Emily Paull

Penelope Rebecca Harrington Vintage Books How to make friends at college, according to Penelope's mother:  Don't be too enthusiastic, don't talk to people who seem to be getting annoyed, and for heaven's sake stop playing tetris on your phone at parties."  All good advice, but it doesn't seem to help Penelope much, as from the moment she arrives at Harvard, it seems as if she's doomed not to fit in.  From her attraction to pretentious German men in wrinkled suits to her obsession with bringing up the infamous car seat story (she sat in one until she was in grade four, and she thinks this makes her interesting), Penelope is not  'normal'.  She is in fact rather extraordinary.  How she manages to pass college, or indeed if she does at all, is not dealt with, because Penelope's loneliness seems to stem primarily from her lack of urgency when it comes to studying for college exams and assignments.  From the outside perspective, the reader is sho...