Post Grad: Five Women and Their First Year out of College [Audiobook]

A personal and deeply reported account of five women – including the author – and their prospects, opportunities, and frustrations in the first year after they graduate from Princeton.

Contributor to the Atlantic and the Guardian and recent Princeton graduate Caroline Kitchener weaves together her experiences from her first year after college with that of four of her peers in order to delve more deeply into what the world now offers a female college graduate, and how the world perceives them. For lovers of Mary McCarthy's classic The Group, Kitchener provides a modern nonfiction retelling of the ever-important, ever-formative post-graduation year.

Each of the girls in this diverse group were expected to attend college, but had no expectations for their futures post-graduation. And as Kitchener moves from one girl to another: Talia, the filmmaker exploring polyamory and prostitution; Denise, aspiring doctor – and the daughter of hard-working doctors, who feels both stifled and comforted by their love; Jordan, whose brother becomes her protector when she came out to her deeply religious parents; and Stella, the rebellious singer/songwriter – it gets harder to reduce them to stereotypes or judge their choices.

Kitchener moves expertly between the very personal and the wider sociological perspectives as she outlines a chronological year in the lives of all five women, illuminating and clarifying each one of their choices, victories, and foibles. Both a broad and an intensely individual exploration, Post Grad is a portrait of the shifting environment that these women are thrown into, as well as an intimate look at how a select group of very different individuals handles these challenges – navigating family tensions, relationships, jobs, and that ever elusive notion of independence.