Susan Choi: My Education (2013)

[jserraglio]

Naive co-ed falls obsessively in love with charismatic professor? Yes, but My Education is not such a thrice-told tale. Not even close.

Among many other strengths, Choi is a chameleon stylist. The voice of her protagonist, consistent across the years of the narrative—1992-2007, morphs as she moves from being trapped by a coup de foudre at 21 to tossing out her birth-control pills to have a child in her early 30s.

A charged novel in every way. Might be said to anticipate Sally Rooney's Conversations with Friends of four years later, if it did not operate at and on a much higher plane.