How I Paid for College: A Novel of Sex, Theft, Friendship, and Musical Theater

I picked up How I Paid for College at the immensely wonderful Powell’s Bookstore in Portland, Oregon, earlier this spring. It was a staff pick and, particularly as I had read and enjoyed several other staff picks (Destiny of the Republic chief among them), I skimmed a few pages and decided to purchase a copy. The premise of the story is that Edward Zanni has lived a nice, cushy life until his father remarries to a “stepmonster” and then refuses to pay for him to attend Juilliard. At times, it was funny. Mostly, however, the pranks, frauds, and hijinks felt entirely non-sensical and often gratuitous. The characters largely blended together, which was weird because it was clear that many of them were intended to be the ultimate stereotype of one or another type: the junkie, the exotic foreigner, the eccentric theater student, etc. This was especially strange because I felt like one of the subliminal messages of the book was a sort of “there’s-more-to-any-person-than-meets-the-eye” lesson, where the reader is supposed to look beyond the supposed stereotype to see the whole person. At the end of the day, I just couldn’t buy it, though, and the feeling I had upon finishing the book was one of relief.