Jon Hart’s “Party School” is an anti-school shaming novel that seeks to create more awareness about college students being shamed.
The form of shame that appears in the book is shame over what college you are attending This is a problem that can seriously affect people who choose to attend college as they can be demeaned by friends, family, peers, community members, and people online for their choice in school. This can be especially prevalent with schools that have certain reputations from being very prestigious to being a party school.
But, “Party School,” says that it is okay to attend whatever college or university you have enrolled in because what matters is what you do to further your education and not the name of the school you are getting your education. As Hart puts it, “It’s not the brand of the school. It’s the character of the student!”
The novel follows Dylan Mills as he attends North South University, a school that carries a reputation for drug use, which gives Dylan much shame to be going there to the point where he tries to avoid telling people in his hometown of Castleton where he’s going for school to avoid their judgments. For most of the book, Dylan wishes to leave North South for a different university that rejects him.
Dylan’s beloved girlfriend, Rosemary Silversmith, is going to a very reputable school, or it school as Dylan calls it. While Rosemary never says anything outrightly negative about Dylan’s choice of school, Dylan still expresses some level of shame that he’s not going to a noteworthy school like Rosemary. It’s an interesting example of how sometimes others can impose shame on us, even if it is unintentional.
Rosemary decides that she and Dylan should take a break from each other while they are a college to get a more rounded experience now that they are moving into a new stage of life. Dylan is upset by this but relents to Rosemary and the couple part ways, agreeing not to speak for three weeks.
Dylan goes to North South and starts to get into the groove of college life and makes friends with other people on campus including Wally, Jimmy, and Samantha. Barring some embarrassment from his divorced parents, Dylan does alright at North South. But he still longs for Rosemary and their relationship.
Then, Dylan suddenly gets a call from Rosemary, informing him that her parents are in the hospital. Dylan drops everything to go and support Rosemary. But despite Dylan being glad to be around Rosemary, there is a noticeable distance that has grown between them and Dylan wonders if Rosemary is taking issue with him attending North South.
Even more distance grows and Dylan decides to try and make things better between them by visiting Rosemary at her school. But Dylan can’t find Rosemary anywhere and is forced to leave by campus security. Rosemary lets Dylan know that she’s seeing someone else and Dylan returns to North South, greatly upset and missing what he had with Rosemary.
In a fit of frustration, Dylan begins going out with his friends on a motorcycle and drinks a lot, getting “North Southed” as the locals and students call it. Dylan participates in party games where he and others strip to their underwear and make fools of themselves, culminating in Dylan running naked across another college’s football field and getting suspended.
Getting suspended makes Dylan feel like he’s brought down the name of North South, especially since his escapade was filmed and posted online, but he gets reassured by his sociology professor, Berkowitz, to not worry about it too much and keep at it to finish his first semester at North South. Dylan takes what Berkowitz says to heart and begins to realize that he doesn’t need Rosemary as much as he thought he did. Dylan begins to enjoy his time at North South and makes the most of it.
But one day on winter break, as Dylan is working at The Luncheonette, a local restaurant in Castleton, Mr. Zelman, who Dylan formerly had as the voice in the back of his head, judges him for going to North South and his actions there is arrested. It comes out that Mr. Zelman, along with many other people, including Rosemary’s parents, are being arrested and accused of making bribes to falsify their children’s college entrance scores.
Dylan doesn’t want to believe that Rosemary is involved, but while visiting her, he finds proof that she used personal experience from his life to write her college essay and passed it off as her own. The charges against Rosemary’s family are eventually dropped due to lack of evidence but this still shatters the last of the trust Dylan had in Rosemary and he parts ways with her to move towards something new.
Dylan additionally received a call from the admissions office of the school he had wanted to go to that he had been accepted for the spring semester. While he initially agrees to it and tells his North South friends about his decision, Dylan declines and returns to North South to continue to “build something special here.” Dylan reunites with his friends and agrees to go on a date with Samantha.
Dylan’s first-year struggles were very relatable. There’s a palpable sense of anxiety about starting college for the first time and trying to find your place in it and wondering if you’ve made the right choice in coming to this particular school. While most people would probably think that your concerns about attending the right school would be financial in nature, “Party School” highlights the fears of how you will be perceived for which school you attend.
Dylan very often feels ashamed for going to North South instead of the “wannabe it” school he had wanted to go to and tries to avoid and escape from the preconceived notions that people have about North South and what it means for him to attend it.
He eventually accepts that it is okay for him to be here and live in the community that he has discovered and helped to build. This is important, more now than ever, in this age where school shaming can greatly affect people as they choose to go to college.
