Sophomore Switch
-
-
4.0 • 1 Rating
-
-
- $8.99
-
- $8.99
Publisher Description
Take an administrative snafu, a bad break-up, and what shall heretofore be known as “The Hot-Tub Incident,” and you’ve got two thoroughly unprepared sophomores on a semester abroad. For American party girl Tasha, an escape to tweedy Oxford may be a chance to ditch her recent fame as a tabloid temptress, but wading Uggs-deep in feminist theory is not her idea of a break. Meanwhile, the British half of the exchange, studious control-freak Emily, nurses an aching heart amid the bikinis and beer pong of U. C. Santa Barbara. Soon desperation has the girls texting each other tips—on fitting in, finding love, and figuring out who they really are. With an anthropologist’s eye for cultural detail and a true ear for teen-speak, exciting new novelist Abigail McDonald crafts a very funny, fast-paced, poignant look at survival, sisterhood, and the surprising ways we discover our true selves.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
First-time novelist McDonald skewers college life in this comic novel that has an uptight Oxford student switching places with a University of California party girl. Both are eager to flee their home campuses: Tasha is trying to dodge publicity surrounding her hot-tub antics with a TV star (aka "Tubgate"), and Emily has just been dumped ("As much as I and my liberated, post-third-wave feminist self hate to admit it.... This is all because of Sebastian"). A global exchange program seems the perfect escape, but creates more problems than it solves. While Emily has trouble loosening up in Santa Barbara (she had intended to spend the semester at Harvard), Tasha struggles to convince her peers and professor that she has a functional brain. McDonald plays with stereotypical images of Americans and Brits, painting both in broad strokes, but also challenges standard definitions of feminism. Though the protagonists' traumas, romantic interests and growing self-awareness are perhaps too neatly paralleled, the characters' strong personalities and the book's easy sense of humor will keep readers entertained. Ages 14 up.
Customer Reviews
I like it
I like this book, but I thought it left a bit of a cliff hanger.