The Overachievers

[midsummernd]

If you are a person who went to high school with me, or knows a lot of people who went to high school with me, you need to read The Overachievers. Even just go into a bookstore and read the first couple chapters. I'm on page 25, and I cry after every section

Comments

[shentou]

There's a book by someone from Whitman, about Whitman???

[midsummernd]

yes. although i've yet to see an indication of what her experiences were when she was there.

[shentou]

So, I dropped into the store, did the annoying sit for an hour reading a book and then not buy it thing, and well:

I can't say I'm terribly effected (affected? never can keep those straight). This idea seems to come up every now and then in Whitman social circles (my class year started babbling about the notion of overachiever burnout about a year and a half ago) and I always just feel confused.

I think I may have been the only person at Whitman who a) gave a crap about grades AND b) didn't end up totally freaked out.

Who would've thought a solid layer of cynicism and disdain would've been a healthy thing in an adolescent...

[foxholeatheist]

It freaks me out a little that a book about your high school is called The Overachievers.

(Also, isn't Alexandra Robbins the same one who wrote The Secret Life of Sororities, or whatever it's called? I'm not sure if that's an odd resume or not.)

[midsummernd]

Yes. Alexandra Robbins wrote Pledged, about sororities. I mean, by no means is this a study of poverty in central Africa or the history of Algerian-French relations. She writes about the things rich and priveleged people visit upon other rich and priveleged people. So you kind of take it for what it is. I think that my hometown generally illustrates how the American Dream has gotten a little screwy since 1952. . .so I'm hoping that's where she takes it.

[maryam]

I'll check it out.

Generally, anything that reminds me of Whitman makes me feel pretty ill.

[midsummernd]

yeah. thus the crying every five pages. but it's cathartic. and i think it's a relief to know that everyone had at least some level of awful happen to them there - regardless of how things seemed at the time.