Admission

Yup, this is going in my most anticipated teen reads of 2020.

Admission is loosely based on the college admissions scandal. You know, the one with Lori Loughlin, aka Aunt Becky (I really hope you teens know who that is). Now, I didn't totally keep up with the scandal because honestly, I had better things to do. But I was intrigued by the idea behind this book because it's a fictionalization of what happened. 

So, told from alternating timelines (past and present), we follow Chloe's story.

Chloe is the daughter of hallmark movie superstar, Joy Fields. She knows she's a privileged white kid, but she never really thinks about what that means. She never thought that meant her mother would spend HALF A MILLION DOLLARS to get her into the side door of college. Most of the book is Chloe struggling to understand what this is going to do to her life. She doesn't understand why her mother wanted her to hire a private college admissions counselor, or why she would be given extra time for her SAT's at a remote location, or why she found her face photoshopped onto a pole vaulter's body. But she never once questions aloud why these things would be allowed for her but not some of her other classmates.

Parents are willing to go to extreme measures to make sure they are doing what they believe is best for their kids, but Joy never once stopped to think about the fact that she was committing a felony and could actually face time in prison. This is a story about a family that has always been in the public eye and screwed up royally. The circumstances surrounding them felt surreal and staged. There was no way this could be their lives. They had to hit rock bottom and I mean ROCK BOTTOM before they could begin to have some semblance of family again.

Huge thanks to NetGalley and Random House for providing me an advanced copy of Admission.

Even bigger thanks to Julie Buxhaum for writing such an awesome story.

 

Looking for other books on the College Admission Scandal?

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