was drafting, "sucked so much because I was making it all up. So I've decided to try something new-" (pg. 346) and she explains that she now writes about the truth. I interpreted this to mean that maybe this book rocked because it was really based on at least part[s] of the author's life.

Other exceptional excerpts: "I have this problem where when I'm single, I am really happy, but I feel like something's missing. Then when I'm coupled up, nothing's missing, but I'm just sort of sad and insane. It's fucked up, right?"(pg. 19)
"All they knew of each other, really, were the sharp edges. The middle parts and blurry lines were yet to be filled in."(pg. 24)
"The sadness seemed to drop out of her, and in its place was a rage so strong it nearly knocked her down."(pg. 80)
"Poems are like people, like lovers. If you try to understand them all at once, your head's gonna spin. But if you let them take you in, piece by piece, they can move you. Transform you."(pg. 160)
"Wow, that was kind of a disaster. Let's analyze it to death." (pg. 282)
"Every woman needs secrets, [...] Remember that when you're old [...] because the world has a way of making a woman's life everyone else's business - you have to dig out a place that's only yours." (pg. 367)
"[...] not one last time, she decided, because one last time was bullshit. No one could ever say for sure whether they were doing something for the last time, unless they were dead." (pg. 370)
"Bill had always said that every poem was different for every reader, because each person injected the poet's personal thoughts with his or her own, breathing new life into them." (pg. 375)
"Now she knew the flip side of real friendship - that when it ended, it could sting you more than even the most bitter kind of loneliness."(pg. 403)

Part of a poem by Lord Tennyson Alfred that is quoted: "[...]words, like Nature, half reveal and half conceal the Soul within."(pg. 163)