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College Novel
"Ah, to be young in America -- nothing matters and everything matters. And yet through the pervasive nihilism and irony, Blake Middleton finds a truth radiating with terrifying love and a radical self-acceptance. “I looked at myself in the mirror just now,” he writes. “I just thought, this is what I am. Whatever I am. And that’s okay.”
—Andrew James Weatherhead, author of Todd
“Takes you back to that not-so-long-ago time when the world was only threatening to go to Hell.”
—Ben Loory, author of Tales of Falling and Flying
"College Novel uses clear language to describe unclear times. It’s a spare examination of our relationships with popular culture and with each other."
—Timothy Willis Sanders, author of Matt Meets Vik
“I’ve never gone to college but I have lived in a college town long enough to probably know what it’s like, and Blake Middleton’s College Novel, which reads like a millennial adaptation of an early Richard Linklater film, perfectly captures the shitty essence of shitty sex, shitty drugs, and shitty punk rock house parties where the shitty keg quickly gets tapped and shitty garbage is used to keep the shitty backyard bonfire going till dawn. Two shitty thumbs up.”
—Brian Alan Ellis, author of Sad Laughter
—Andrew James Weatherhead, author of Todd
“Takes you back to that not-so-long-ago time when the world was only threatening to go to Hell.”
—Ben Loory, author of Tales of Falling and Flying
"College Novel uses clear language to describe unclear times. It’s a spare examination of our relationships with popular culture and with each other."
—Timothy Willis Sanders, author of Matt Meets Vik
“I’ve never gone to college but I have lived in a college town long enough to probably know what it’s like, and Blake Middleton’s College Novel, which reads like a millennial adaptation of an early Richard Linklater film, perfectly captures the shitty essence of shitty sex, shitty drugs, and shitty punk rock house parties where the shitty keg quickly gets tapped and shitty garbage is used to keep the shitty backyard bonfire going till dawn. Two shitty thumbs up.”
—Brian Alan Ellis, author of Sad Laughter
133 pages, Paperback
First published March 6, 2019
3 people are currently reading
104 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
March 19, 2019
Reading this book reminded me of the dumb jokes I used to make in college. It also reminded me of the dumb jokes my friends made that were the hardest I ever laughed.
This book kind of reads like one of those sped-up time lapses of a decomposing fox. You see a dead fox. It's fox eyes get eaten out. It's fox head kind of sags. It still looks like a fox. Then it sort of explodes in a shaky and disgusting brilliance and it doesn't look like a fox anymore. That's what reading this is like.
You should read this.
This book kind of reads like one of those sped-up time lapses of a decomposing fox. You see a dead fox. It's fox eyes get eaten out. It's fox head kind of sags. It still looks like a fox. Then it sort of explodes in a shaky and disgusting brilliance and it doesn't look like a fox anymore. That's what reading this is like.
You should read this.
February 15, 2022
blake middleton exists in the context of 2010's independent lit that is sort of characterized by a tao lin, sam pink, megan boyle style of writing that deadpans the daily mundanity with surreal humor and abstract thoughts vocalized through dialogue while not much else happens. a lot of times people in these books say "im fucked" and that's what happens here. this book seems like low stakes drama as it builds the interpersonal relationships through this dialogue that is laden with drug content and alt-pop culture references (pat the bunny, for example, gets a couple references along with choking victim and other bands like that) which lattices drama until there ultimately IS a pretty harrowing conflict that if it happened to you would be something you talked about for forever. there are A LOT of characters and none of them really distinguish themselves, but I guess that's kind of like friend groups in real life too.
July 8, 2019
i think this is a great book. and i think people who enjoy great books should read this book.
February 28, 2023
I wonder if the author knows of any cool bands? He only mentioned one on every other page so I’m not sure
March 27, 2024
This was a great novella. Brought me back to the days of shitty house parties, I miss those days.
November 30, 2021
the first novel i've read that feels like it accurately portrays what its like to be in your twenties right now or be in college right now or beginning your life right now. falling in and out of love. ending up at people's houses, talking about nothing and everything, because we're all here in the same place. we're all here together. so why not? what else is there to do. the world outside is waiting, but we don't know what will be left of it when we get out of college. when its our turn. is it our turn now? maybe it is. has it always been like this? it doesn't feel like it.
April 3, 2022
Millennial era nihilism like the baby brother of Bright Lights Big City or Less Than Zero
August 16, 2024
"I watched the greatest minds of my generation do whip-its in a Big Lots parking lot. In all seriousness though, the alternatives to not being bohemians seem stupid."
College Novel is one real bleak, entirely crushing, absolutely nihilistic mindfuck of a book. It's both at once something really very ordinary and something very unique and special. There's really no words to describe what experiencing this book is like - It's kind of like hurtling through a nightmarish version of your own life, it's also kind of like being forced to watch the decay of a loved one, or watching roadkill rot at the side of a freeway, it's gross and makes you feel extremely sad and empty but, there's something shocking and brilliant about it too. There's a real artfulness to this, a surrealistic quality that somehow makes the mundane seem riveting.
It's an entirely low stakes novel, but, it's a low stakes novel of drug fueled regret. It's all very sad, and completely depressing, College Novel offers little to smile about. Despite there being next to nothing that actually happens, it's all so harrowing and horrific that it transforms monotony into something wonderful. This will be a piece of literature talked about till time ends. It's also so very nostalgic, conjuring images of the days of crappy house parties and shitty friendship groups. College Novel has a rare authenticity about it, so difficult is it to find a book that really captures this specific feeling. And, that's because it's damn near impossible to ascertain what this feeling even is. Is it melancholy, depression, nihilistic ideation? Whatever it is, College Novel nails it.
College Novel is just so god-damn real. It's so amazingly raw and authentic and brutal. It's depressing as all hell. Blake Middleton has created a cataclysmic event of a novel, one that'll fool you with how safe and comforting it all feels, and then, when you're at your most vulnerable, it'll eviscerate you by peeling away the shiny, perfect coating of modern life to expose its rotting innards. It's essentially, at its core, a book about a bunch of kids who decided that drugs were the only worthwhile part of the college lives. It's built entirely around being a novel of dialogue, and it's one of the better offerings in this style. It's a total mind-warp, even now, I'm not quite sure what to say about this book, other than, I loved it.
"I wanna get shot in the back of the head with no warning, Eric said. He drank some beer from the Dough Mahoney glass. I'll shoot you, Olivia said. No, don't. I wanna die from a brain aneurysm."
College Novel is one real bleak, entirely crushing, absolutely nihilistic mindfuck of a book. It's both at once something really very ordinary and something very unique and special. There's really no words to describe what experiencing this book is like - It's kind of like hurtling through a nightmarish version of your own life, it's also kind of like being forced to watch the decay of a loved one, or watching roadkill rot at the side of a freeway, it's gross and makes you feel extremely sad and empty but, there's something shocking and brilliant about it too. There's a real artfulness to this, a surrealistic quality that somehow makes the mundane seem riveting.
It's an entirely low stakes novel, but, it's a low stakes novel of drug fueled regret. It's all very sad, and completely depressing, College Novel offers little to smile about. Despite there being next to nothing that actually happens, it's all so harrowing and horrific that it transforms monotony into something wonderful. This will be a piece of literature talked about till time ends. It's also so very nostalgic, conjuring images of the days of crappy house parties and shitty friendship groups. College Novel has a rare authenticity about it, so difficult is it to find a book that really captures this specific feeling. And, that's because it's damn near impossible to ascertain what this feeling even is. Is it melancholy, depression, nihilistic ideation? Whatever it is, College Novel nails it.
"Eric said he thought about driving into a tree while listening to emo music on the drive over. They sat and talked. They shared drug stories. Robert talked about snorting hydrocodone when he was in high school. Jordan said he accidentally took one of his dachshund's hydrocodones in the eighth grade instead of taking one of his grandma's hydrocodones. Aubrey said she took three gravity bong hits of spice in high school and got naked in the shower and thought about her parents finding her dead. "
College Novel is just so god-damn real. It's so amazingly raw and authentic and brutal. It's depressing as all hell. Blake Middleton has created a cataclysmic event of a novel, one that'll fool you with how safe and comforting it all feels, and then, when you're at your most vulnerable, it'll eviscerate you by peeling away the shiny, perfect coating of modern life to expose its rotting innards. It's essentially, at its core, a book about a bunch of kids who decided that drugs were the only worthwhile part of the college lives. It's built entirely around being a novel of dialogue, and it's one of the better offerings in this style. It's a total mind-warp, even now, I'm not quite sure what to say about this book, other than, I loved it.
"I wanna get shot in the back of the head with no warning, Eric said. He drank some beer from the Dough Mahoney glass. I'll shoot you, Olivia said. No, don't. I wanna die from a brain aneurysm."
August 14, 2021
Reading Blake Middleton's prose is not unlike watching committedly deadpan standup comedy. It may not make you laugh out loud, but if you can get on its wavelength (and I feel comfortable saying that anyone who's attended college in the last 20 years or so will have no trouble) it will keep you randomly chuckling to yourself for weeks on end. I could try and do a little plot synopsis here, but in truth College Novel feels largely immune. To attempt it would be as slippery and unreliable a task as trying to arrange one's own early 20's into a coherent narrative (and if that's something you can do, then this book may not be for you). That said, with its parade of loosely connected, near-interchangeable characters and its wave after wave of clipped, declarative sentences, it effects a near-perfect facsimile of that magically dull time in middle-class American life when you're kind of going to school, kind of working, kind of thinking about the future, but mostly just doing whatever happens with whoever happens to be around for however long you can afford beer and still make rent. Guys are horny. Girls are needy. Money's starting to matter more than you'd like. And all of a sudden, no one cares so much about your band, or your acid trip, or what you did on your study abroad. Instead, somewhat rudely, the real world has just started shouldering its way to the front.
(If you're someone who recalls this time tenderly - via rose-colored beer goggles - as "the best days of your life," then this book may also not be for you).
With so many young, self-involved, underdeveloped people living in such close-but-constantly-shifting quarters, these painfully obvious life lessons are being learned en masse, every day, as though via the chain reactions of some whirring, substance-enhanced neural net. Couples call it quits. Friends peel off like Fall leaves blowing across the quad. Adulthood beckons. Everything feels deep and meaningful when you're in it, but viewing it from above, with a kind of journalistic objectivity that never so much as winks at judgment or ridicule, Middleton circumscribes millennials' fast-fading salad days into a bleary wash of experiences so universal that they've become downright banal. This is not the hedonistic, self-immolating university life laid out in The Rules of Attraction, or the romantically hopeless one of The Secret History. This is what college was like for kids who were taught those books in AP English and decided the drugs were the only part worth keeping. The main lesson these characters seem to take away from their time at school is that it's all been done, and yet for some reason they have to keep doing it. Love seems ok, if you can manage it, but it's not necessarily a gamechanger - just another way to pass the interminable time.
(If you're someone who recalls this time tenderly - via rose-colored beer goggles - as "the best days of your life," then this book may also not be for you).
With so many young, self-involved, underdeveloped people living in such close-but-constantly-shifting quarters, these painfully obvious life lessons are being learned en masse, every day, as though via the chain reactions of some whirring, substance-enhanced neural net. Couples call it quits. Friends peel off like Fall leaves blowing across the quad. Adulthood beckons. Everything feels deep and meaningful when you're in it, but viewing it from above, with a kind of journalistic objectivity that never so much as winks at judgment or ridicule, Middleton circumscribes millennials' fast-fading salad days into a bleary wash of experiences so universal that they've become downright banal. This is not the hedonistic, self-immolating university life laid out in The Rules of Attraction, or the romantically hopeless one of The Secret History. This is what college was like for kids who were taught those books in AP English and decided the drugs were the only part worth keeping. The main lesson these characters seem to take away from their time at school is that it's all been done, and yet for some reason they have to keep doing it. Love seems ok, if you can manage it, but it's not necessarily a gamechanger - just another way to pass the interminable time.
March 25, 2019
Blake has managed to do the impossible, which is make my eyes move with dialogue. While College Novel doesn't leave you with the lingering poetics that a Denis Johnson final line does, he manages to perfectly capture a college existence I'm both familiar and unfamiliar with. There's a grunge in his prose that some writers strive for, but few actually achieve, and I'm proud to say he's a Jacksonvillian, too. Give this a read, break up with your partner, and then grab the next book.
October 27, 2021
What did I just read?
November 19, 2021
College Novel is the literary version of a beautiful pair of lifestyle shoes. New Balances if you're 30 and rich, or maybe Nikes if you're poor and dumb. Blake is rich and handsome, and it shows in his writing, because he's had a lot of time in tunnels and bars to think about words and also college, which he went to and wrote a book about (this book). If you've ever wondered what it's like to have over hundreds of dollars in your bank account and also be extremely normal (and not fucked) read this book.
September 21, 2022
I thought An Actual Person in a Concrete Historical Situation was great so I figured I’d work my way back. I bet people compare this to other books, but I won’t. I enjoyed the disorientation of what opens feeling like a collective voice with lots of undifferentiated characters, though it eventually settles and centers around “Jordan,” which made me question the decision to narrate in 3rd person, since (as it’s free to do) the voice gets closer and closer to him. It wound up making sense, though. It was funny and bleak but not depressing. The banter is hilarious and heightened, almost like if Hal Hartley wrote a script about kids with rich social lives in the year before they become cooped up shitposters.
May 3, 2025
i’m in this book and i don’t like it
cold regards, aubrey
cold regards, aubrey
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews