When Penelope O'Shaunessy steps into Harvard Yard for the first time she has lots of advice from her mother. "Don't be too enthusiastic, don't talk to people who seem to be getting annoyed, and for heaven's sake, stop playing Tetris on your phone at parties." Penelope needs this advice. She is the kind of girl who passes through much of her life with coffee spilled on her white shirt, who can't quite tell when people are joking, and who, inevitably, always says the wrong thing. But no amount of coaching will prepare Penelope for the people she meets at school. Capturing the social hierarchy of Harvard, gloriously skewing the various college types, and skillfully parodying the pretentiousness of academia, Penelope is the ridiculous, snarky, brilliantly funny story of one of the most singular, memorable heroines in recent fiction.