Title: The Admissions
Author: Meg Mitchell Moore
Published: August 18, 2015 by Doubleday
Pages: 320
Source: Publisher via BookSparks
Rating: 5/5
Goodreads
The Hawthorne family has it all. Great jobs, a beautiful house in one of the most affluent areas of northern California, and three charming kids with perfectly straight teeth. And then comes their eldest daughter's senior year of high school . . .
Firstborn Angela Hawthorne is a straight-A student and star athlete, with extracurricular activities coming out of her ears and a college application that's not going to write itself. She's set her sights on Harvard, her father's alma mater, and like a dog with a chew toy, Angela won't let up until she's basking in crimson-colored glory. Except her class rank as valedictorian is under attack, she's suddenly losing her edge at cross-country, and she can't help but daydream about the cute baseball player in English class. Of course Angela knows the time put into her schoolgirl crush would be better spent coming up with a subject for her term paper—which, along with her college essay and community service hours has a rapidly approaching deadline.
Angela's mother, Nora, is similarly stretched to the limit, juggling parent-teacher meetings, carpool, and a real-estate career where she caters to the mega rich and super-picky buyers and sellers of the Bay Area. The youngest daughter, Maya, still can't read at the age of eight; the middle-child, Cecily, is no longer the happy-go-lucky kid she once was; and the dad, Gabe, seems oblivious to the mounting pressures at home because a devastating secret of his own might be exposed. A few ill-advised moves put the Hawthorne family on a heedless collision course that's equal parts achingly real and delightfully screwball.
Sharp and topical, The Admissions shows that if you pull at a loose thread, even the sturdiest of lives start to unravel at the seams of high achievement.
My review:
This book could not have come at a better time. My daughter was doing her final submission of her college applications, and I fully embraced the make believe world of The Hawthorne family! The author completely nailed the personalities and voices of the three girls in the family. Having had daughters who have gone through all of these stages, I was in love with her characterizations! There is a lot going on in this book that is not just about getting into college, although that part is written really well. We have the two younger girls with their own issues, the Dad who is obsessed with Harvard, and the Mom who is being stretched way too thin. I found this book to have some humorous parts, mostly poking fun of the Bay Area elite (the section about the yoga class and juice bar had me laughing out loud). There were some serious issues also interspersed to make a well rounded and enjoyable read. It got a little far fetched with Angela at the end, but I was too immersed at that point to care, and the ending was very satisfying.
You don't have to have experience with college admissions to enjoy this novel, it's a darn good family tale that will have you craving more from this author!
This book is part of the BookSparks fall reading challenge, click the link to be directed to their page for more information.
