Trying to Float: Coming of Age in the Chelsea Hotel

TRYING TO FLOAT is a coming-of-age memoir by a young misfit living with her parents at the Chelsea Hotel in Manhattan. Nicolaia Rips has problems connecting with her schoolmates, but bonds easily with the many strange people living at the Chelsea. Although often humorous, this memoir has a disingenuous feel to it. Her classmates seem to be meaner than you would expect from typical middle school popular kids and the eccentrics inhabiting the Chelsea lobby seem stranger than fiction. Her parents are a bit too disengaged and her telling of the challenges she faced seems just a little too whiney. Considering that she is a 17 year-old neophyte to writing with a father who is a professional writer, one suspects her father may have had a hand show more in the editing because the writing seems a little too mature and nuanced for a typical pre-adolescent. Admittedly, Nicolaia was not a typical pre-adolescent. Obviously, she was a precocious and intelligent child, but still she seems too wise and self-deprecating for her age.

The narrative consists of a series of short chapters focusing on anecdotes from her interactions with her peers and the inhabitants of the Chelsea. It is essentially the diary of a young girl, but lacks the honesty that was so evident in Anne Frank’s diary. The narrative has little plot development or tension. Instead its focus is on character sketches. In the final analysis, this is an amusing, but not particularly innovative memoir of a girl who may yet be just a bit too young to be writing a memoir. show less

Cute, quick read - very enjoyable