Admission

Thank you to Netgally and the publisher for this ARC Admission by Julie Buxbaum is about Chloe Berringer. She has a charmed life, her mother is a television star, she is at an excellent school, and she was accepted into her dream college, SCC (a stand in for USC). That all falls apart when she opens her front door to find the FBI standing on her front porch ready to arrest her mother. It turns out her mother is of a college bribery scandal. This book is very timely and ripped from the headlines. It casts a sympathetic eye towards the characters, but doesn't excuse them from their actions. I appreciate that Buxbaum gave the perspective of the child who had their life ruined by their parents' actions. Chloe had to question whether her parents thought she was stupid or less than or couldn't make it into college herself. Additionally, the side characters were interesting, particularly Chloe's best friend, Shola and her sister, Isla. This book will surely be a popular checkout for teens and curious adults.

I was excited to get this book from the library to read and dug right in. This college admissions scandal story is told from the perspective of the student whose parents cheat to get them into the college of their choice. While this sounded to me like a juicy 'ripped from the headlines' story, it is more accurate to say it's a coming of age story of sorts. The author does a good job of bringing the reader along with the young woman who experiences shock, denial, anger, and eventually grows as a person to understand all the many layers of wrong that happened. She loses so much and finds her real self at the end.

I love Julie Buxbaum's books and this one might be my new favorite. I felt like I was watching a movie the whole time I was reading and could not put it down. I learned a lot about our responsibilities to make sure things happening around us are ethical. The character development had me feeling like I was growing up with them.

A bit of honesty at the start of this review. I think, like many people following the news, I have turned this college cheating scandal into a story, and not a thing that happened. The impact on all of the students who have been rejected or waitlisted, the futures/hopes/dreams that were taken by this. It is a monstrous thing, when you really think of how many kids have been cheated out of a future they rightfully earned. Chloe Wynn Berringer has a life of privilege, and she knows it but does not comprehend it at the start of the novel. Her father works for a venture capitalist, and her mother is a clear Lori Loughlin stand-in, a long-working actress of television and television movie fame. Chloe's parents believe that she can get into SCC, a school that even her prep school counselor calls a longshot. Chloe is shocked to get admitted, and the real shock comes when she finds out her parents paid her way in. This is not a spoiler, because the book is about Chloe's attempts at taking responsibility for her role in their crime, and learning how to become the adult in spite of this. This novel does a good job of showing privilege without being preachy. Admission succeeds at bringing the reader into Chloe and her classmates' senior year, and the pressure that American students feel every year when they are dealing with what- for the lucky ones- is often their first true facing of disappointments. The college application process is such a nightmare that I was involuntarily taken back to my own time of stress. Yikes! Admission is a great read for high school students, and it made me have a lot of empathy for the real-life cheating criminals that I had lost. I do not think their weak jail sentences and fines are enough punishment, but I do hope they are actually feeling guilt like the characters in this book. Chloe is mostly unlikeable in this book, as she obsessed over Levi and hangs out with her best friend Shola. I know teenagers are entitled by nature, but wow. Shola is a champ for stomaching Chloe's comments in their friendship. I will not spoil them here, but they are appallingly self-centered and the kind of entitled white girl statements that are hard to read through. Admission manages the near-impossible, humanizing Chloe and her parents. I really liked the inclusion of Chloe's younger sister Isla, because it is good to know that there are children who have everything handed to them that still work for it. I felt the same about Chloe's love interest Levi, who wants to go to Harvard but works hard for it. I wish that we had spent more time with Shola, as she kind of gets the smart black sidekick treatment. We see her only through Chloe's adoration, but I wish we went deeper. I would recommend this book for anyone like me, who thinks the College Cheating Scandal parents should be paying for this forever, and wants to have compassion for their children anyway. We do not get to pick our parents, and so I can only hope that these kids have the same reflections and growth that takes place in this novel. Thanks to NetGalley and Random House Children’s/Delacorte Press for the ARC, it was a great read that made me think!

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for a free copy of this book. Admission was an interesting take on the college admissions scandal. Our main character, Chloe (clearly based on Olivia Jade Giannulli) is the daughter of a "B-list actress, and not the best student. Her mother hires an admissions consultant, who essentially buys her way into college. If the author was trying to get me to empathize with Chloe, she failed. She started out as entitled and whiney. She ended slightly less entitled. I found myself empathizing more with her best friend Shola. The writing style was weird. The mom was written like teenager, the romantic subplot was under developed and the use of the half brother's addiction served no purpose. It felt very gimmicky and insensitive.

*I got this book for review from the publisher* This was def a rip from the headlines book. I also really did wind up enjoying this read. This book follows a character who mom brided, cheated and stole to get her into college. Overall I enjoyed this read. This book focused so much on self discovery. This book I feel was super realistic and really focused on Choe life. I like the structure of this book of Now and Then and also how the story explored who a villain and who is the hero in this story. This book had elements of romance but it was not the main focus. I really wanted to see more of some of the smaller characters talked about in this read. I really did enjoy Chloe as a character and thought the premise was super cool, but felt like the world was not as fleshed out as I wanted.

I received a galley of this book through Netgalley This book has content warnings for panic attacks and a drug overdose. I really enjoyed this book. It's very topical and I also really enjoyed the persepctive this book gave on the situation. For all of you afraid this is going to excuse these actions, it doesn't. The main character is very aware that it's wrong what her parents did and it discusses all the ways (besides just legal) that this is wrong. I also liked that this book had two time lines. That wasn't something I was expecting going in this novel but I really liked picking up on little clues in the past time line that hint towards what was happening in the present time line. This book mainly has a focus on family and that's just something I really like in books. I also really like how the dynamics between the family changed as new things were unraveled and the book progressed. When I got closer to the end I was getting kind of nervous about how it would wrap up but I actually quite liked where it ended up. I could have done with maybe a little bit more but I still think it wrapped up great.

Eeek. This book had so much promise for me but fell a little short. All of the characters, except Shola and maybe Isla, were completely unlovable - even after they learned their lesson. I am likely a little biased as I work in college access, and I see this kind of inequality play out everyday, and I really would have loved to have seen more growth and learning in the characters. But I did enjoy the writing and wanted to see how the story played out at the end. Thanks to Netgalley for a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

I would to thank PRH Global for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts expressed are my personal opinion. Description Summary:Despite having one of the most clueless MCs in YA, it is sadly a grim reflection to perhaps a big portion of the privileged rich kids. Makes a fantastic discussion book. Score: 3.5/5 "Money makes you weak because it tricks you into thinking that you're strong". This is exactly what this book is about. Of course I'm pretty sure the whole world knew about the admissions scandal because it does shed a garish light on privilege, corruption, and integrity of these so called "prestigious" institutions. Honestly this is one of the most important discussion books for teens, and is one book I would definitely recommend be taught in high schools. There are so many themes that pop up that includes, the education system, standardized testing, racism, and entitlement. I cannot though with Chloe freaking Berringer. She is one of the most clueless human beings in existence it's terrifyngly alarming. The author tried really hard to make us readers sympathize with her, but ultimately I couldn't. I may have felt sorry but whatever consequence and punishments that came out of this is justified and she deserves it. Do I recommend? Despite me not really clicking with the book, I 100% think it should still be read. Full review to come on blog Blog | Twitter | Pinterest

I feel like so much more could have been done this this book. Don't get me wrong I loved it, but I feel like we could of gone so much deeper in how Chloe was affected by everything. To me it was kind of just reading an article of what went down in the real world. I'd still suggest it, but it did leave me wanting more.

For the full review visit my blog: http://shelflifechronicles.com/2020/0... I'll be the first to admit that I was enraptured by the college admission scandal that was Lori Laughlin and Felicity Hoffman. People who already have so much privilege and a leg up took it to another level just to brag about what college their kids go to. The lengths they went to in order to get into these top colleges was mind blowing. Faked learning disabilities, doctored pictures, fake sports profiles it would be funny if it weren't so serious. Admission follows Chloe who is a very white and very privileged girl thanks to her mom being a top B-list actress. Think aunt Becky in Full House but hotter and a bit over the top. Chloe loves her family something fierce, but kind of takes her life for granted and just skates by never really having to work hard for anything. Her life is pretty great though until the FBI shows up at her door one morning, guns loaded, and arrests her mom. Turns out she didn't get into her dream college of a whim, but is part of a larger college scam that is happening nationwide. Chloe swears up and down that she had no idea, but is she telling the truth?