Can a book still be referred to as chick lit if it doesn't suck? Just because its cover happens to be the color of a Tiffany's box and the four main characters happen to be women in their 20s, one of whom may or may not live in Manhattan and drink cosmopolitans? Is it really fair to group Commencement, by J. Courtney Sullivan, into the same category as The Devil Wears Prada and Confessions of a Shopaholic for these reasons?
The answer? No. No freakin' way. I literally could not put down this novel. Usually, finishing a book is an exciting moment for me. I place it triumphantly on my bookshelf like a hunter with a stuffed deer head or I decide to swap it out with Paperback Swap (the secret to loving books and not being in the poorhouse) and then I get to spend another twenty minutes combing through the website to pick out the next book. Either way, life is good. But finishing Commencement depressed me because I had to put down my new four best friends and I already knew what I was going to get Sally as a baby gift. Also finishing Commencement depressed me because admittedly, if there was any flaw to this book, it was its sort of pat ending. For a book so in tune with all the random and horrible and beautiful messiness of life, I was surprised by how easily it all tied together at the end. Or maybe I was just really upset it was over. I don't want to describe these people, I want you to discover them for yourself. Just know, if you pick up Commencement, for the next few days, you're going to have four new amazing friends and you're going to be sad to say goodbye to them at the end.
I'd be hard pressed to think of a more perfect book for me to have just finished at the start of this blog, Sarah and my experiment in Los Angeles literacy. Well. Maybe The Beautiful and the Damned. But only for the title.
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