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Mar 01, 2011

Nancy rated it:

It is 1981. Norma Rogers is 18 years old, a college student, and on her own for the first time in her life. As someone who was only a year older than Norma in 1981, I can relate to having too much freedom, too many choices, and not enough guidance. “If it feels good, do it” was definitely the motto of life in the 80’s. Or at least it was for many young people at that time.

Right from the beginning, I was drawn into Norma’s life – the parties, the friendships, the joy, the stru More...

4 comments like (22 people liked it)

Oct 24, 2008

Kate rated it:

Okay, I know my rating's not fair since I wrote this book. But I wrote it out of love for these characters, so I can't give them anything less. If you like edgy, fun-to-read, coming of age type stories, you'll probably dig this. Norma's kind of like Holden Caufield with a sex change.

You can read the first chapter here:
http://forthemayqueen.blogspot.com/

For book club questions go here:
http://forthemayqueen.blogspot.com/2008/...

1 comment like (8 people liked it)

Sep 18, 2008

Collin rated it:

I had the pleasure of reading "For The May Queen" while Kate was still sending it around to publishers. I loved it...so much so that I agreed to write a blurb for it:

"The 80s were all about drugs, alcohol and casual sex, and Kate Evans deftly conveys the uncertainty of the era as her feisty Norma Rogers leaves a sheltered home life and dives headfirst into a series of hedonistic adventures at college, including falling in love with Chuck, who just doesn't seem to be th More...

1 comment like (7 people liked it)

Oct 01, 2008

Robin rated it:

I just got this book 2 days ago in the mail and I stayed up almost all night last night finishing it off!!! It's addictive and I don't really know why, maybe it is because the characters are so great and funny, maybe because there's one turn after the other and just have to keep turning the pages to find out whats next. You keep wondering whats going to happen to Norma and you keep feeling like there are some secrets lurking somewhere but you're not sure exactly whats going to pop up.
More...

4 comments like (5 people liked it)

Oct 24, 2008

AJ Paris rated it:

For the May Queen
A Novel by Kate Evans

If you liked Paul Fieg and Judd Apatow’s short-lived but critically acclaimed series Freaks and Geeks, then chances are you will enjoy Kate Evans’s new novel, For the May Queen. Peppered with nostalgic homages to the late seventies and early eighties, this debut novel follows lost but liberated Norma Rogers through her freshman year at Sacramento State. Norma comes from a loving home, not unlike the Brady Bunch’s quirky suburban enclave (s More...

1 comment like (4 people liked it)

Sep 22, 2008

Bev added it

Move over Holden Caulfield --- there is finally a female character who is not afraid to tell us what it really is like the moment you leave the safety net of your home and your parents’ inquiring eyes. For the May Queen by Kate Evans is a powerful new debut fiction novel that is destined to secure a place in bibliophile mania, equal to that of Catcher in the Rye. I did something I rarely do and that is fell in love with Norma Jean Rogers, the central character after reading the opening lines. More...

1 comment like (4 people liked it)

Oct 23, 2008

Cyndi rated it:

I really, really enjoyed this book. Having not made it past the local community college, which was more a continuation of high school, I have always wondered what it would've been like to have gone off to school and lived in a dorm. Kate's book really gave me what I had been looking for.

Through reading some of this book, it felt like I was in the room with the characters. Kate has a way of making them all seem so real, I'm sure each of us has had a Stacy or Liz in our lives.
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1 comment like (5 people liked it)

Feb 03, 2009

Joy rated it:

I started reading For The May Queen disliking the title and cover. That’s an early and easy prejudice to get through. The title made sense after I read the line of the song it had been taken from, referring to lyrics from Stairway to Heaven. I especially didn't like the cover photo. The model didn't look young at all, with dowdy looking clothes she looked about thirty years old, staring at a wilted flower. I would have preferred a photo of a punked up looking rock girl with a stoogie and attitud More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Oct 29, 2008

Patricia rated it:

The setting of For the May Queen by Kate Evans is dorm-life culture in the early 1980s, focusing on drinking, drugs, and sex prevalent in such a context. As a 60-year-old woman who came of age in the late 1960s, I admit to feeling a sense of disturbing recognition as well as powerless disappointment as I read, particularly during the first 2/3rds of the story. And yet Evans presents this as a valid context for a rite of passage without minimizing it as a societal problem.

And she emp More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Oct 17, 2008

Sydney rated it:

Norma is about to embark on the the most intense year of her life... her freshman year of college. She will experience love and hate on levels she has never known existed. Intense friendships unfold as she lives apart from the safety of her parents home for the first time.

Though this book is set in the early 80s, it resonates clearly today. Norma discovers freedom in her freshman year and learns with that freedom, you need a healthy dose of responsibility. There's no one to make More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Nov 14, 2008

Chelle rated it:

Having commuted to college while living in my parents' Bronx apartment, I never got to experience dorm life although I didn't miss out on many parties. But I did send both of my kids off to dorms some 30 years later.

Reading Kate Evan's vivid descriptions, i have to admit I cringed several times wondering - and then deciding maybe I'm better off not knowing (for sure).

Kate's writing is so real, you can get totally absorbed in the story. You can experience the carefree free More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Oct 28, 2008

Kristie rated it:

WOW!!! It's been a very long time since I gobbled up a book like this one. I read it in about 8 hours (maybe less). This book is the type that you sit and read and the next thing you know, you're 50 pages in.

The characters in this book are VERY easy to relate to. If you don't know a Chuck, a Norma, a Liz, or a Stacy, you know someone that knows one. From the first word of the first sentence, I was captivated by Norma. Although my dorm experience was very different, I could total More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

May 03, 2009

Annie rated it:

This book was hilarious and touching at the same time. I loved the characters. I meant to read just a few chapters, but I couldn't put it down and read the whole thing in two sittings.

It takes place in 1981 in college dorms. That makes for a very fun yet tension-filled setting, especially when all these young people don't have any boundaries about what do with their bodies. It's like Hedonism 101 is their most important class. Yet, it's not an easy class to pass. They have to More...

1 comment like (4 people liked it)

Nov 13, 2008

Bradford rated it:

I loved the dialog and Kate's precision from beginning to end. Kate Evans' For The May Queen was for me a deep dive back into my college days - a little scary and enlightening 25 years later and fun too. I remembered I had no idea who I was back then. Kate reminded me those feelings are normal and part of the discovery of life. Thank God I'm here to hope my daughter, who is four now, reads the book the summer before starting college. Chapter 21-"Who Are You", brings it all home for me! More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jan 25, 2009

Holli rated it:

Honestly.....this was a REALLY good book. Thank you so much Kate for sending it to me and letting me have this awesome experience. And it truly was an experience. I felt as if I was going back in time to when I was 18 and 19 and god even 20 and all the crazy things my friends and I did. Kate sincerely captures "the college experience" and by doing so also captures how everyone felt at that age. Its a book about life and love and learning. I loved this book....I highly recommend i

3 comments like (3 people liked it)

Nov 07, 2008

Jana rated it:

College-age Norma takes you on a wild romp through the 80s as she searches for her place in a world that is bigger than she ever imagined. Raw. Real. Poignant.

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Oct 22, 2008

Jan rated it:

Witty and engaging, this debut novel from Kate Evans is a page-turning good read about sex, love and sexuality in a freshman dorm. An awful lot of the action takes place under the influence of drugs and alcohol, to a late-seventies, early-eighties soundtrack. I remember the songs, but where were all the good substances and promiscuity in MY dorm?

2 comments like (3 people liked it)

Sep 12, 2008

Jayne rated it:

A fun and quirky coming of age tale that takes the reader on a journey through college life in the 1980s.

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Sep 12, 2008

Crystal rated it:

This book is Great! I couldn't put the book the down! So entertaining! Must read!

2 comments like (3 people liked it)

Apr 10, 2009

Valerie rated it:

Thrust into a world of dorm parties and unbridled liscence, Norma must look beneath the surface of others, and thus herself. Is she a high schoolish academic good girl? A college student who parties and gets wasted every night? Or does she have hidden talents beneath her multitude of surfaces? As she asks herself these questions, torn between her atraction to writing and the endless temptations surounding her, she learns to understand and love those around her, and thus, herself. A wonderful boo More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Mar 01, 2009

Ellenyo rated it:

A young woman goes off to college and lives it up in the dorm, drinking a lot, having sex with whoever she likes at the moment, falling in love and losing her way academically. And that's not such a bad story! Kate Evans handles this realistic material deftly and honestly. What I most admire is how she lets her characters be true to themselves. The emotion is genuine, and the way the characters interact in this maelstrom of dorm life is very well-drawn. (I remember wanting everything to be INTEN More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Apr 06, 2009

Gary rated it:

Listen to my great conversation with this author:
http://web.mac.com/garyshapiro

5 comments like (2 people liked it)

Oct 31, 2008

Akajerrygarcia added it

A very fun read, characters were very believable, and I was able to read very fast. For me, shorter is better, having ADHD, it is difficult for me to stay with a task for very long. I also am familiar with setting since my oldest daughter was considering Sac State for her college experience.

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Nov 07, 2008

Fenixbird marked it as to-read

Looking forward to reading this book...fantastic reviews by these authors (i just read them on Kate's blog www.beingandwriting.blogspot.com)

Jane Pupek, Martha Engber, Patricia Valdata & Colin Kelley

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 25, 2009

Namid rated it:

What an interesting story. This wasn't at all what I expected, but in the best way possible. It is a true coming of age story, and shows us how much we grow and learn as human beings. With descriptions and events beyond compare, this is a BEAUTIFULLY written story. The end is especially touching. A wonderful book!! :)

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

May 29, 2009

Lisa rated it:

If you survived high-school and college in the 1970's or the 1980's, then you'll get all the references in Kate Evans' sexy romp of a novel.
"For The May Queen"--the title is a line from a famous rock anthem--will surprise you with twists you'll never see coming.
It's a thrill ride with all your ex-boyfriends(or girlfriends), and just when you think you've gotten away with something wicked and fun, you're forced into being accountable. Ms. Evans never telegraphs how you shoul More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 21, 2010

lnb rated it:

this book is good. it feels comfortable being inside norma's head, and her selfishness and obliviousness are endearing and real, she is just a good character. her feminism is really fresh and not heavy-handed -- this is a book that is very much about feminism and sex positivity without ever spelling it out, and i liked that. another good thing about it (that i liked, at least) was the time period of the early 1980s... i am not sure i have ever read fiction set specifically in this time, and i gr More...

0 comments like

Jan 11, 2010

Heather rated it:

This is one of the most readable books I've had my hands on in a while. I read it in almost one sitting, and I am not a fast reader (or a long sitter for that matter, these days).

The most refreshing aspect of the book is its accessibility. Reading the novel, I actually felt like I was sitting in the same room with the characters, part of their conversations, in conversation with them.

It's a coming of age story in a particular time ('80s) and place (Bay Area, Cali). Howev More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 29, 2009

Leslie rated it:

I read it in college, though I feel as though I should have read it in highschool. It is an easy read and keeps you wanting to turn the page to experience the main character's life as a freshman.