My Oxford Year

Ultimately disappointing, and I am partly responsible for this unfulfilling read.

I’d heard the author on a podcast (Wicked Wallflowers Club) and the entire time she was speaking thought she sounded remarkably pompous, talking about how she was a Rhodes finalist (but you weren’t selected so … sounds embarrassing to hear people, years after the fact, talk about how close they came to something), how she’d attended Oxford through her American uni and was a “real Oxonian,” not “granted privileges” like actual Rhodes scholars (so then why would she apply for the scholarship if she’d already an “authentic” experience?), how she is an important actress and is “really good friends” with X, Y, Z. I’m really good friends with a woman named Jessica who oversees providing healthy, fulfilling meals to the hungry in our county, so what’s your point? And the author is an important actress who pays her bills by narrating books — the way she kept stressing “actress” felt as if she were denigrating the profession which puts a roof over her head.

So as I wrote, totally my fault for purchasing (and reading) the book anyway, but the hosts of the podcast were keen on it, plus the author does really like tea (me too), and I liked the way they all (hosts and author) said it’s not a romance book, it’s a woman’s book. Now I love romance and I love chick-lit and I love women’s fiction (which empowers women, kinda following the Bechdel Test, if you will).

“My Oxford Year” is a flat-out romance. There is ZERO female empowerment to be found in this story.

And that’s fine, but this is not a woman’s book. This is not a book where, in the opening scene, our protagonist, Ella, is offered a job advising a widowed candidate on education in the presidential primary and where we actually see Ella doing *any* work, providing *any* knowledge about American education (except that the Arts are important — yep, got it). If Ella loves English lit so much, why do we only know about the one paper she writes, and that’s in her first week of classes? We learn nothing else about her true life at and in Oxford. Sure, we learn she makes three friends, but there is no deep dive into those friendships, at all.

Instead it’s a romance with one of her teachers, Jamie, where they agree to a purely sexual relationship, not an intimate relationship. Granted, they do ultimately develop an emotional connection and it turns out ***SPOILER*** that he is terminally ill, as was his brother (who earlier succumbed to same disease), and Ella decides to live with Jamie while he’s undergoing and dealing with the after effects of treatment. So we know about Jamie’s living on his bathroom floor and puking,***END OF SPOILER*** but not about Ella’s, the WOMAN, classes, classwork, work for the US presidential candidate hopeful.

At the very end of the book Ella does decide to do what she wants to do, not what society or academia says one ought to. Listen, that’s great and all, but what Ella chooses to do is still in service of her boyfriend, so I’m not sure how much of a woman’s book this is. I think in many ways that is truth, that many of us do subjugate our own wishes / needs in service of those around us (spouse, children, parents, boss), but I’m in my 40s, not a Bright Young Thing in my early-20s who was chosen a Rhodes Scholar AND was handpicked to be the Education Adviser to someone running in the presidential primaries. I mean — that is some young person! Must be incredibly bright, insightful, observant. I’ll read a book about her! But that’s not Ella. At all.

Would I recommend this book? Not on your life. Is it the worst book I’ve ever read? Not even close. Is it a keeper? Nope.

I do not like sneaky books about cancer. I get invested in the characters and the bomb drops. I lived it and do NOT want to read about it.

I really wanted to love this book. Im an Anglophile and nearly spent a summer at Oxford as a teen before mononucleosis derailed that plan. The fun, flirty first half of this book is delightful. The sexual tension between the central couple is exquisite. I loved all of the poetry references. Then the book takes a tragic turn. I shouldnt have been so surprised with names like Nicholas Sparks and Jojo Moyes name-checked in the jacket blurb, but I was disappointed nonetheless. However, the real problem is that once the tragedy is revealed the story just dragggggs. All of the romantic tension is dropped like a hot potato. The author literally describes a cute bathtub scene between the central couple like its an afterthought, a throwaway, because apparently its now more important to agonize over whether the heroine should stay or go. How about showing the reader that these two people are still attracted to each other, and arent just running on the fumes of the great sex they were having before the big reveal? The assumption that sex and chemo cant coexist is boring, short-sighted, and ultimately disrespectful to those who are trying to negotiate love and illness in real life. Needless to say, I will only recommend this book with a giant caveat.

A young fast tracker from Ohio, who has fantasized since childhood about attending Oxford University, becomes a Rhodes Scholar and realizes her dream. But what transpires in just several months is so much more than a college experience. Ella, at 24, has been hired to play a pivotal role in the U.S. Presidential campaign back home while adjusting to Oxford culture, a new relationship, developing friendships and a potential life-altering situation. Author Julia Whalen is so adept at creating identifiable experiences while providing a dreamlike travelogue atmosphere that My Oxford Year should appeal to female AND male readers. We can all imagine expanding our horizons; enjoying a beautifully written story in the process is icing on the cake.

How many times did this fall apart? Just a jumbled mess of a book. We were never given an examples of the brilliant Ella advising the politician. We were never given any examples of the work she did at Oxford. The love story fell short for me and never explored any deep conversations between the characters. Very sloppy writing about her mother – I feel like we never got full story and why Ella kept wanting to avoid conversations with her. I do not understand the praise for this book. I have read almost 90 books this year and this was one of the worst I do not recommend at all. I just could not connect to Ella at all. Terrible. Terrible. Just skip it

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