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    Claudine at School
    Claudine at School
    Claudine at School
    Audiobook8 hours

    Claudine at School

    Written by Colette

    Narrated by Barbara McCulloh

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Coming-of-age novels about girls are too often full of "sugar and spice and everything nice." Claudine is the happy exception. Claudine is a mischievous 15-year-old, full of her sex and rampaging through the dusty corridors of a parochial school in provincial France.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateFeb 4, 2008
    ISBN9781449802639
    Claudine at School

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    Reviews for Claudine at School

    3.5/5

    81 ratings5 reviews

    What did you think?

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 3/5
      A suitable tonic after several YA-friendly tales of childhood and growing up. Colette was much more interested in representing life as it really is, with bullying, flirting, lesbian relationships, and everything else you might imagine.
    • 2/5
      Decided to read this as it kept appearing on lists of books/authors I should have read. I can almost see what the appeal might have been when this book was first published, however, a lousy, dated British translation and a modern view on bullying make this less interesting to read now. Claudine 50 years ago may have seemed bright and flirtatious and risqué, today she comes off as an obnoxious, spoiled "mean girl". I probably would have enjoyed this more had I read it in French, the British slang was so out of place in a French novel!
    • 4/5
      This was Colette’s first novel, published in 1900 when she was 27, and which would become a 4-part series of ‘Claudine’ books. Ostensibly the book was co-authored with her first husband, and rake that he was, he likely steered the content towards the provocative end. However, the major voice here in this book is almost certainly Colette’s, and it’s interesting to find that the books were likely semi-autobiographical. If so, what an interesting school she must have attended! Claudine’s teacher openly carries on a lesbian love affair with an assistant (one that Claudine herself originally desired, turning their tutoring sessions into dates), and the superintendent brazenly gropes and pursues the young girls. Aware of her sexuality but not about to swoon over a guy or fall victim to the superintendent, Claudine is an interesting combination of sharp, sassy, and cynical. She tends to control her environment and the friends around her – flirtatious Anais, clueless Marie, and little Luce, who idolizes and loves her. The narration is through her unique voice, and often with an inner voice in response to what other characters say or do. It’s sentimental in the sense that this is her last year before she will leave the country for Paris and never see these people again, and yet she is tough and far from cloying about it. It’s not ‘high fiction’, but it is an entertaining, tight story, and transplants you to life in one of these schools at the time, preparing for and taking exams, creating a gala ball to honor a dignitary, and engaging in the everyday lives of kids and their various attractions and jealousies.
    • 4/5
      i don't know. i never wanted to read this when it was its turn.
    • 4/5
      Here is a young heroine with a keen, socially observant eye who is shockingly, innocently, perfectly coquettish. Despite its popularity, it must have ruffled some feathers at the time -- this novel acknowledges high-school age girls as being sexually aware (however limitedly so).Something about the girls' little idiosyncratic communication tics really get at the amusement inherent in being a teenage girl. There are some hilariously concise descriptions of such occurrences as barely stifled laughs, conspiratorial glances, and little gloaty "I know something" dances.Although this is a predecessor of such dreck as the Gossip Girl and Pretty Little Liars series of YA books, its heroine is admirably self-aware and while she may come across as shallow, it's made clear that she is diamond-sharp and as introspective as she is aware of the motivations and designs of those around her. Claudine is bitingly funny and simply charming.