College Reading List

I'm going to college soon and I've had some difficulty finding books about starting college or even about college life. So, naturally, being the blogger that I am, I decided to make a list of books about college that I've read. I've asked Mari to help because this is quite a difficult reading list to make.

Cath is a Simon Snow fan.

Okay, the whole world is a Simon Snow fan...

But for Cath, being a fan is her life—and she’s really good at it. She and her twin sister, Wren, ensconced themselves in the Simon Snow series when they were just kids; it’s what got them through their mother leaving.

Reading. Rereading. Hanging out in Simon Snow forums, writing Simon Snow fan fiction, dressing up like the characters for every movie premiere.

Cath’s sister has mostly grown away from fandom, but Cath can’t let go. She doesn’t want to.

Now that they’re going to college, Wren has told Cath she doesn’t want to be roommates. Cath is on her own, completely outside of her comfort zone. She’s got a surly roommate with a charming, always-around boyfriend, a fiction-writing professor who thinks fan fiction is the end of the civilized world, a handsome classmate who only wants to talk about words... And she can’t stop worrying about her dad, who’s loving and fragile and has never really been alone.

For Cath, the question is: Can she do this?

Can she make it without Wren holding her hand? Is she ready to start living her own life? Writing her own stories?

And does she even want to move on if it means leaving Simon Snow behind?

How in the world do you have a college reading list and not include Fangirl? Frankly, you don't. This is probably my favourite book of this list and stuff like move-in day really resonates with me. It's a book I'm going to keep in mind when things go wrong, and I think it's a must read for any college bound student.

Congratulations! You have been admitted to the most prestigious university in the world. Now what are you going to do?

Callie Andrews may not have money or connections or the right clothes, and she may have way too many complications in her love life, what with

Gregory
the guy she loves to hate ...

Evan
the guy she'd love to forget ...

Clint
the guy she'd love to love ...

and Matt
the guy she really should love ...

all vying for her attention.

But she has three fantastic roommates (best friends or her worst nightmare?) and a wholesome California-girl reputation (oops) and brains and beauty and big, big dreams.

Will it be enough to help her survive freshman year at Harvard?

I'm hoping against hope that this isn't what college will be like. It's fun to read about, (and I did give this one to a friend a while back) but I wouldn't want to live like Callie does. Except, well, going to Harvard sounds super cool. I'm just not too crazy about the party lifestyle, although my future school does have a bit of a reputation seeing as the legal drinking age is 18... I guess I'll have to remember that four boys is way too many. I'll be reasonable and pick three. :)

For Erin Blackwell, majoring in creative writing at the New York City college of her dreams is more than a chance to fulfill her ambitions--it's her ticket away from the tragic memories that shadow her family's racehorse farm in Kentucky. But when she refuses to major in business and take over the farm herself someday, her grandmother gives Erin's college tuition and promised inheritance to their maddeningly handsome stable boy, Hunter Allen. Now Erin has to win an internship and work late nights at a coffee shop to make her own dreams a reality. She should despise Hunter . . . so why does he sneak into her thoughts as the hero of her latest writing assignment?

Then, on the day she's sharing that assignment with her class, Hunter walks in. He's joining her class. And after he reads about himself in her story, her private fantasies about him must be painfully clear. She only hopes to persuade him not to reveal her secret to everyone else. But Hunter devises his own creative revenge, writing sexy stories that drive the whole class wild with curiosity and fill Erin's heart with longing. Now she's not just imagining what might have been. She's writing a whole new ending for her romance with Hunter. . . . except this story could come true.

This book is strange in the sense that it's exactly what I would want: a business major that is paid for, but I guess Erin would rather write. There's nothing wrong with that, except that I'm incredibly jealous of her. Ahem. Anyway, this one is much more of a romance, and I liked it when I read it. It's not a story very relevant to my situation, so it may not be all that useful for college.

After everything that happened—my first boyfriend, my first time, my first breakup—jumping back into the dating game seemed like the least healthy thing I could do. It’s not that I didn’t want to fall in love again, since that’s about the best feeling ever. But as a busy college premed still raw from heartbreak, which is the worst feeling ever, I figured I’d lie low for a while. Of course, as soon as I stopped looking for someone, an impossibly amazing—and devastatingly cute—guy came along, and I learned that having a new boyfriend is the quickest way to recover from losing your old one.
The moment we got together, all my preconceptions about romance and sex were turned upside down. I discovered physical and emotional firsts I never knew existed. I learned to let go of my past by living in the present. It was thrilling. It was hot. It was just what the doctor ordered.
But I couldn’t avoid my future forever.
In Daria Snadowsky’s daring follow-up to Anatomy of a Boyfriend, eighteen-year-old Dominique explores the relationship between love and lust, and the friendships that see us through.

This one is for all those pre-med wanna be's out there (I'm one). This one is a fun look at university from the perspective of a freshy after she gets past the introductory lessons and heart breaks. This one focuses a lot on the sexual relationships that arise as the characters depart from their parents and grow into adults who can decide for themselves and then also pay for the consequences on their own. An interesting outlook and a fun read.

When Jacqueline follows her longtime boyfriend to the college of his choice, the last thing she expects is a breakup two months into sophomore year. After two weeks in shock, she wakes up to her new reality: she's single, attending a state university instead of a music conservatory, ignored by her former circle of friends, and failing a class for the first time in her life.
Leaving a party alone, Jacqueline is assaulted by her ex's frat brother. Rescued by a stranger who seems to be in the right place at the right time, she wants nothing more than to forget the attack and that night - but her savior, Lucas, sits on the back row of her econ class, sketching in a notebook and staring at her. Her friends nominate him to be the perfect rebound.
When her attacker turns stalker, Jacqueline has a choice: crumple in defeat or learn to fight back. Lucas remains protective, but he's hiding secrets of his own. Suddenly appearances are everything, and knowing who to trust is anything but easy.
This was the first and one of the only NA novels I loved. Easy is set in a university environment and captures many details of university life which makes a curious Mari very happy. There are dorms and lectures and TA's! I really enjoyed this one not only does it tell an interesting story with some darkness in the edges but it also highlights university life in a way not many other books do.

Allyson Healey's life is exactly like her suitcase—packed, planned, ordered. Then on the last day of her three-week post-graduation European tour, she meets Willem. A free-spirited, roving actor, Willem is everything she’s not, and when he invites her to abandon her plans and come to Paris with him, Allyson says yes. This uncharacteristic decision leads to a day of risk and romance, liberation and intimacy: 24 hours that will transform Allyson’s life.
A book about love, heartbreak, travel, identity, and the “accidents” of fate, Just One Day shows us how sometimes in order to get found, you first have to get lost. . . and how often the people we are seeking are much closer than we know.
The first in a sweepingly romantic duet of novels. Willem’s story—Just One Year—is coming soon!

Just One Day isn't my favourite of Gayle Foreman's work but it does stand on its own. I really liked seeing the healing and growth process that the main character went through after her initial "day". Also, one thing that I think this book carried through quite well is that everything doesn't always go as planned because life cannot be lined up in a perfect row and planned out. Things change, people change and we have to be able to see that. (So deep :P)

What's On Your College Reading list?

-P.E. and MARI