The 21-year-old virgin

The opening passages of Patricia Weitz's literary debut, College Girl, are much like the protagonist, neurotic social recluse and (most importantly) virgin Natalie Bloom: Unassuming, artless and meek.

In the same manner Natalie fails to balance her unblemished GPA and social life, Weitz cannot escape the expositional stranglehold that first-person narration can often impose on an author.

In fact, there is simply no reconciliation between Bloom's sheltered reality and Weitz's Diablo Cody-aping need to name-drop artists such as Beck, Morrissey, The Smiths, The Velvet Underground and the now considerably less-hip Smashing Pumpkins.

This ineptitude is most pronounced in Weitz's jarring tonal fluctuations. Since Weitz is conveying the thoughts of Bloom, a 21-year-old University of Connecticut senior, there are, of course, the usual immature worries about boys. Bloom describes the "hours and hours [she]'d spent thinking about ... pink-perfumed love."

On the next page, however, Bloom relives perhaps the most devastating experience of her life: "I was watching The Love Boat when I heard that Jacob was dead, and I didn't know what to do with the news."

Unconvincing and underdeveloped, the transition between the two chains of thought again cannot cover up blatant artifice. It becomes painfully apparent the discussion of Jacob's suicide is tacked on trauma meant to lend weight to the rather typical musings about teenage boys. Instead of emotional resonance, however, one merely sees the meddling of an inept writer.

Weitz's prose also proves lacking in very basic ways, as attempts to create something more out of Bloom's thoughts end up breaking character and sounding disastrously maudlin. One cannot help but cringe as Weitz delivers excessively set-up clunkers such as, "Why was it that the more people I connected with, the more it felt like I was disappearing?"

One facet of the novel - aimed solely at young adults - Weitz does master is the mildly insightful discussion of college life clichés.

When Bloom wonders "what people meant by 'hooking up'" because "it seemed to cover everything from kissing to oral or straight sex," Weitz is simultaneously echoing the thoughts of her core demographic and making a valid point about a mystery constantly haunting college campuses.

Similarly accurate and relevant is Bloom's observation that the "couples nearby grinding" at a fraternity party she attends are actually "humping through their clothes" and not dancing in any form.

Clearly, Weitz can adroitly muster a scattering of pointed anecdotes about the modern college experience. Yet, her characterization of the University of Connecticut as a bastion of upper-class elitism never quite coheres.

Granted, there are descriptions of "the sprawling lawns, the rolling pastures and ... ivy-vined buildings," but Bloom never faces any class-based discrimination - overt or subtle - for her blue-collar background. The working-class-hero shtick quickly wears thin, since there is a never an instance where her dream of studying Russian history is hindered.

Of course, critiques of the minutiae of college life were never exactly Weitz's focal point. Rather, her prose begins to gain energy and depth only when Girl starts to move toward the melodramatic catharsis any reader should spot coming.

Bloom's romantic adventures begin when she meets Patrick Dunne, a "preppy," pot-smoking wannabe writer who is an intellectual simply by virtue of having a "thick, worn copy of Ulysses."

Initially faced with a Prince Charming of sorts, Bloom cannot help but cast off her shell and fantasize about Patrick in a way previously unknown to her: "Then Patrick - tall, dashing Patrick, with his blue eyes that had already grown bluer - leaned in and kissed me."

Fortunately, Weitz avoids leaving her story at that and putting her characters through the regular generic romantic motions. Instead, Weitz finally begins actively imbuing Girl with meaning just when the plot begins to be mired down in thick, soap opera-like conflicts.

Late and ineffective as it may be, Girl's finale still carries the vindictive, earnest claim that a casual sex-based college culture breeds manipulative, lecherous relationships in which women are merely sexual objects to be used on demand.

There is even a point in the novel where Bloom is appalled by everything about her relationship with Patrick but still acquiesces to his sexual wishes, an affecting and brutally honest scene as any in teenage literature.

It is a gross injustice, then, that this rousing feminist call to arms is delivered in such a weak vehicle. Weitz's ultimate failure is in pandering to her college audience instead of actively challenging them. She clearly did not learn the same lessons that Natalie Bloom did.

vmain13@umd.edu

RATING: 2 out of 5 stars