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Despite all it's faults, it's still entertaining as hell. I was immediately drawn into Tom Wolfe's world of college life in the 00s. What does a 73 year old man know about this kind of stuff? Enough to make an interesting story out of it. Critics are too busy counting the things Tom Wolfe got wrong in this novel that they overlook how much he got right. The main theme of the novel is basically how far should you go to be accepted. This may seem like a fragile idea for a 680 page epic, but Wolfe pays so much attention to detail and gives every character a great amount of depth (however shallow they may be) that it turns into a very engrossing read. A common complaint is that few, if any, of the characters are decent enough to feel sympathy towards. I disagree. Wolfe writes the characters as human beings. Human beings who aren't always heroes and who aren't perfect once you look close enough. The novel covers four main characters, mostly spending time on Charlotte. The other three are the seemingly stereotypical jock, nerd, and frat boy. But so much depth is giving to these characters that they suddenly stop being just stereotypes and sound like people you've met (though you gotta admit, there are a lot of people out there perfectly content with living as a stereotype). Once we form our opinions about the characters, Wolfe creates situations that completely change our minds. The reader may care about one character one moment, then be completely appalled by him/her the next. And likewise. All in all, I am Charlotte Simmons isn't a book that's tackling anything that hasn't been tackled before, but it goes so deep into these character's lives and actions that there's much to think about after the last page has been read.