--- product_id: 12385225 title: "I Am Charlotte Simmons: A Novel" brand: "tom wolfe" price: "125 zł" currency: PLN in_stock: true reviews_count: 8 url: https://www.desertcart.pl/products/12385225-i-am-charlotte-simmons-a-novel store_origin: PL region: Poland --- # I Am Charlotte Simmons: A Novel **Brand:** tom wolfe **Price:** 125 zł **Availability:** ✅ In Stock ## Quick Answers - **What is this?** I Am Charlotte Simmons: A Novel by tom wolfe - **How much does it cost?** 125 zł with free shipping - **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship - **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.pl](https://www.desertcart.pl/products/12385225-i-am-charlotte-simmons-a-novel) ## Best For - tom wolfe enthusiasts ## Why This Product - Trusted tom wolfe brand quality - Free international shipping included - Worldwide delivery with tracking - 15-day hassle-free returns ## Description I Am Charlotte Simmons: A Novel ## Images ![I Am Charlotte Simmons: A Novel - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71E8+MoHvPL.jpg) ## Customer Reviews ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5.0 out of 5 stars The Definitive Coming-of-Age Novel for Our Time *by A***A on Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 27, 2005* Charlotte Simmons is the definitive, classic American coming-of-age novel.Charlotte Simmons is a brilliant high school academic achiever and a model young woman in her rural community. She was raised by a strong and determined set of parents who had no education but who have run solid, honest lives within modest circumstances. Charlotte also had a distinct advantage of having been mentored by sophisticated, though not soigné, high school teacher who shows Charlotte her future in very specific terms.Critics have faulted Wolfe for being a fuddy duddy as he tells the story of Charlotte's loss of her virginity in the first semester of her first semester at a prestigious university. They natter away that, had Wolfe written the book in the 1950s, it would be shocking, revelatory and groundbreaking but that in 2005 this particular episode isn't worthy of Wolfe's attention.What these syntax flinging contributors fail to understand is that Charlotte Simmons was just trying desperately to provide herself with a basic life support structure she has left behind at a home that's completely inaccessible to anyone without cash, credit cards, or a cell phone. What Wolfe's detractors don't question is how would a young woman in 2005 find herself completely cut off from these kinds of resources? She's a girl who's never had them. Her support network had been mama, daddy, and Miss Pennington - all of who were stone's throw away on her mountain top.I recommend highly that Wolfe's critics google Maslow's hierarchy of needs. They might learn what they have not gleaned from reality TV --- that Maslow believed human beings have basic needs that must be satisfied before they can move on to think about other needs. Maslow tells us the first two primary needs that must be satisfied for any human being to exist are the physiological (air, water, food, and sleep), the psychological (safety, stability and consistency), and emotional (the longing to belong to a group.) We are not able to sleep, for example, because the person we live with makes sleep impossible, and as a result we may feel sickness, irritation, pain, discomfort, and extreme stress. Our discomfort forces us to satisfy this need as soon as possible, in any way we can. If we do not feel safe in a new environment, if our new life is chaotic and unstable, we will cringe with anxiety and be totally consumed by until we can find safety. An abused wife cannot think about getting a better education, for example, if she's in constant fear for her life. Studying math, science and language have to wait until the abused wife is no longer crying out in fear. We all crave stability and consistency, but sometimes where we have no way to reach them. Love and belonging are one step up Maslow's pyramid. We all want to belong to groups, as we all need to be accepted by others and to feel loved by them. It's no stretch to see Charlotte Simmons in the same leaky boat. Despite the fact that she has been brought to the best university in the country on a full scholarship, Charlotte cannot become absorbed in her studies -- inspired by neuroscience, enthralled by her drama class -- until she can sleep without being woken up at 3 a.m., forced from her room by her sexually active roommate, and left to sit up in a lounge. In a parallel search for friendship and love, she finds only shallow acquaintances who are only interested in the names to which she attaches herself. One name in particular seems to be offering love, affection and a safe harbor only to be revealed as a duplicitous, cunning and predatory beast who dumps her carcass by the side of the kennel.Charlotte Simmons is a refugee from the remote Carolina wilderness who has nothing and no one to fall back on. There is no safety net for her. No checking account, no credit card, no patient bank officer managing her trust fund, and no cuddly grandmother who could be relied on to slip some currency into a greeting card for her. By contrast her roommate is the daughter of a Fortune 500 CEO with every expensive privilege on display. Charlotte allows herself to feel inferior and intimidated. She loses her footing in her own values and ethics, and she only begins to regain them with the help of someone just like her. The remarkable thing about Wolfe's novel is that , with absolutely nothing to fall back on, Charlotte is able to climb out of her hole high enough fall back onto what she once believed about her place in the world - that, given the right choice of people, she can feel superior to everyone around her. And when she can regain this feeling, she will be safe, and her world would become predictable and controllable. At that point she will be able to read, study, write, and achieve. This is why her attachment to JoJo the thick-headed basketball player cum philosophy student works, and why her membership in the Millennium Mutants does not. It's all or nothing with Charlotte -she must be on top to function, to be Charlotte Simmons.I Am Charlotte Simmons defines the distorted sense of time felt by all American adolescents. At 18, many of felt that one mistake would be fatal. One poorly written paper would ruin a career, one failed relationship would mean a life of isolation, one slip from perfection would mean a world of turned backs. Wolfe takes us through this distortion so beautifully that I Am Charlotte Simmons should be the primer for all college students on perspective, balance, flexibility, and time. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5.0 out of 5 stars I WAS (and am) ADAM GELLIN (the dork)!!! Pt. I *by O***3 on Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 4, 2006* I'm only half-way into this book and already I can tell you that Tom Wolfe tells it like it is! He writes with the energy and panache of an ageless (and authentic) wunderkind. People who decry this book as "unrealistic" are just fooling themselves. Wake up! Take a look in the mirror, people! Tom doesn't shy away from showing you all the sad, petty, twisted and overwhelming obsessions of college life (which, of course, is just the real life shrinked down.) In fact, this book is SO realistically written that it's given me post-traumatic stress syndrome. I'm not kidding! In college (and high school) I was basically the Adam Gellin character - the dork, forced to kowtow to the jocks and always shot down by the hotties. Here's a little passage where Tom NAILS the mindframe of one of the a-hole jockstrap gorillas:"What did Adam the tutor amount to? He amounted to a male low in the masculine pecking order who is angry, deserves to be angry, is dying to show anger, but doesn't dare do so in the face of two alpha males, both of them physically intimidating as well as famous on the Dupont campus. Jojo had enjoyed this form of unspoken domination ever since he was twelve. It was a source of inexpressible satisfaction."Thank god somebody's got the guts to tell the TRUTH. Frankly, I think Wolfe is unjustly criticized on the basis of his age; people assume a 70-something author can't capture college kids' mental state. WRONG! Time and again I'm just blown away at how well he does it - the slang, the attitudes, the clothes, etc. The guy was clearly channeling!And one finally gets a true view into the workings of the female mind - the ostensibly "smart and sweet" Charlotte Simmons is just a sucker when it comes to hot guys; she can't see them for what they really are: a-holes. "Charlotte's pulse was rapid... She was excited...the only girl in a room in a fraternity house with a whole bunch of cool boys." Meanwhile, like in real-life, the poor dork in the form of Adam Gellin (ME) is shunned and shunted. Nerds lose. Frat-boys and jocks win. Like in real-life: Bush is President. While a nerd can't get a job or a girl and winds up spending too much time writing up a review for Amazon. Ha!Some readers complain the characters are stereotypes. Well, okay, Wolfe does skirt the margins of caricature. On the other hand, there really ARE people like this! If anything, his portrayals are HYPER-realistic. It's like he put a college campus under a microscope, and really ZOOMED in, until all the frightening details scream in your face. After all, what would've been the point of a bland, distant, birds-eye view? No, this is the only way it could've been done, had to be done, for the average, jaded reader to stand up and take notice.Also, Wolfe gives every character depth and dimension, lifting them above the stereotype category. Even the gorilla jock becomes a REAL PERSON. Often he'll break the narrative flow to launch into a long exposition on how a character became what he or she is. You'd think it'd be boring, but it's actually not. You feel their desires, hopes, fears, everything.AS FOR STYLE - Tom has enough to spare. I've never read a book by him before, namely because I assumed he'd be boring (most books dubbed as "literary" tend to turn me off), but wow was I wrong! This guy breaks every rule in the book and makes it work! He's like some hybrid of Bret Easton Ellis and Hubert Selby jr (and maybe a dash of Chuck Palahniuk?). He uses plenty of repetition (creating a crazed rhythm), will use all CAPS in dialogue (like Selby for emphasis), will phonetically spell out slang and sounds effects like "Woooooooooooooo!" and "oohooooo....oohoooooo...." and ":::::STATIC:::::" and is no stranger to using ellipses and wild streams-of-consciousness. He's clearly having an exhilarating good time with the English language. This is the book that Bret's "Rules of Attraction" wanted (or should've) been. While Bret is a great stylist as well, his book bogs down under its too-episodic going-nowhere structure and characters that all sound the same. Not here. Wolfe always maintains a "through-line" - things connect, there's a sense the characters are headed for a showdown (psychic or physical). Or to put it another way: THE PROPULSIVE ENERGY OF THIS BOOK COULD POWER ALL THE LIGHTS AND SUBWAYS OF MANHATTAN FOR A YEAR.The chapter entitled, "The `H' Word" alone is worth the price of the book! It's a laugh out-loud expose' of the weight-rooms and body-conscious culture of America. The men with their "curious, apelike straddle gait." The females on cardio-machines with their rear, sweat-stained "declivities." And poor "unsexed" Adam running around, hoping to bulk up. Read it! Nobody has made you seen it more vividly.Okay, I could on and on, but I need to stop somewhere. Suffice to say - I would give this book 20 stars if I could! It's one of those rare books that hits a nerve in you, expresses everything inside of you. It's real. It's the truth.PS - I will post a Pt. II follow-up when I done. Stay tuned! ;) ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5.0 out of 5 stars A great gify for a high school grad *by D***N on Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on July 10, 2023* I have worked in higher education for over 30 years and I have never read a better book for preparing new students for the world that is to come. It reads like a mix between a good novel and academic participant observation research. I highly recommend it even if you are not about to be a college freshman. --- ## Why Shop on Desertcart? - 🛒 **Trusted by 1.3+ Million Shoppers** — Serving international shoppers since 2016 - 🌍 **Shop Globally** — Access 737+ million products across 21 categories - 💰 **No Hidden Fees** — All customs, duties, and taxes included in the price - 🔄 **15-Day Free Returns** — Hassle-free returns (30 days for PRO members) - 🔒 **Secure Payments** — Trusted payment options with buyer protection - ⭐ **TrustPilot Rated 4.5/5** — Based on 8,000+ happy customer reviews **Shop now:** [https://www.desertcart.pl/products/12385225-i-am-charlotte-simmons-a-novel](https://www.desertcart.pl/products/12385225-i-am-charlotte-simmons-a-novel) --- *Product available on Desertcart Poland* *Store origin: PL* *Last updated: 2026-05-30*