Flashbacks with Commencement

A book about four roommates at Smith College and the paths their lives (and friendships) take? Yes, please, I'll read this.

I think I'm like many readers: I either unconsciously insert myself into the plot as a silent bystander, seeing where I fit in, or attach myself to a character that most feels like me. (The latter can backfire; when reading "Little Women", I always want to be Jo, but ultimately must face that I'm Meg.) In J. Courtney Sullivan's debut, "Commencement", I was both the unheard and unseen fifth friend but also felt the book from the viewpoints of the four women: Celia, Sally, April and Bree.

Reading this book was, at times, like revisiting college. I attended a small, private liberal arts college (that was mentioned in the first few pages of the book. Go Swat!) and spent my first year living in a quad with three other women. As the characters got to know each other and their new environment, I couldn't help but remember my first days of college. While some of the Amazon reviews criticized the book for its lack of discussion about Smith's academic life, I was content to read without memory of the intensity of that part of college. Bring on the occasional down time and relationships!

Ultimately, I was more drawn to the lives of this four women after college, that weird time when you're supposed to be an adult but you're still not exactly convinced you are one (and have no idea how, exactly, to succeed at being one). While their choices have placed them throughout the country, they stay connected with each other through the instant reward of email, cell phones and text messages-- a privilege that both allows them all to survive the insecurities of their early 20s, but that also somewhat restrains each from branching out into new, adult friendships. Eventually, though, they each find their own place in the world.

The second half of the book is difficult to discuss without giving away major plot developments, but this is no fluff take of Sex in the City: Smith Alumnae. Each woman makes decisions that the others think are entirely wrong, and they flounder as they try to support each other as adults but with the instant/no filtered reactions that governs their friendship. Ultimately, this leads to a major fallout that lasts for over a year...a time in which one friend desperately needs the logic and straightforward statements of the other three. The book concludes with a horrifying problem, one that brings the foursome together again in unexpected ways and will alter the path of each of their lives forever.