Precious Things by Stephanie Parent
Publication date: June 4th 2013
Genre: New Adult Contemporary
Synopsis:
Isabelle Andrews isn’t supposed to be here. She isn’t supposed to be a freshman at Hartford Community College, she isn't supposed to be living at home and working at her dad’s failing bakery, and she definitely isn’t supposed to be taking Intro to Electronic Music Production, a class that will get her nowhere toward her goal of an English Lit Ph.D. by age twenty-five. But when her dad’s latest business fiasco eats up her college fund, Hartford Community College is exactly where Isabelle finds herself—and thanks to her late enrollment, she doesn’t even get to choose her classes. Stuck with Electronic Music and way-too-easy English courses, Isabelle is determined to wallow in all the misery she feels entitled to.
But community college brings some unexpected benefits…like the fact that a certain overworked, over-scheduled Electronic Music professor hands over most of his duties to his teaching assistant. His tall, green-eyed, absolutely gorgeous teaching assistant. When TA Evan Strauss discovers Isabelle’s apathy toward electronic music—and, well, all music—he makes it his mission to convert her. The music Evan composes stirs something inside Isabelle, but she can’t get involved—after all, she’ll be transferring out as soon as possible.
Still, no matter how tightly Isabelle holds on to her misery, she finds it slipping away in the wake of all Hartford Community offers: new friendships, a surprisingly cool poetry professor, and most of all, Evan. But Evan’s dream of owning his own music studio is as impractical as Isabelle’s dad’s bakery, and when Evan makes a terrible decision, everything Isabelle has gained threatens to unravel. Soon Isabelle discovers that some of the most important lessons take place outside the classroom…and that in life, as in Evan’s favorite Depeche Mode song, the most precious things can be the hardest to hold on to
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GUEST POST:
What
the Heck Is the College Experience,
Anyway?
In Precious
Things, I really wanted to capture the so-called “college experience”…but
the fact is that the college experience encompasses many different things, and
is different for every person. There are
the classes themselves, the social aspect, the dorms, being away from home for
the first time, just to name a few. For
me personally, since I am an extremely private person, the whole dorm
culture/roommate aspect was so overwhelming (in a bad way) that it completely
dominated my first semester. I know I
had some great classes, was able to participate in a dance company for the
first time in my life, and met some amazing people…but when I think back on
that time, I get an overwhelmingly negative feeling, mostly because of all the
dorm ickiness. (September 11th
also happened right after I started college, which certainly didn’t help, but
that’s a whole different post…)
My experience with dorm life is actually
one of the reasons I chose to set Precious
Things at a community college without dorms, with my main character still
living at home. I wanted to show that
not everyone has the same stereotypical “college experience,” and that missing
out on it isn’t necessarily such a bad thing—and I also wanted to focus on
other aspects of college, like the classes and the people.
At the same time, I tried to show hints of
alternate “college experiences” through Isabelle’s interactions with her high
school friends. Because of
over-enrollment, Isabelle’s friend Jenny ends up sharing a two-person dorm room
with two other people at the University of Maryland—and believe me, those dorm
rooms are tiny enough with just the two people they’re meant for! This actually happened to a few high-school
friends of mine, and they were absolutely miserable. And even at a top-tier school like Stanford,
where Isabelle’s ex-boyfriend Andrew enrolls, roommates cause problems, with
Andrew spending almost every night in the library to avoid his roomie (and especially
his roomies “guests”). I knew plenty of
people who went through this kind of thing as well, and at a time in your life
when you’re dealing with a completely new environment, separation from parents
and home, and most likely a much greater amount of academic work than you’re used
to, it can be completely overwhelming.
Contrary to popular belief, college students do need sleep, and that can
be a challenge with strange people coming in and out of your room at all hours
of the night!
And then there’s the whole social aspect of
college…the frat parties, the drinking.
Late in the book, Jenny explains to Isabelle why she decided to join a
sorority, and her feelings about the situation pretty much match mine. (Although no, I never considered joining a
sorority—I am way too much of a loner for that!) Here’s what Jenny says:
“I guess rushing was…it’s been my way of
coping, and I’m glad I did it. College
isn’t exactly like I thought it would be.
It’s like…” She thinks for a
moment. “Remember those huge parties in
Ajel Cho’s basement, when he would invite the entire school?”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“You know how we acted like everything
was so great, like we were so happy and excited to be there, when really we’d
rather have been home watching movies and eating ice cream?”
I laugh.
“Yeah.”
“Well, college is sort of like that,
but…all the time. You have all this
freedom and you’re supposed to be having the time of your life, but sometimes
you just want to escape and curl up on the couch to watch a movie, except you
can’t, because…the party’s in your bedroom.
And besides, there is no couch other than the ratty stained one in the
dorm common room, which people are probably either hooking up or passed out
on. Oh, and you’re also supposed to read
more than you ever have in your life, and write twenty-page papers, and study
for exams while all this is going on.”
So for Jenny, and Isabelle—and
me—college is a lot more complicated than just having “the time of your life.” I hope I reflected
that in Precious Things…and yes, I
just might be courageous enough to tackle the dorm environment in more detail
in my next NA novel!
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AUTHOR BIO:
Stephanie Parent is a graduate of the Master of Professional Writing program at USC and attended the Baltimore School for the Arts as a piano major. She moved to Los Angeles because of Francesca Lia Block's WEETZIE BAT books, which might give you some idea of how much books mean to her. She also loves dogs, books about dogs, and sugary coffee drinks both hot and cold.
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