I Am Charlotte Simmons

By: Tom Wolfe

Narrated by: Dylan Baker

Length: 31 hrs and 43 mins

Publisher's summary

Dupont University: the Olympian halls of learning housing the cream of America's youth, the roseate Gothic spires and manicured lawns suffused with tradition....Or so it appears to beautiful, brilliant Charlotte Simmons, a sheltered freshman from North Carolina, who has come here on full scholarship. But Charlotte soon learns, to her mounting dismay, that for the upper-crust coeds of Dupont, sex, Cool, and kegs trump academic achievement every time.

As Charlotte encounters Dupont's privileged elite, her roommate, Beverly, a fleshy, Groton-educated Brahmin in lusty pursuit of lacrosse players; Jojo Johanssen, the only white starting player on Dupont's god-like basketball team, whose position is threatened by a hotshot black freshman from the projects; the Young Turn of Saint Ray fraternity, Hoyt Thorpe, whose heady sense of entitlement and social domination is clinched by his accidental brawl with a bodyguard for the governor of California; and Adam Geller, one of the Millennial Mutants who run the university's "independent" newspaper and who consider themselves the last bastion of intellectual endeavor on the sex-crazed, jock-obsessed campus, she gains a new, revelatory sense of her own power, that of her difference and of her very innocence, but little does she realize that she will act as a catalyst in all of their lives.

With his signature eye for detail, Tom Wolfe draws on extensive observation of campuses across the country to immortalize college life in the '00s. I Am Charlotte Simmons is the much-anticipated triumph of America's master chronicler.

©2004 Tom Wolfe (P)2004 Audio Renaissance, a division of Holtzbrinck Publishers LLC

Critic reviews

• Audie Award Finalist, Fiction (unabridged), 2005

"Like everything Wolfe writes, I Am Charlotte Simmons grabs your interest at the outset and saps the desire to do anything else until you finish." (The New York Times Book Review)
"The book is brilliant, wicked, true, and, like everything Wolfe writes, thematically coherent, cunningly well plotted, and delightfully told." (Atlantic Monthly)

Don't listen to the experts...

Very Entertaining.

Just pretend it was written by a teenage girl and used as a primer for high school health and hygiene classes.

I guess I don't get it

Charlotte Simmons, poor genuis of Hillbilly USA gets a scholarship at Ivy League college; she doesn't get along with her rich spoiled room-mate, (who likes to drink and have sex). But, she gets involved with a preppie frat boy, gets drunk and "taken advantage of" by same; (who of course never calls her again); the resulting depression means that she blows her final exams and struggles over "how to tell Mama"; gets over it and vows to do better, but still thinks that its better to be seen with "cool" people than with nerds.

Frankly, I thought Charlotte was whiney; the part of the book involving the party where Charlotte gets drunk and then loses her virginity goes on for hours! Then she gets depressed; goes home, comes back-- the only movement in the story for about 5 hours is her going from the dorm to home to the library to Adam's room.

Adam, the nerdy boyfriend, is an idiot; the preppy frat boy is at least true to himself; JoJo, the basketball player on an athletic scholarship is perhaps the most interesting; he actually develops over the story, but not much.

The narration is good, but story could be abridged by half (15 hours instead of 30+ hours); and I usually do not like abridged versions. It's too bad; I really wanted to like this as I like other stories by Wolfe.

A great experience

Someday I will listen to this book over again and from the moment it ended, I began to look forward to that day. Wolfe skewers his characters under a critic's glass, but the listener is never sure when a character's fortunes will rise or fall. It's an important commentary on university life today.

The reader, Dylan Baker, is astonishing. He is a consummate professional and I will chose books in the future based solely on the fact that he is the reader.

Dylan Baker totally rocks.

What did you love best about I Am Charlotte Simmons?

Dylan Baker as narrator was terrific. He made the story come to life. What a treat listening to him.

Good performance, Forgettable book

I'm glad I listened to this one because had I read it, I probably would have quit halfway through. Dylan Baker does a commendable job given the material he had to work with. Perhaps the subject matter was somewhat revelatory to Tom Wolfe as he researched it, but it is old news to many of us who lived it not too long ago. This book is forgettable, but I plan to seek out more of Dylan Baker's performances. In that sense, I'm glad I learned of a new reader whose work I respect.

The narrator is awful!

Although the story itself is very enjoyable, the narrator of this audiobook almost ruins the experience. His accents are awful and his intonation grates on your ears. Read the book instead!

Good Job !

Good Job ! Good to hear it, good descriptions, an instant classic!

Dylan Baker did a great job!

Tom Wolfe just knows how to see the absurdities of life and put it into words. The book was a drop slow to get into but then I was so caught up, I couldn't stop listening! Dylan Baker did a great job with all the different regional accents and putting across the emotions behind the words. I had no trouble figuring out which character was speaking or thinking at any time.
Thank you Mr. Baker!

Oh Charlotte, I Just Want to Hug You

Charlotte Simmons is one of those young girls we see every single day but never notice. Why? I found this book rather sad actually. I didn't like what it said about the culture of college sports for sure - really quite disturbing that our young men can be so callous. Good listen.

I am Charlotte Simmons

Great job by narrator. As for Wolfe, he sets forth several insightful scenes that are strung together by a sometimes wandering plot. Not his best work, but a must "read" for Wolfe fans.