Changes

|title=Penelope

|author=Rebecca Harrington

|genre=General Fiction

|rating=4

|borrow=Yes

|isbn=978-1844089260

|pages=304

|publisher=Virago

|date=January 2013

|summary=A sweet, if directionless, book about a sweet, if directionless, freshman at Harvard. Funny but it drags a little.

}}

Penelope is a socially awkward Harvard student, chronicling her first year at the famed institution. She has a thing for Hercule Poirot (don’t we all?), is allergic to cats, and quite worryingly believes that ''Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights'' is one of the best films of all times. She is determined to make friends but finds the options quite limited. Her roommates are either too studious (Emma) or too dubious (Lan) and the boys downstairs are peculiar creatures, to say the least. The dashing, mysterious foreigner Gustav is worth a second glance, but never seems to be where she wants him to be, when she wants him to be there, which is annoying.

[[Harvard Business School Confidential: Secrets of Success by Emily Chan]] was not written by Penelope. Perhaps if she'd read it, things might have been different. [[The Accidental Billionaires: Sex, Money, Betrayal and the Founding of Facebook by Ben Mezrich]] also features more ambitious / ruthless Harvard grads from whom our heroine could learn a lot.

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