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Bennington Girls Are Easy
Chosen as one of "Summer's Best Books" by PEOPLE MAGAZINE: "Suprisingly insightful and seriously fun."
One of O MAGAZINE's "Season's Best"
A COSMOPOLITAN MAGAZINE "July Reads" Pick
Named one of REFINERY 29's “21 New Authors to Watch” in 2015
Charlotte Silver dazzles with a ruefully funny coming-of-age novel that follows two recent Bennington grads who are determined to make it in the Big Apple.
Bennington College, founded in 1932 as a suitable refuge for the wayward daughters of good families, maintains its saucy reputation for attracting free spirits. There, acres outnumber students, the faculty is composed of fading hippie and clothing is largely optional. Or, as J. D. Salinger put it in Franny and Zooey: a Bennington-type "looked like she'd spent the whole train ride in the john, sculpting or painting or something, or as though she had a leotard on under her dress."
Cassandra Puffin and Sylvie Furst met in high school but cement what they ardently believe will be everlasting friendship on Bennington's idyllic Vermont campus. Graduation sees Sylvie moving to New York City, where, later on their twenties, Cassandra joins her. These early, delirious years are spent decorating their Fort Greene apartment with flea market gems, dating "artists", and trying to figure out what they're doing with their lives.
The girls are acutely and caustically observant of the unique rhythms of the city but tone deaf to their own imperfections, which eventually drives a wedge between them. Equal parts heartfelt and hilarious, Bennington Girls Are Easy is a novel about female friendships—how with one word from a confidante can lift you up or tear you down—and how difficult it is to balance someone else's devastatingly funny lapses in judgment with your own professional and personal missteps.
From the Hardcover edition.
One of O MAGAZINE's "Season's Best"
A COSMOPOLITAN MAGAZINE "July Reads" Pick
Named one of REFINERY 29's “21 New Authors to Watch” in 2015
Charlotte Silver dazzles with a ruefully funny coming-of-age novel that follows two recent Bennington grads who are determined to make it in the Big Apple.
Bennington College, founded in 1932 as a suitable refuge for the wayward daughters of good families, maintains its saucy reputation for attracting free spirits. There, acres outnumber students, the faculty is composed of fading hippie and clothing is largely optional. Or, as J. D. Salinger put it in Franny and Zooey: a Bennington-type "looked like she'd spent the whole train ride in the john, sculpting or painting or something, or as though she had a leotard on under her dress."
Cassandra Puffin and Sylvie Furst met in high school but cement what they ardently believe will be everlasting friendship on Bennington's idyllic Vermont campus. Graduation sees Sylvie moving to New York City, where, later on their twenties, Cassandra joins her. These early, delirious years are spent decorating their Fort Greene apartment with flea market gems, dating "artists", and trying to figure out what they're doing with their lives.
The girls are acutely and caustically observant of the unique rhythms of the city but tone deaf to their own imperfections, which eventually drives a wedge between them. Equal parts heartfelt and hilarious, Bennington Girls Are Easy is a novel about female friendships—how with one word from a confidante can lift you up or tear you down—and how difficult it is to balance someone else's devastatingly funny lapses in judgment with your own professional and personal missteps.
From the Hardcover edition.
272 pages, Paperback
First published July 14, 2015
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2763 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 258 reviews
July 23, 2015
Received a copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
It was a real effort to get through this book without giving up. I might have been able to deal with the thoroughly unlikable main characters if this book had any sort of purpose, plot, or direction. As it is, Bennington Girls Are Easy is simply many, many pages of extremely horrible people being extremely horrible. Sylvie and Cassandra are judgmental, shallow, and conceited girls whose friends are just the same. There was no one to empathize with, or root for, and even reading about their failures was more pathetic than gratifying.
This book is described as a funny, coming of age tale, and I found it neither particularly funny nor a real coming of age story. It meanders its way through the lives of these two girls and their social circle, bouncing into everyone's heads, even random one-off characters. There is no real plot, the story isn't building to anything, and no one goes anywhere or learns anything. It's supposed to be a story of two girls determined to make it in New York, but they seemingly have no work ethic or follow through, and the only thing they seem determined about is the New York life that you see in movies - quaint apartments, chic clothes, and a cute boyfriend who will buy you things.
Also, I found it interesting that all of them detest going into Manhattan. I live in Brooklyn, and none of my friends ever want to schlep all the way to Brooklyn to see me.
It was a real effort to get through this book without giving up. I might have been able to deal with the thoroughly unlikable main characters if this book had any sort of purpose, plot, or direction. As it is, Bennington Girls Are Easy is simply many, many pages of extremely horrible people being extremely horrible. Sylvie and Cassandra are judgmental, shallow, and conceited girls whose friends are just the same. There was no one to empathize with, or root for, and even reading about their failures was more pathetic than gratifying.
This book is described as a funny, coming of age tale, and I found it neither particularly funny nor a real coming of age story. It meanders its way through the lives of these two girls and their social circle, bouncing into everyone's heads, even random one-off characters. There is no real plot, the story isn't building to anything, and no one goes anywhere or learns anything. It's supposed to be a story of two girls determined to make it in New York, but they seemingly have no work ethic or follow through, and the only thing they seem determined about is the New York life that you see in movies - quaint apartments, chic clothes, and a cute boyfriend who will buy you things.
Also, I found it interesting that all of them detest going into Manhattan. I live in Brooklyn, and none of my friends ever want to schlep all the way to Brooklyn to see me.
October 16, 2015
This book is not "dazzling". Rather, it is vapid and awful. From the book jacket, this sounded right up my alley - two best friends graduate from college and move to NYC where their relationship evolves. However, it was a complete effort to get through this book without giving up. I think that I only made it because it was short. The book had not one likable character. It also had no direction. The plot was choppy. Within paragraphs, we flip forward several years and then back. The book is just pages and pages of insufferable people acting selfishly and horribly. Sylvie and Cassandra, the two main characters, are judgmental, clueless and extremely self-centered girls whose friends are just the same. The author did not create one character to empathize with, or even like. Reading about their failures was annoying because they were self inflicted and trite. I also couldn't understand how a whole group of college educated women ended up with no skills, ambition, and anything better than retail work, were able to pay their NYC rent for a decade. The end of the story was odd - it was almost as if the author tired of these insufferable women and just ended the book. There is no real plot, the story isn't building to anything, and no one goes anywhere or learns anything. Terrible read. (less)
January 10, 2016
If Girls were written by Whit Stillman.
August 24, 2015
Sometimes, when I'm really enjoying a book, I can't stop thinking about the characters and what's happening and it distracts me in yoga class. I suppose it's a good thing that I didn't care about these people very much because it allowed me to focus on my back bends this weekend instead of the lives of the frenemies from Bennington.
July 10, 2015
Bennington girls may be easy, but making a life and a living in NYC after graduation is brutally hard. That's the picture author Charlotte Silver gives us of main characters Sylvie and Cassandra, two Cambridge, MA natives who attend liberal, artsy, free-spirited Bennington in VT and try to make a go of it in the big city. In addition to the main characters, we meet several other women and men who also went to Bennington. All of them faltering and failing in their jobs (I can't even use the word "career" and their love lives) as we follow them even 10 years after graduation.
Perhaps their failures are due to environment; "What a racket New York City was, when you really thought about it,"; perhaps their education and upbringing; "Bennington alumni were a remarkably nonresilient lot,"; or perhaps Silver is making some sort of wider commentary about how the current economy is affecting millenials with liberal arts (vs. technical or scientific) degrees.
The misfortunes of the characters don't garner much sympathy from the reader. The characters have few redeeming qualities. They're narcissitic, dishonest, conniving, lack a work ethic, and so on.
I kept going back and forth on whether or not I actually liked the book. Observations about Cambridge, NYC, Brooklyn, etc. were funny and spot-on. The characters themselves were so loathsome, it almost seemed like Silver was trying too hard to make them banal. 2.5 stars rounded up to 3.
Thank you to NetGalley and Doubleday for a galley of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Perhaps their failures are due to environment; "What a racket New York City was, when you really thought about it,"; perhaps their education and upbringing; "Bennington alumni were a remarkably nonresilient lot,"; or perhaps Silver is making some sort of wider commentary about how the current economy is affecting millenials with liberal arts (vs. technical or scientific) degrees.
The misfortunes of the characters don't garner much sympathy from the reader. The characters have few redeeming qualities. They're narcissitic, dishonest, conniving, lack a work ethic, and so on.
I kept going back and forth on whether or not I actually liked the book. Observations about Cambridge, NYC, Brooklyn, etc. were funny and spot-on. The characters themselves were so loathsome, it almost seemed like Silver was trying too hard to make them banal. 2.5 stars rounded up to 3.
Thank you to NetGalley and Doubleday for a galley of this book in exchange for an honest review.
July 12, 2015
Original review can be found at http://kristineandterri.blogspot.ca/2...
** I received an advanced readers copy of this book from the publisher via Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review. Thank you!**
I always try to state the positive first when discussing a book but in the case of this book I couldn't really come up with a strong positive. In fact, I found many issues with the book and story and even when I tried to grasp I could not find the positive.
My issues were...
1. This book read like it took place back in the70's or 80's and I had to keep reminding myself that the characters graduated in 2003 and that the story took place after that.
2. There wasn't a single character in the entire book that was likeable. They were all shallow, selfish, spoiled, entitled, whiny, unintelligent and undeserving. Seriously, not one good character. Even the kids that were briefly in the book were awful. At first I thought that I just didn't like Sylvie but Cassandra turned out to be just as bad. I couldn't get behind either one of them and I just didn't care about their outcome which was a good thing because leads me into #3.
3. The story went absolutely nowhere in 272 pages other than to show how pathetic the main characters were. There was no real story to speak of unless you consider the reader discovering how truly awful the girls were a story. Even if you were able to grasp a plot within the pages there was absolutely no resolution to the plot. It just ended and my only words were "really??"
4. This was suppose to be a story of friendship? Really it was more a story of bitterness, self preservation and the lengths one would go to get what they want and the relationships that get slaughtered along the way. Also, as the title indicates, a story about how easy Bennington girls are. I'm certainly glad I didn't go to that school because this book does not paint a very good picture unless the real intent was to spoof it.
This book was not for me. Normally I can find a few little silver linings but not with this book.
** I received an advanced readers copy of this book from the publisher via Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review. Thank you!**
I always try to state the positive first when discussing a book but in the case of this book I couldn't really come up with a strong positive. In fact, I found many issues with the book and story and even when I tried to grasp I could not find the positive.
My issues were...
1. This book read like it took place back in the70's or 80's and I had to keep reminding myself that the characters graduated in 2003 and that the story took place after that.
2. There wasn't a single character in the entire book that was likeable. They were all shallow, selfish, spoiled, entitled, whiny, unintelligent and undeserving. Seriously, not one good character. Even the kids that were briefly in the book were awful. At first I thought that I just didn't like Sylvie but Cassandra turned out to be just as bad. I couldn't get behind either one of them and I just didn't care about their outcome which was a good thing because leads me into #3.
3. The story went absolutely nowhere in 272 pages other than to show how pathetic the main characters were. There was no real story to speak of unless you consider the reader discovering how truly awful the girls were a story. Even if you were able to grasp a plot within the pages there was absolutely no resolution to the plot. It just ended and my only words were "really??"
4. This was suppose to be a story of friendship? Really it was more a story of bitterness, self preservation and the lengths one would go to get what they want and the relationships that get slaughtered along the way. Also, as the title indicates, a story about how easy Bennington girls are. I'm certainly glad I didn't go to that school because this book does not paint a very good picture unless the real intent was to spoof it.
This book was not for me. Normally I can find a few little silver linings but not with this book.
September 6, 2015
I'm a heavy reader, and tend to prefer very long novels, but I chose this book while looking for a quick, light read to break up the more serious titles I've been reading this summer. Judging by the blurb, I'd expected at least a mildly insightful and profound coming of age story about young women trying to make it in the big city. I also expected a plot.
Unfortunately, I disliked the shallow, annoying characters in this book so much and so little actually happened in the story that this became the first book in years that I consciously chose to give up on halfway through. Though I know it wasn't meant to be YA fiction, it felt like a teenage literary mashup of Sex & the City and Seinfeld, but without the charm.
tl;dr: Superficial, immature young women jabbering on about sex and fashion and other people while playing at adulthood. Not recommended for actual adults.
Unfortunately, I disliked the shallow, annoying characters in this book so much and so little actually happened in the story that this became the first book in years that I consciously chose to give up on halfway through. Though I know it wasn't meant to be YA fiction, it felt like a teenage literary mashup of Sex & the City and Seinfeld, but without the charm.
tl;dr: Superficial, immature young women jabbering on about sex and fashion and other people while playing at adulthood. Not recommended for actual adults.
July 30, 2015
Silver is bold to put Bennington right in the title, since as we all know, the best book about Bennington girls (and boys) -- and one of the best books ever -- has already been written. I'm speaking, of course, about Donna Tartt's 1992 masterpiece The Secret History (There's also Bret Easton Ellis's lesser though still enjoyable Bennington chronicle The Rules of Attraction.) Smartly, Silver covers the actual college years in just a few pages, and indeed skips over nearly completely the sort of nostalgic, twee, Instagram-filtered memories of college life the cover seems to promise.
At first I was really put off by that, finding the characters and storylines incredibly unpleasant and unlikable, nearly leading me to cast the book aside unfinished. But once I embraced the fact that this was not actually another ironic post-Brooklyn hipster chronicle but in fact a mean, unrelenting, diamond-sharp, lacerating satire of nearly everyone in New York in the manner of Dawn Powell or Edith Wharton, I was in heaven. Everyone in this book is completely awful and pretentious, and I enjoyed every second of watching them get eviscerated on the page. I'm a modern dance-loving liberal arts major who is nearly exactly contemporary to the Bennington class of 2003, and I live among people of various economic instabilities in hyper-gentrified Brooklyn. This is the book I needed to remind myself what really matters (ridiculing everything around you), and that it's ok to let the hate out once in a while. To paraphrase Belize from Angels in America: "I live in Brooklyn, Louis, that's hard enough, I don't have to love it. You do that. Everybody’s got to love something."
At first I was really put off by that, finding the characters and storylines incredibly unpleasant and unlikable, nearly leading me to cast the book aside unfinished. But once I embraced the fact that this was not actually another ironic post-Brooklyn hipster chronicle but in fact a mean, unrelenting, diamond-sharp, lacerating satire of nearly everyone in New York in the manner of Dawn Powell or Edith Wharton, I was in heaven. Everyone in this book is completely awful and pretentious, and I enjoyed every second of watching them get eviscerated on the page. I'm a modern dance-loving liberal arts major who is nearly exactly contemporary to the Bennington class of 2003, and I live among people of various economic instabilities in hyper-gentrified Brooklyn. This is the book I needed to remind myself what really matters (ridiculing everything around you), and that it's ok to let the hate out once in a while. To paraphrase Belize from Angels in America: "I live in Brooklyn, Louis, that's hard enough, I don't have to love it. You do that. Everybody’s got to love something."
April 3, 2015
“The best part of the book was how real it felt. Although I don’t share the Bennington College background (or some of the absurd wealth) with the characters, I could still easily relate to all of them. Bennington Girls Are Easy looks at the growing up everyone must do after college graduation, with some having smoother transitions into the “real world” than others. I laughed at Sylvie and Cassandra’s antics in New York, including their desperate attempts to make money (babysitting, working at a bakery, even running a lemonade stand) while their rich friends had no such worries. I admit I could see my friends and myself falling victim to these same sorts of dilemmas a few years down the road.” - Katie D., Doubleday Marketing intern
September 9, 2025
Would have DNF’d if I wasn’t reading this for research purposes (aka substack article). This is set in the early 2000s-2010s yet it reads like it’s the 50s. The dialogue between the characters is so stilted & strange. Nothing happens & the book ends weirdly. Not a fan.
July 22, 2015
I’m a sucker for novels about twenty-somethings living in New York. I’m not saying that I really like them, but I am somehow compelled to buy and read every single one that I come across. As a Midwesterner, there is a certain romance (old meaning on the word, no bosom heaving here) in these stories that really appeals to me. I also love it if in those novels said twenty-somethings are over-educated, spoiled, and suddenly find themselves living somewhere south of the lap of luxury. These types of stories are at their best when they reflect the actual economic struggles that young people are really facing at this point in our history. That said, so few of these stories are in reality any good.
Bennington Girls Are Easy by Charlotte Silver is the story of the post college lives of Sylvie Furst and Cassandra Puffin (and occasionally Gala Gubelman), who have left the bohemian haven of Bennington College to make their lives in New York. Sylvie and Cassandra are lifelong best friends who are apparently so close that they know each other’s exact measurement and they hate the same things... okay. After moving to Brooklyn to begin their adult lives, they struggle through the predictably difficult economic landscape and navigate their unstable personal lives. Through all this, and their supposedly vastly differing priorities (Sylvie smokes pot and has no job, Cassandra has a rich boyfriend and I think no job) their friendship is strained to the breaking point.
The whole time I was reading this book I had the feeling I had read it before, which is of course impossible because it had just come out (July 14, 2015). But at the point when Cassandra gets a job at a chic Brooklyn baby boutique it hit me. Bennington Girls Are Easy reads like a slightly better second draft of last July’s Friendship by Emily Gould. Both novels focus on a set of not particularly likable twenty-something best friends who have a falling out over something supposedly fundamental, and one of them ends up working in a baby boutique... BOTH NOVELS. It was such a strong sense of déjà vu that I couldn’t keep the characters straight, which is definitely one of the weakest points in Bennington Girls.
I don’t mind unlikable characters, in fact, I can really get behind them if they are well drawn, complex and interesting. The strongest element of Sylvie and Cassandra are that they are unlikable, but ultimately that’s pretty much all we know about them... other than they like to complain ABOUT EVERYTHING. The characters, who all have the potential to be vivid and interesting—if unlikable—fall flat and blend together. Silver even seems to acknowledge this when everyone in the novel assumes that, beautiful, sex-positive Gala had a threesome with Pansy Chapin, when in reality it was Bitsy Citron; the confusion rings true because every character is so underdeveloped they all blend into one another. This vagueness isn’t helped by the fact that the novel shifts abruptly from one perspective to another and alternates between past, present and future without any warning. Even New York feels vague and ill-formed... As though Silver assumes that EVERY reader will be so familiar with the city that descriptions are unnecessary and often the locations—you guessed it—blur together to create a non-distinct “New Yorkish” set piece. Everything about the novel feels vague and loose... And not in an on-purpose way.
I wanted so so so badly to like this book. I love New York, I am a twenty-something, I have two liberal arts degrees in English (I do remember now that Cassandra is an English major... though she certainly doesn’t feel like it) and I know how hard it is to exist in a world where you didn’t get the practical degree at the right time. I wish that Silver had written a novel about Bennington. The flashbacks she provides are by far more interesting than the story she is actually telling, and the atmosphere of the small, bohemian liberal arts college is compelling in a way that vague Brooklyn is not. I mean I’d love to read the novel about the year “the dancers died”. The book itself takes pains to set “Bennington Girls” apart from the rest of the east coast college girls, but really we never get to see why. What makes a Bennington Girl a Bennington Girl (other than her diploma)? What makes them easy? I want Silver to write that book.
Having said all this, you may assume that I regret reading this novel. But the truth is, I don’t. I read it in one sitting while getting some sun in my backyard. It is very readable and a perfect lazy day read. I enjoyed parts of it—when I wasn’t trying to figure out how I had read it before—and would definitely recommend it to a twenty-something with an afternoon to kill.
Bennington Girls Are Easy by Charlotte Silver is the story of the post college lives of Sylvie Furst and Cassandra Puffin (and occasionally Gala Gubelman), who have left the bohemian haven of Bennington College to make their lives in New York. Sylvie and Cassandra are lifelong best friends who are apparently so close that they know each other’s exact measurement and they hate the same things... okay. After moving to Brooklyn to begin their adult lives, they struggle through the predictably difficult economic landscape and navigate their unstable personal lives. Through all this, and their supposedly vastly differing priorities (Sylvie smokes pot and has no job, Cassandra has a rich boyfriend and I think no job) their friendship is strained to the breaking point.
The whole time I was reading this book I had the feeling I had read it before, which is of course impossible because it had just come out (July 14, 2015). But at the point when Cassandra gets a job at a chic Brooklyn baby boutique it hit me. Bennington Girls Are Easy reads like a slightly better second draft of last July’s Friendship by Emily Gould. Both novels focus on a set of not particularly likable twenty-something best friends who have a falling out over something supposedly fundamental, and one of them ends up working in a baby boutique... BOTH NOVELS. It was such a strong sense of déjà vu that I couldn’t keep the characters straight, which is definitely one of the weakest points in Bennington Girls.
I don’t mind unlikable characters, in fact, I can really get behind them if they are well drawn, complex and interesting. The strongest element of Sylvie and Cassandra are that they are unlikable, but ultimately that’s pretty much all we know about them... other than they like to complain ABOUT EVERYTHING. The characters, who all have the potential to be vivid and interesting—if unlikable—fall flat and blend together. Silver even seems to acknowledge this when everyone in the novel assumes that, beautiful, sex-positive Gala had a threesome with Pansy Chapin, when in reality it was Bitsy Citron; the confusion rings true because every character is so underdeveloped they all blend into one another. This vagueness isn’t helped by the fact that the novel shifts abruptly from one perspective to another and alternates between past, present and future without any warning. Even New York feels vague and ill-formed... As though Silver assumes that EVERY reader will be so familiar with the city that descriptions are unnecessary and often the locations—you guessed it—blur together to create a non-distinct “New Yorkish” set piece. Everything about the novel feels vague and loose... And not in an on-purpose way.
I wanted so so so badly to like this book. I love New York, I am a twenty-something, I have two liberal arts degrees in English (I do remember now that Cassandra is an English major... though she certainly doesn’t feel like it) and I know how hard it is to exist in a world where you didn’t get the practical degree at the right time. I wish that Silver had written a novel about Bennington. The flashbacks she provides are by far more interesting than the story she is actually telling, and the atmosphere of the small, bohemian liberal arts college is compelling in a way that vague Brooklyn is not. I mean I’d love to read the novel about the year “the dancers died”. The book itself takes pains to set “Bennington Girls” apart from the rest of the east coast college girls, but really we never get to see why. What makes a Bennington Girl a Bennington Girl (other than her diploma)? What makes them easy? I want Silver to write that book.
Having said all this, you may assume that I regret reading this novel. But the truth is, I don’t. I read it in one sitting while getting some sun in my backyard. It is very readable and a perfect lazy day read. I enjoyed parts of it—when I wasn’t trying to figure out how I had read it before—and would definitely recommend it to a twenty-something with an afternoon to kill.
October 5, 2015
2.5 stars probably. The writing was pretty good, but the story has been done and done better.
Sylvie and Cassandra are Bennington girls. They have expectations and opinions and a superiority complex based on their perceptions of their hipness, or coolness, or immunity to the aging process, both physical and emotional, that they don't yet realize we all face. Friends since high school, they end up roommates in Brooklyn and proximity does what time and personality differences have not. Nothing lasts forever, not youth or beauty or even friendship, no matter how hard we try to pretend otherwise.
This reads as a cross between "Girls" and the oeuvre of Whit Stillman. Not much happens, and some stuff that you'd think would be fairly momentous gets treated tangentially, but again there are moments of unanticipated perception and spot-on observations that elevate this above the everyday.
If you attended a women's college (or one that was relatively newly coed when you were there), you'll recognize some of these types. Whether you'll recall them fondly or not, I can't say. But from the vantage point of age and experience it's a little easier than it would have been a few years back to view them with compassion and detachment..."we were so much older then; we're younger than that now".
Sylvie and Cassandra are Bennington girls. They have expectations and opinions and a superiority complex based on their perceptions of their hipness, or coolness, or immunity to the aging process, both physical and emotional, that they don't yet realize we all face. Friends since high school, they end up roommates in Brooklyn and proximity does what time and personality differences have not. Nothing lasts forever, not youth or beauty or even friendship, no matter how hard we try to pretend otherwise.
This reads as a cross between "Girls" and the oeuvre of Whit Stillman. Not much happens, and some stuff that you'd think would be fairly momentous gets treated tangentially, but again there are moments of unanticipated perception and spot-on observations that elevate this above the everyday.
If you attended a women's college (or one that was relatively newly coed when you were there), you'll recognize some of these types. Whether you'll recall them fondly or not, I can't say. But from the vantage point of age and experience it's a little easier than it would have been a few years back to view them with compassion and detachment..."we were so much older then; we're younger than that now".
May 20, 2015
Bennington Girls Are Easy is about two best friends, and their wider circle of college friends. Actually, it’s about living in the city right after college.
Would definitely recommend, but don’t expect a cheery adventure about college girlfriends making in the big city, though. That NetGalley blurb is a bit misleading. Instead, this novel is a blunt and somewhat dark look at sex, money, social class, and the evolution of college friendships in adulthood.
Reed my full review
Would definitely recommend, but don’t expect a cheery adventure about college girlfriends making in the big city, though. That NetGalley blurb is a bit misleading. Instead, this novel is a blunt and somewhat dark look at sex, money, social class, and the evolution of college friendships in adulthood.
Reed my full review
September 26, 2015
Went back and read the reviews when I realized how little I was enjoying the book! The one star reviews are right on! I hate not finishing a book but with so many great reads out there I just can't waste any more time! Starting a Jennifer Weiner as I write! She has not disappointed me yet!
January 29, 2021
Well... that was a book!
June 1, 2016
This is similar to Friendship and the show Girls. The writing is smart and lovely, and the characters are spot on, down to the tiny details. Like the author, the two main characters (Cassandra and Sylvie) are Bennington College graduates, which--from what I gather, is a Liberal Arts college with a Bohemian, artsy, and prideful culture. The girls try to continue their entitled existence in NYC but lose more and more of their idealism every year. Do Harvard guys think that Bennington girls are only good to sleep with but not to marry? --is one of the issues they have to grapple with. There's cynicism but also tenderness. There's just so much in here that you just have to read it for yourself. Great commentary on hipster Brooklyn, too.
August 16, 2016
My god. This book had zero meaning. I really, truly hate books that have zero meaning. It feels like a giant waste of time.
BENNINGTON GIRLS ARE EASY should have been a promising novel. Instead, it was stuck-up and pretentious and all the things I hate in a PERSON, much less a book. I have no idea where Charlotte Silver was going with this, at all. But needless to say, I'm really glad it's off my shelf now.
BENNINGTON GIRLS ARE EASY should have been a promising novel. Instead, it was stuck-up and pretentious and all the things I hate in a PERSON, much less a book. I have no idea where Charlotte Silver was going with this, at all. But needless to say, I'm really glad it's off my shelf now.
August 15, 2015
I think this is my first one star review. Cliche, mean-spirited and totally one-dimensional characters in a New York City that everyone loves to hate but that was also just a stereotypical portrayal. It is ok for characters to be unlikeable but to be totally lacking in depth, sympathy or ability for growth just made this book self indulgent and pandering with an utter lack of imagination.
October 15, 2014
got hold of an advance reader -- definitely worth checking out when it comes out next year
September 11, 2018
These characters are spoiled, vapid, shallow and generally worthless. Don’t let the book jacket convince you otherwise. I quit after chapter 9 and wish I’d given up earlier.
September 3, 2015
This one angered me...but now I can name a lot of French restaurants in NYC.
June 15, 2022
2 // banal
June 23, 2015
Despite Charlotte Silver's charming writing skills, Bennington Girls Are Easy was more of a pitiful story of two girls living life after college than a quirky account of two girls making it in NYC. I didn't like a single character which, as a reader, is a very disappointing fact, because I don't think Silver was trying to make her characters unlikeable. I find that great books can go one of two ways: either they have characters we are head over heels in love with or they have characters we detest so much that it makes the book a success. Unfortunately, I did not hate anybody and I certainly did not love anybody either: the two main characters, Sylvie and Cassandra, were petty, mean, pretentious, and ridiculous.
I do commend the author on writing an honest, fast-paced novel, though. I finished this book in just a few hours because her writing was effortless, the dialogue was natural, and, best of all, I could really picture every scene in my mind. The issues I have with the book are not with the writing, but with the concept. The idea for the novel had such wonderful potential but the execution was lost to me. Oftentimes, there was an unrealistic theme I just could not get behind. The biggest issue I struggled with throughout the novel were the character developments. Because the book jumped from ages 22 to 28 to 32, I understand that people change, but every year, it seemed like the characters completely changed. In the beginning, Cassandra was a preppy, bubbly girl and Sylvie was a free-spirit, cynical girl. By the end, Cassandra was a rich, sophisticated, and pretentious woman but didn't have a steady job while Sylvie was a successful, loving babysitter and entrepreneur. It wasn't clear how the character arcs were developed because they were never rounded. I had some difficulty telling the characters apart sometimes because they seemed to abruptly switch personalities.
I really want to be clear with my review in that though the book wasn't quite for me due to the actual concept and characters, Charlotte Silver did do a very good job with writing it so effortlessly and having fun with her ideas.
I do commend the author on writing an honest, fast-paced novel, though. I finished this book in just a few hours because her writing was effortless, the dialogue was natural, and, best of all, I could really picture every scene in my mind. The issues I have with the book are not with the writing, but with the concept. The idea for the novel had such wonderful potential but the execution was lost to me. Oftentimes, there was an unrealistic theme I just could not get behind. The biggest issue I struggled with throughout the novel were the character developments. Because the book jumped from ages 22 to 28 to 32, I understand that people change, but every year, it seemed like the characters completely changed. In the beginning, Cassandra was a preppy, bubbly girl and Sylvie was a free-spirit, cynical girl. By the end, Cassandra was a rich, sophisticated, and pretentious woman but didn't have a steady job while Sylvie was a successful, loving babysitter and entrepreneur. It wasn't clear how the character arcs were developed because they were never rounded. I had some difficulty telling the characters apart sometimes because they seemed to abruptly switch personalities.
I really want to be clear with my review in that though the book wasn't quite for me due to the actual concept and characters, Charlotte Silver did do a very good job with writing it so effortlessly and having fun with her ideas.
July 16, 2015
3.5 stars – rounded
Promoted as a coming of age story of recent Liberal Arts graduates from Bennington College attempting to start a life in New York City the story has some wonderful moments and humor. While I didn’t find that Sylvie and Cassandra were particularly easy to like, the appreciation for Charlotte Silver’s writing brought humorous moments to description and observations about everyone that fall into the young women’s gaze.
Frequent mishaps befall these two: most met with a similar or worse set of circumstances by their circle of friends: a group of recent Bennington grads. In some ways, this is disgorging the innocent into the pits at the coliseum, none of the characters we meet have any consistent use of basic life skills or qualities that one would expect: personal responsibility, work ethic, self-motivation or even (in some cases) honesty. Could this be a warning shot across the bow, a social commentary on the lack of skills and personal character of this particular group, raised with wealth and more than a bit entitled? Surely it was just this group: formed initially by circumstance at university and now drawn by the familiarity of the interactions never changing, as there really is no growth through the story, even as it takes ten years in the telling.
As a whole, with Sylvie and Cassandra are far less able to cope with the changes of the ‘real’ world in which they are struggling to survive. A perfect ‘how not to’ approach the years after university, no matter your major, and a touch of a scathing commentary on those who can’t adapt. Interesting reading that will in turns frustrate and amuse, most of the time wondering if anyone will actually get it together, since they have their own acts down to perfection.
I received an eARC copy of the title from the publisher via NetGalley for purpose of honest review. I was not compensated for this review: all conclusions are my own responsibility.
Promoted as a coming of age story of recent Liberal Arts graduates from Bennington College attempting to start a life in New York City the story has some wonderful moments and humor. While I didn’t find that Sylvie and Cassandra were particularly easy to like, the appreciation for Charlotte Silver’s writing brought humorous moments to description and observations about everyone that fall into the young women’s gaze.
Frequent mishaps befall these two: most met with a similar or worse set of circumstances by their circle of friends: a group of recent Bennington grads. In some ways, this is disgorging the innocent into the pits at the coliseum, none of the characters we meet have any consistent use of basic life skills or qualities that one would expect: personal responsibility, work ethic, self-motivation or even (in some cases) honesty. Could this be a warning shot across the bow, a social commentary on the lack of skills and personal character of this particular group, raised with wealth and more than a bit entitled? Surely it was just this group: formed initially by circumstance at university and now drawn by the familiarity of the interactions never changing, as there really is no growth through the story, even as it takes ten years in the telling.
As a whole, with Sylvie and Cassandra are far less able to cope with the changes of the ‘real’ world in which they are struggling to survive. A perfect ‘how not to’ approach the years after university, no matter your major, and a touch of a scathing commentary on those who can’t adapt. Interesting reading that will in turns frustrate and amuse, most of the time wondering if anyone will actually get it together, since they have their own acts down to perfection.
I received an eARC copy of the title from the publisher via NetGalley for purpose of honest review. I was not compensated for this review: all conclusions are my own responsibility.
October 26, 2015
Ugh, this book is the WORST. Where do I begin? It's about two yuppie white female friends and their trajectory through college and post-college years. There is a rambling quality to the book with no real storyline--just them figuring life out and some crap about starting a lemonade stand. You'll like the book if you enjoy hearing about 20-some-year-olds go on about the importance of being hot (their "breeding abilities"); finding a rich husband; buying expensive lingerie, bath products, and juicers; and bitching about how provinicial Boston is compared to NYC. It reads like the author is an older woman (although she is young I believe) trying to imagine how young women are now. It seems outdated like it should take place in the 1940s. For example, there are sad attempts to make the women seem sexually enlightened. These flaws could be okay if it was marketed more as a comedic book, but we are supposed to take these women seriously. Overall, there is no depth to the book.
November 18, 2015
Ok so the reviews on this book seem to be either really high or really low and people get worked up about it. It's not the next great American novel, but a story about entitled, emotional young women living in New York in their twenties, and Silver does a good job of painting that world. The spoiled rich girl named Bitsy who equates being single to shopping at Trader Joe's - something that in her worldview is just tragic - and the sad girl who's never had much and struggles to make it in the big bad city, letting the city harden her and change her, and the coquette who uses her looks to try to snag a rich man -- we've all seen/known/read about people like that so Silver certainly excels at character description. Overall though, Cassandra and Sylvie just weren't likeable enough to really hold interest which is maybe Silver's point after all. A decent read.
July 14, 2015
Weird Al Yankovic is More Subtle,
I tried....I truly tried. I confess, I only made it halfway through before the compulsion to slit my throat or to pull out my eyeballs to end this pain became nearly overwhelming.
If I had to read the childish conversations one more time, I think I would have done something unmentionable. (the use of the word "like" was enough to out me over the edge.)
I can understand that this was supposed to be satyr, but all I could think while trying to read this was Weird Al Yankovic. Except that Weird Al is a bit more subtle!
If anyone has read or watched the book/movie Mame -I think that you might see the similarities between this book and this school and the scene when Mame is defending her choice of school for Patrick.
*ARC Supplied by publisher for reviewing purposes.
I tried....I truly tried. I confess, I only made it halfway through before the compulsion to slit my throat or to pull out my eyeballs to end this pain became nearly overwhelming.
If I had to read the childish conversations one more time, I think I would have done something unmentionable. (the use of the word "like" was enough to out me over the edge.)
I can understand that this was supposed to be satyr, but all I could think while trying to read this was Weird Al Yankovic. Except that Weird Al is a bit more subtle!
If anyone has read or watched the book/movie Mame -I think that you might see the similarities between this book and this school and the scene when Mame is defending her choice of school for Patrick.
*ARC Supplied by publisher for reviewing purposes.
February 11, 2017
Whoops that was a wildly anti-feminist portrayal of young women in NYC. My bad. Although descriptions of frothy dresses and little boutiques do please me. Who AM I?
February 2, 2016
Long-term female friendships that start in school can become complicated. This book follows a friendship from primary school to college to life after college to their early 30s. It does this well. It's a great New York book, too. It's biting and funny and insightful. It just felt a little too contrived for me. The dissolution of the central friendship also totally bummed me out. I wanted more for these women and I wanted them to want more for themselves. I heard more than enough about their beauty, their love of lingerie and their body shapes - I know it was meant to be social commentary as this is the way the world sees them but it was also the way they saw themselves and each other and that was disappointing.
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