I really loved this YA coming-of-age romance, a sharply-written story about dreams, ambitions, class, race, and love from author Ben Philippe.The character work just sparkles, populating the landscape of the book with vibrant personalities exchanging smart, lively dialogue.
Henri has to get into Columbia, has to. It’s all his Haitian immigrant father has been dreaming of since Henri was a kid. In between keeping up with classes and extracurriculars at his elite private school and pounding the pavement for his minor hustle of a dog-walking business, Henri pours everything he has into realizing his father’s American dream. Along the way, he becomes entangled with classmate Corinne, who’s similarly obsessed with her own Princeton-related ambitions. As both of them are increasingly desperate to secure ambition to their Ivy League dreams, a proposition from Corinne that begins as low-key blackmail starts to become something more genuine.
The contrived situation that brings these odd-couple characters together – Corinne blackmails Henri into helping her learn to better navigate social situations in the hopes of cultivating the appearance of the “brilliant and driven but approachable and down-to-earth” persona that’s likelier to get her into Princeton – is nothing new for this kind of story. Henri even lampshades that fact, joking that Corinne is enlisting him to She’s All That her (and she in turn notes that pop-culture references seem to be an essential part of her training.) And to be sure, the character types presented here are familiar as well, the charming quasi-hustler who uses his charisma to get ahead in lieu of more material advantages and the studious high-achiever who puts others off with her “intensity.” There are numerous comparisons to be made, although the first that come to mind for me are Henri’s “Hamilton meeting Angelica at the ball” vibes and Corinne totally giving off “the brightest witch of her age” energy. There are certain beats that you can see coming long before they manifest on the page.
None of that, though, should take away from this thoroughly-engaging read. I’ve said before that tropes exist for a reason, and their successful execution is all about how the writer uses then. In the case of Charming as a Verb, that execution is clever, wistful, and winning. Within the broader archetypes of the characters and their situation, Philippe grounds them and the story in compelling specificity, making them pop off the page. Henri’s narration is as sharp and observant as it is funny and engaging. Even as I can guess where things are headed between him and Corinne, and with his Columbia dreams, I love every part of the journey of watching them get there. Henri and Corinne’s on-page dynamic is to die for – there were so many times as I was reading that I thought, “Give me a movie adaptation of this like yesterday.”
Henri, Corinne, and the interactions between them are the best part of the book, but the novel has numerous things going for it. I love how much attention Philippe gives to fleshing out the wider cast of characters, from Henri’s sneaker-obsessed best friend to Corinne’s sternly-fastidious mother and freewheeling aunt. The book also does a great job capturing the charged atmosphere amid prep-school seniors in the thick of college-acceptance season, and it deftly explores the different circles Henri moves through, the various New Yorks he encounters through his home life, at school, on his dog walks, and at the parties of some of his more privileged classmates. It all comes together in a really interesting tapestry of a young guy’s life as he doggedly tries to manifest the future he wants for himself.
Warnings
Language, drinking, sexual references/light sexual content, and thematic elements.
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