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91st out of 426 books
—
503 voters
Joe College
by
Tom Perrotta
For many college students, Spring Break means fun and sun in Florida. For Danny, a Yale junior, it means two weeks behind the wheel of the Roach Coach, his father's lunch truck, which plies the parking lots of office parks in central New Jersey.
But Danny can use the time behind the coffee urn to try and make sense of a love life that's gotten a little complicated. There's...more
But Danny can use the time behind the coffee urn to try and make sense of a love life that's gotten a little complicated. There's...more
Paperback, 320 pages
Published
September 19th 2006
by St. Martin's Griffin
(first published 2000)
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Oh man, I wanted to like this book so much. I really did. As a working-class kid from North Jersey (OK, Suffern, NY, but that town is essentially in Jersey -- check Google Maps if you don't believe me) who attended Yale as a financial-aid student, I thought it would really speak to me. And it did -- for the first half. Perrotta brings a fresh, outsider's perspective to life at Yale, and his jokes at the expense of rich kids and Whiffenpoofs often had me laughing out loud.
However, the second half...more
However, the second half...more
Perrotta does a really good job of making you like Danny, the main character. He's got a ton of flaws, and he makes a lot of mistakes, but you know deep down he's a good person. He knows when he's doing something wrong, but he's a young guy in college and does it anyway. I think most dudes can relate.
I've heard people say they don't like how he doesn't ever have to take responsibility for his actions. Fuck that. Smart kids get away with stuff. Some people are lucky and that's the way shit happen...more
I've heard people say they don't like how he doesn't ever have to take responsibility for his actions. Fuck that. Smart kids get away with stuff. Some people are lucky and that's the way shit happen...more
I'm sweet on Perrotta, so of course I loved it! Danny, the main character, is kind of a putz--but a loveable putz. Danny is obviously telling this story to the reader from some point in the future, and he could have made himself look better, but doesn't. Danny is unflinchingly honest about his selfish thoughts and actions, experienced during the all-consuming self-centeredness that is young adulthood/college. Perrotta does a great job of portraying the conflict between Danny's working class guil...more
Danny is a lucky guy; however, he is also a big weenie who has the gumption to fight the mobsters of his town, but he refuses to face his own demons. That is okay, though, because he does not have to face his demons. He does not have to own up to using his hometown girlfriend Cindy, he does not have to worry about his father's "Roach Coach" that is damaged, and he does not fight for his new interest Polly. Danny is just a static guy who observes life but never reaches deep in his soul to live th...more
Not Perrotta's best. Not nearly.
Kind of a simple story. College boy likes college girl, college boy unknowingly gets involved with townie girl from back home, college boy gets townie girl preggers. Add in some stories about working at the dining hall and some random gang violence (even though it's set at Yale), and that's basically the story.
It wasn't comparable to Election, Little Children, or Wishbones, but still. It's Tom Perrotta and deserves even a quick skim. Maybe I simply need to re-read...more
Kind of a simple story. College boy likes college girl, college boy unknowingly gets involved with townie girl from back home, college boy gets townie girl preggers. Add in some stories about working at the dining hall and some random gang violence (even though it's set at Yale), and that's basically the story.
It wasn't comparable to Election, Little Children, or Wishbones, but still. It's Tom Perrotta and deserves even a quick skim. Maybe I simply need to re-read...more
This book sucks. It's just good enough to keep you reading through to the end just to see what happens, but in my book, a book like that is worse that a fully bad book. At least with a fully bad book you can just put it down right away and forget about it.
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I don't usually read this kind of book, not at all. I took it off my step-mother's shelf while I was home for the holidays and read it. And I enjoyed it! I mean, it's funny, and Tom Perrotta makes writing look so effortlessly easy. I'm completely jealous of how he never struggles with making every page move, tells stories within stories, creates dialogue that sounds like a movie that isn't stupid, and all that jazz.
So, it's not a deep book or a heavy one, but it's entertaining, inoffensive (that...more
So, it's not a deep book or a heavy one, but it's entertaining, inoffensive (that...more
By no means is this novel a feat of literature, but it was mildly entertaining, and I thought it was an interesting attempt at portraying the class divide that college students often experience with their peers as they step away from home and into the incredibly diverse scene that is most University classes.
Danny, the book's main character, is a some what shallow and painfully insecure college junior that attends Yale during the school year and returns home to his family and his fathers blue co...more
Danny, the book's main character, is a some what shallow and painfully insecure college junior that attends Yale during the school year and returns home to his family and his fathers blue co...more
Very good snap shot of life in college... and life in the 80's. Excellent smooth and quick writing style, but nothing epic.
Amazon.com:
Having penned Election, a great novel of high-school manners, Tom Perrotta gives us Joe College, a great novel about college mores. In 1982, one Yale junior struggles with George Eliot, dorm blanket bingo, dining-hall dish-line duty, a massive crush on a girl in love with his favorite prof, daily cards and calls from a girl back home in New Jersey, and a lush prof...more
Amazon.com:
Having penned Election, a great novel of high-school manners, Tom Perrotta gives us Joe College, a great novel about college mores. In 1982, one Yale junior struggles with George Eliot, dorm blanket bingo, dining-hall dish-line duty, a massive crush on a girl in love with his favorite prof, daily cards and calls from a girl back home in New Jersey, and a lush prof...more
This is the same guy that wrote Little Children, and Election, which is probably more famous as a movie. Anyway, according to the author this novel is based on his own college experiences in the early 80s. We've got a kid from a working class background in New Jersey who is at Yale on a scholarship, casually dating a girl from back home whom he doesn't really want to be dating, and hopelessly pursing another classmate who really isn't available. Also, a cast of wacky roommates. I had mixed respo...more
JOE COLLEGE (2000): a novel by Tom Perrotta is dull and deferential; i.e. it makes me want to throw up, or drink to the point of sickness. (Did Stephen King call that, “Hemingway’s Defense”?) I can’t believe this BUT IT’S TRUE!! — This book got rave reviews from The Critics. I admit: I am an unpopular reviewer, an unpopular novelist, and in general an unpopular person. And you know what, on good days, that gives me a reason for living. It may well have taken Perrotta less time to write this nove...more
If you’re reminiscing about your college life and wondering what it’s like to be young, free and immature again, then pick up Joe College.
On the surface, Danny is your typical carefree college student living life one day at a time. But upon closer examination, there are several layers to him as he struggles to balance his status as a student from an Ivy League university and his background from a blue collar working class family. The personal struggle between the two sides is also reflected in h...more
On the surface, Danny is your typical carefree college student living life one day at a time. But upon closer examination, there are several layers to him as he struggles to balance his status as a student from an Ivy League university and his background from a blue collar working class family. The personal struggle between the two sides is also reflected in h...more
I like the way Perrotta writes--his word choices, his analogies, his detailed descriptions, his perceptive wit. While I enjoyed reading Joe College, I felt that the main character Danny was unlikeable and selfish through parts of the book, especially when dealing with Cindy, his summer "townie" fling. Perhaps this was the intention, to paint Danny as book-smart but relationship-dumb, and despite his flaws, you can't really blame the kid for his missteps. Matt is Danny's co-worker at the college...more
I guess it takes considerable je ne sais quoi to read a writer’s work and enjoy it so much that simultaneously you want to read his other works-- in my case “Little Children” (“Election” still being in my queue). Perrotta wrote that one after “Joe College” and it is as serious as this one is fun. Perrotta, I am sorry, surpasses Nick Hornby (his mediocre “Slam” is similar to this in the way our main man must conserve his manhood as his biological function to create new life has been breached and...more
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A Funny Page-turner--
Especially after the dark world of Ellroy, this came as a relief and grateful change of pace. It's a breeze of a read that makes you forget about the flow of time and immerse you in a pleasant, lighthearted fictional dream.
Being an Ivy graduate myself, I thoroughly enjoyed his portrayal of Yale and what nightmares could befall on an undergraduate. His observations are both funny and dead-on when it comes to describing certain actions the characters in his story do and the pe...more
Especially after the dark world of Ellroy, this came as a relief and grateful change of pace. It's a breeze of a read that makes you forget about the flow of time and immerse you in a pleasant, lighthearted fictional dream.
Being an Ivy graduate myself, I thoroughly enjoyed his portrayal of Yale and what nightmares could befall on an undergraduate. His observations are both funny and dead-on when it comes to describing certain actions the characters in his story do and the pe...more
Danny is an introspective, intelligent kid from working class New Jersey going through his Junior year as an English major at Yale in the early eighties. He doesn't fit in at home in New Jersey but seems to fit in at Yale even though all his friends come from wealthy upper class families. The most interesting parts of the book take place back home in NJ with his parents, his friends or his summer fling with a local girl. He is a likable kid even though he doesn't always make the conventional rig...more
I love Tom Perrotta, and thought that both The Leftovers and The Abstinence Teacher were brilliant. But I didn't really care for this one. I didn't really like any of the characters, and it took way too long for anything to happen. And even what did happen wasn't that interesting. It reminded me of the worst of Richard Russo, except the guys weren't middle-aged yet. I still have to read Election and Little Children, both made into movies, to finish off Perrotta's work, so am hoping that the book...more
Dec 24, 2009
Steven
rated it
3 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
townies
Recommended to Steven by:
My daughter Meghan, indirectly
Shelves:
novels
Joe College took me by surprise. What is it to be from the working class going to a prestigious college? How do you deal with those conflicts that bubble inside of you? I wrestled with these questions when I went to college. Consequently, I saw too much of myself in Danny.
I spent the majority of the book wanting him to not do the things that he did. Only occasionally was I pleased by his decisions. But how do you make the best of bad choices? Probably not the way he did. There is goodness at Dan...more
I spent the majority of the book wanting him to not do the things that he did. Only occasionally was I pleased by his decisions. But how do you make the best of bad choices? Probably not the way he did. There is goodness at Dan...more
An absolutely random grab off the library fiction shelves. I actually picked up another book by this author, but saw that this was a New York Times Notable Book, or something like that. It seemed a better way to try a new author.
Nope. Partly I've decided that books whose main characters are college English majors are just way to clique-y and self-referential for me, as I wasn't an English major. (This is at least my second, maybe my third book in this category.)
But really, there was no plot for...more
Nope. Partly I've decided that books whose main characters are college English majors are just way to clique-y and self-referential for me, as I wasn't an English major. (This is at least my second, maybe my third book in this category.)
But really, there was no plot for...more
Jun 26, 2009
Beth
added it
I liked this book a great deal until the very end. I *so* identified with the character -- a college student in the early 80's who was from a working class background, but surrounded by kids of the elite. I was similarly situated in college both in time (early to mid eighties) and background (no one in my family ever dreamed of attending the kind of college where I wound up). And what really clinched it was that I made most of my friends in college by working at the dining hall, just like the ma...more
Tom Perrotta's novel Joe College is an interesting examination of how adolescents and young adults enact different social roles. Danny is the son of a blue collar lunch truck driver from New Jersey. Danny also happens to attend Yale where he works in a university dining hall. These two environments help to show the contrast in the world of Yale. These three environments are what set us up to understand the differences in the culture of Danny's home in New Jersey, the people who work in the dinin...more
Since most reviewers already give a brief summary of the book, I will skip that and get right to my review.
I love this book!!! I found it on the bargain shelf at Borders a few years ago and took a chance on it. What a fun story and hilarious cast of characters. I have since read every book written by Mr. Perrotta and will continue to do so. None of the others have quite made the same impression on me as Joe College but (for me) the emotion of not knowing what to expect and then to be completely,...more
I love this book!!! I found it on the bargain shelf at Borders a few years ago and took a chance on it. What a fun story and hilarious cast of characters. I have since read every book written by Mr. Perrotta and will continue to do so. None of the others have quite made the same impression on me as Joe College but (for me) the emotion of not knowing what to expect and then to be completely,...more
Passable, predictable Perotta. Certainly not as good as Little Children.
The story of a working class kid who goes to an Ivy League school and is trying to come to terms with the costs and benefits of this attempted escape. I really enjoyed the first third where the context of the story is established, but after that it kind of fell apart for me. Danny, the main character (whose given name is Dante), is caught between the two worlds. Initially that seems like it's going to make for a strong story of internal struggle and the consequences of pursuing either path, but...more
I picked this up in the bookstore, skimmed it, and bought it. Then I started reading it, and experienced deja vu. I'd read it before, but only vaguely remembered it. NOT a good sign. After finishing it, I now know why. There's nothing memorable about this book. It's got a series of mildly funny events, a ending that's not really an ending, and a main character that doesn't develop in any way. It's an OK read, but it's not going to make you think, and you're not going to take anything away from i...more
I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this book. At it's best, it's a story about growing up. The narrator's awareness starts as he recognizes the stereotypes around him, then he discovers that he has been living up to a shallow stereotype of himself as "Joe College." The tone reminds me of Huck Finn. The narrator has a very self-involved view, but despite that manages to reveal complex issues in the world around him. Young women involved with older men, pressures of parents on their children, d...more
The plot of Joe College is more cliche than classic. We're set up to root for Danny, a Yale junior from working class New Jersey who spends his vacations driving his dad's lunch truck to office parks and construction sites. Our sympathy for him is presumably supposed to increase when Danny learns that the secretary he dated over summer break, managed to get into bed over winter break, and whose phone calls he's assiduously avoided since returning to school is pregnant with his child. Except you...more
While I can't say that my college years would make a great source of comedy (other than maybe a peek at my transcripts), Perrotta was the writer responsible for the novel that the movie Election was based on, and that film did such a good job of squeezing laughs from the awkward high school years that I had high hopes for Perrotta's take on college.
Joe College mined its humor from the junior year of Danny, a Yalie who can't quite shake his blue-collar roots. The story moves between Danny's life...more
Joe College mined its humor from the junior year of Danny, a Yalie who can't quite shake his blue-collar roots. The story moves between Danny's life...more
This is a very likeable book about a guy from New Jersey who finds himself at Yale. His girlfriend from New Jersey gets pregnant, he is threatened by the Mafia (who want to take over his lunch wagon customers), and he falls in love with a girl who is in love with her literature professor. He manages to steer through this obstacle course to end up at a party where it looks like he is about to get thrashed by the brothers of his new girlfriend.
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Tom Perrotta (born August 13, 1961) is an American novelist and screenwriter best known for his novels Election (1998) and Little Children (2004), both of which were made into critically acclaimed, Golden Globe-nominated films. Perrotta co-wrote the screenplay for the 2006 film version of Little Children with Todd Field, for which he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay...more
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