Nell Kalter’s first novel, Student, is a recent work that explores the life of a struggling college senior. Kalter draws from her experience as a high school film teacher in New York to inform the interests of the main character, a young woman who finds her calling in film.

The protagonist Jaye begins as a lost college senior attempting to figure out what to do post-graduation, what her values are and where her loyalties lie. She lives in her sorority house, balancing her time between doing work for her favorite film class and frequenting her favorite club to see a cover band, The Assassins. She has been in a long-distance relationship for four years and is getting tired of working to make the stale relationship feel exciting. Infatuations with frat boys and band members creep up on her as she competes with her sorority sisters for various men. After deciding not to go to graduate school and to take a summer film class instead, her change of heart winds up being one of the best decisions she could have made. Jaye eventually escapes the constraints of the sorority and a fleeting relationship with one of the band members, using inspiration from these experiences to create her films.

Kalter’s efforts at examining college life are scattered and lack coherence. The protagonist, telling her story in first person, often interrupts an interesting or pivotal scene to reminisce about a particular character, switch the subject or go into a flashback. Most of the characters lack substance and are not particularly memorable. However, Jaye’s voice is extremely well-developed in comparison. The best part of the novel, Jaye’s time at the Film Academy the summer after she graduates, deserves more focus. Kalter emphasizes the most compelling of Jaye’s qualities through those experiences.

Unfortunately, Kalter’s language choices make the novel less sophisticated than it could have been otherwise. She writes in a stream-of-consciousness style that is more grating and grammatically incorrect than innovative.

Student, though a fast and easy read, seems more like a novel geared toward teenagers than college students. Although it does not effectively capture college life, it does share some interesting perspectives on issues that surface for women in their early 20s.

–Megan Bounds