Bonjour, Tristesse

So, I have decided to continue my blogging even though it's no longer required for class since I'm now a GRADUATE! It's rather a strange feeling no longer being a student, but I'm hoping that it will allow for me to read more as well as give me the freedom to choose any books I want (not based on required reading). How exciting!

And now, I will give my first review as a college graduate. The book is Bonjour Tristesse, meaning in French "Hello Sorrow." It was written by Sagan at the tender age of 17 and published by the time she turned 18. Despite her youth, Sagan produced a well-written, somewhat existential work about a 17-year-old French girl named Cecile and the carefree life she leads with her widowed and rich father.

Then Anne, an old friend of her mother's, comes into the picture and steals Cecile's father's heart, causing him to leave his young mistress (of which he's had many) and decide to marry Anne. This leaves Cecile confused as she thought that she and her father would continue with their "not a care in the world" lifestyles forever. She begins to plot with her summer love Cyril and her father's jilted mistress Elsa on how they can subtly get rid of Anne. Too late though, Cecile realizes that she has gotten herself too far into something that she can't turn back from now.

At about 180 pages, this was a very quick and enjoyable read. The plot intrigued me, despite being fairly predictable (at least to me). Every once in awhile, I would read a line and think to myself, "I can't believe a 17-year-old wrote this." Sagan grew up in almost identical conditions to Cecile, which is probably the reason why her characters are so believable. She convinces her readers thoroughly in the way she portrays Cecile's thoughts and motives that this is a girl who honestly just doesn't know what she wants. And who can say they've never experienced the same thing? The harsh yet universal truths about mankind and its selfishness are portrayed perfectly in this book and are what has made it into Sagan's most successful novel out of the thirty-plus she wrote.