In 1997, at the distinguished Siddons School on Manhattan's Upper East Side, the school year opens with distressing news: Astra Dell is suffering f...
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Jun 25, 2008
Liz
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Christine Schutt was my much beloved English teacher and, I am proud to say, friend at Nightingale-Bamford. Nominated for the National Book Prize a couple of years back, her latest is a year in the life at an all girls private school. While I do not know whether the characters and situations she describes in All Souls are accessible to all, I found the book lyrical, hypnotic and SPOT ON. Her language is sparse, and carefully chosen, and marvelously wry. I picked this up right after John Banville
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Aug 12, 2008
Dusty
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All Souls is a campus novel—so beloved genre!—and concerns itself mostly with the senior girls surrounding Astra, the dying protagonist. And they're girls in full. Schutt, in her reading, called them "feckless girls" and then proceeded to read a section of the novel (each of the nine chapters is divided into titles subsections) about one of these feckless girls, Marlene:
"Marlene picked her nose and sent what she found in it flying across the room. She was a dirty girl, More...
"Marlene picked her nose and sent what she found in it flying across the room. She was a dirty girl, More...
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Jul 25, 2011
Gretchen
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This is the story of students, their parents, and their faculty, in their senior year at an exclusive girls prep school, Siddons, on Manhattan. One of the girls, Astra Dell, has a rare and aggressive cancer for which she has been hospitalized for treatment. This is a plot element, but it also forms a backdrop for a maze of other elements, for this story has many threads. It examines the relationships and conflicts of various characters – faculty, parents, and students. The story is fast pace
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Sep 11, 2009
Sarah
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Astra Dell, c'etait moi; formerly a teen cancer patient attending an all-girls prep school, I had a natural interest in reading this novel. Schutt captures the emotional complexities of the girl with a life-threatening illness, well aware of Astra's automatic candidacy for sainthood, yet refreshingly portrays her as a three-dimensional, unique character. Cancer serves as a focal point yet never becomes a black hole to engulf the entire narrative. The reader also develops an understanding of the
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Apr 27, 2009
Rhonda
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I'm very hard on adults writing as children; they bring their mature sensibilities to consciousnesses that are too young to be so self-aware. Starting with Tom Sawyer (or Tom Jones?), and Holden Caulfield and Scout Finch aside, readers have suspended disbelief in juvenile narrators too readily.
This may be the case in All Souls; I'm not sure. And the reason I'm not sure is that the juvenile narrators, though young, are the offspring of the rich--students at an all-girls' school on the Upper More...
This may be the case in All Souls; I'm not sure. And the reason I'm not sure is that the juvenile narrators, though young, are the offspring of the rich--students at an all-girls' school on the Upper More...
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Nov 27, 2008
Toni
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The season may be to blame for my intense hatred for this book. With finals and holiday chaos I barely felt able to concentrate. However, it seemed like a case of a good writer trying to be a great writer, which is unfortunate because Schutt seemed to be a good writer. There seemed to be some point she desperately wanted to get across, but couldn't seem to form the words to make it a reality. Whatever it was, it was lost on me...
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Jan 26, 2009
Tracy
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This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.
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Jan 31, 2010
Becky
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I read this one for my book club and loved it. This was like a high-culture version of Gossip Girl, and if you know how much I love Gossip Girl, you know that's a compliment. It takes place at a private girls' high school on the Upper East Side. One of the seniors is dying of a rare form of cancer, but the focus isn't on her illness so much as how it affects her friends, their parents, and the teachers at the school. It brings them together and tears them apart and brings out the best and the wo
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May 25, 2010
Susan
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I began reading this book with high hopes - Christine Schutt is an award winning novelist, and All Souls was a 2009 Pulitzer finalist for fiction. Unfortunately, it was a huge let down. The "bones" of the story are good, but it is extremely disjointed and could have been better with either twice the pages or half the characters involved. The excessive cast of characters come across as one-dimensional, clichéd, and poorly developed.
There are some beautiful passages in All So More...
There are some beautiful passages in All So More...
May 11, 2010
Jessica
rated it: 
I liked the way the narrative was building during the first half, but - silly me - I expected things to come together a bit more. It felt more like a series of really short stories taking place around the same school.
I may have connected more with the book if I had ANY shared experience with any of the characters, but it just felt like a completely different world. Not in a good way, but in a way that makes me depressed that people live like that and reinforces my distaste for wealth More...
I may have connected more with the book if I had ANY shared experience with any of the characters, but it just felt like a completely different world. Not in a good way, but in a way that makes me depressed that people live like that and reinforces my distaste for wealth More...
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Sep 08, 2011
Christopher
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After reading quite a few underwhelming reviews for this novel on here, I wasn't expecting to enjoy it a whole lot. Perhaps it was because of these low expectations, but I actually really liked this one.
Christine Schutt's novel is an episodic look at one academic year from both inside and outside the walls of a private school for girls. Scutt makes it a point to keep the readers at arm's reach, never allowing us to get too enraptured with any one particular character or situation. Instead, we ca More...
Christine Schutt's novel is an episodic look at one academic year from both inside and outside the walls of a private school for girls. Scutt makes it a point to keep the readers at arm's reach, never allowing us to get too enraptured with any one particular character or situation. Instead, we ca More...
Nov 09, 2009
Alison
rated it:
Billed as a novel, "All Souls" feels more like a series of vignettes: scenes in the life of a NYC girls' prep school, in which one member of the senior class is struggling with cancer. As a portrait of a high-octane girls' school, it is pitch-perfect, down to the girls' names and idiosyncrasies. Having taught in a school much like the "Siddons" of the novel, I was impressed at how Schutt's portrait rose above the bulimics-and-Bloomingdales stereotypes. But the lack of a rea
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Aug 14, 2011
Rebecca
rated it:
I reread this book earlier this summer and was blown away all over again by the gorgeous language and effortless humanity that Schutt manages to build up in postage-stamp episodes. Episodic writing is usually so typical of student fiction, but here it's masterful and purposeful, and it makes the book all the more compulsively readable.
It won't be for everyone... Those seeking a linear plot and a lot of exposition will be frustrated. Fans of Mary Gaitskill, people who voluntarily read More...
It won't be for everyone... Those seeking a linear plot and a lot of exposition will be frustrated. Fans of Mary Gaitskill, people who voluntarily read More...
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Jun 01, 2009
Cornelio
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I was unexpectedly delighted by the trove of characters I encountered from a novel set in all-girls prep school. Story centers around Astra Dell, a student fighting a rare form a cancer. As you read on, all the characters reveal their own "cancers", interwoven with those of the other characters. It's a short novel, so it might leave one wishing for more.
For me, the relative brevity help echo a major theme of the book. We drop in and spy, and we readers become as uncertain More...
For me, the relative brevity help echo a major theme of the book. We drop in and spy, and we readers become as uncertain More...
Jun 26, 2009
Laurel
rated it:
I liked this book, but didn't love it. It was kind of like an outline of a novel that the author had meant to go back in and flesh out at a later date. I felt like I was getting these little glimpses into the exclusive private school world of Siddons and it just made me want more. You never found out enough about any one of the 10 or so characters the book followed to really care about them. I'm sure Christine Schutt had some sort of rationale behind writing All Souls in that format, but it
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Jul 21, 2008
Mlygng
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I've been meaning to read this book for ages - it's been sitting on my bookshelf since I preordered it - but I kept getting sidetracked. I've finally gotten around to cracking the cover, and I don't know why I didn't start earlier. I raced through the first hundred pages in a few hours (true story: it was the only thing I wanted to do when I had a headache last night), and the only reason I haven't finished it is that I have to work. I realize that this has a lot of sentimental value for me t
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Aug 13, 2010
Alison
rated it:
A bizarre little book about an exclusive girls' private school. It's told in vignettes, each about one of the large cast of characters (the girls themselves, certain teachers, parents), but it reads more like poetry in the way that Schutt links contrasting elements and uses certain phrases over and over again. Characters that I thought would act one way, repeatedly acted another, and I thought this worked to great effect in terms of describing adolescence and the nature of schools. I suppose
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Apr 23, 2009
Runner up for Pulitzer 2009.
Hmmm, when might it be good to read such a book as this? Given that I attended an all-girl private (certainly not this posh) Catholic high school from 76-80? Never is a good choice... but in the spirit of facing that which we shrink from being good for the constitution, perhaps .. as my daughter is approaching her senior year of a high school experience pretty much exactly equaling what I wish I'd had.
Hmmm, when might it be good to read such a book as this? Given that I attended an all-girl private (certainly not this posh) Catholic high school from 76-80? Never is a good choice... but in the spirit of facing that which we shrink from being good for the constitution, perhaps .. as my daughter is approaching her senior year of a high school experience pretty much exactly equaling what I wish I'd had.
Mar 11, 2010
Jamie
rated it:
It's perhaps unfair to give a book a rating when it's left unfinished, but I rarely set a book down. Once I start something, I finish it. But I could not finish this book.
Maybe it gets better further in, but I found it to be overly disjointed with too many flat characters weaving in and out. I couldn't identify or empathize with the characters, they all seemed so superficial and uninteresting.
I may pick it up again someday, but about 60 pages in, I was not yet engaged, an More...
Maybe it gets better further in, but I found it to be overly disjointed with too many flat characters weaving in and out. I couldn't identify or empathize with the characters, they all seemed so superficial and uninteresting.
I may pick it up again someday, but about 60 pages in, I was not yet engaged, an More...
May 09, 2009
Wyma
rated it:
I haven't read a novel staged in quite this way: dialog plus inner thoughts of characters in a scene. Through repitition among the characters in a wealthy girls' school the reader gets to know them as one among them is dying of cancer. Parents and instructors also appear and exit. I liked the experience of the novel, and I think young adults would appreciate the fresh realism of the girls attending Siddons School in NYC.
Jul 26, 2010
Eliyanna
rated it:
I suppose it takes a certain amount of chutzpah to rate something that got nominated for a Pulitzer two stars. Chutzpah, meet me.
I think if I'd never before read a book with a class critique, this might have been more interesting to me. But the basics: rich girls are messed up, come see how much... boring.
I get that this is basically a smarter version of Gossip Girls, and incredibly well written.
But I just didn't enjoy it, didn't really find anything new in i
I think if I'd never before read a book with a class critique, this might have been more interesting to me. But the basics: rich girls are messed up, come see how much... boring.
I get that this is basically a smarter version of Gossip Girls, and incredibly well written.
But I just didn't enjoy it, didn't really find anything new in i
Apr 20, 2009
Eva
rated it:
This is the kind of book that makes me feel that I'm not getting quite enough oxygen. The writing is excellent but somehow a bit rarefied - there are many characters, but I never felt much empathy or even understanding for a single one of them.
The characters are the students (seniors all) and teachers of an exclusive girls' school in Manhattan (in 1997, for some reason), along with a few assorted parents, with the hub of the story being Astra Dell, a senior with a particularly virul More...
The characters are the students (seniors all) and teachers of an exclusive girls' school in Manhattan (in 1997, for some reason), along with a few assorted parents, with the hub of the story being Astra Dell, a senior with a particularly virul More...
Nov 22, 2008
Nancy
rated it:
This short novel reads like an impressionist painting. If you look too closely you'll find the details lacking, but by backing away a bit you see the overall image taking shape. I was intrigued by a NYTimes review, calling "All Souls" "exciting evidence that [Schutt] continues to push the boundaries of fiction." This story tells of the impact a dying girl has on her senior classmates and teachers at an affluent, private girls' school in NY. By sketching out the faintest o
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Jun 07, 2008
Jeanne
rated it:
Everything I read in reviews of this novel is true. The writing style is choppy. The plot is not cohesive. The characters are not fully developed.
But anyway. . . this is the story of a group of seniors at the Siddons school, a fancy prep school in New York City. Mostly, the girls are worried about getting into the colleges of their choice, but there are other assorted worries as well.
Astra Dell, one of their own, is dying in the hospital. Car, her best friend, is More...
But anyway. . . this is the story of a group of seniors at the Siddons school, a fancy prep school in New York City. Mostly, the girls are worried about getting into the colleges of their choice, but there are other assorted worries as well.
Astra Dell, one of their own, is dying in the hospital. Car, her best friend, is More...
Jan 06, 2010
Sherry
rated it:
It's written well, but I didn't find the story very original. Even worse, I felt the analysis was too adult. It felt like an adult trying to write about teens: condescending, cynical, etc. The teens seemed to have no direction or point, all reaction. Teens, at least, would not tell their story that way.
Feb 06, 2011
Lauren
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Christine Schutt's All Souls is about an all girls prep school on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. I was anticipating a similarity to Gossip Girl, but this story falls short. It is written in a series of vignettes. The character development is weak, given how many characters we meet. Most of the characters are the teenage girls who attend the prep school, but there are several adult characters as well, including some teachers and parents. By switching from teenage to adult character narration a
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Dec 28, 2008
Caroline
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This novel is set in a private girls' school in Manhattan in 1997. The core of the story is focused on Astra Dell, a senior who is in the hospital, undergoing treatment for cancer.
All the archetypes are there--the rich, snobby duo; the outcast, the anorexic, the lonely teacher, etc. The author keeps things restrained, though, so the story doesn't come across as one big cliche.
All the archetypes are there--the rich, snobby duo; the outcast, the anorexic, the lonely teacher, etc. The author keeps things restrained, though, so the story doesn't come across as one big cliche.
Feb 10, 2010
Elizabeth
rated it:
Hmmm. I don't think this was a bad book - I can see how other people might really like it. I just didn't get it. The change in perspective nearly every paragraph was jarring/disruptive for me, and I was still confused by all the different characters at page 150. The ending utterly mystified me.
May 13, 2009
Gina
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Skip this book unless you like books about snooty private-school girls or writing that has absolutely no character development (and too many characters at that). Once again I made the mistake of thinking that if it was up for a Pulitzer Prize, it must be fantastic. Not so much.
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Jul 20, 2011
Laura
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This is one of the best books I've read in a very long time. ALL SOULS is both a serious piece of literary craftsmanship and a total page-turner, two qualities that aren't often found in one book. I don't usually love distant third-person narration (this narrator never relays a single character's thoughts), but it works brilliantly here - a serious testament to Christine Schutt's talent. Can't wait to read FLORIDA...
