Fall Reading Challenge: The Admissions by Meg Mitchell Moore (Chrissy’s review)

The Admissions
written by Meg Mitchell Moore
published by Doubleday, 2015

find it here: (affiliate links) Barnes & Noble, Amazon, iBooks, Book Depository, Goodreads

Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange  for an honest review.

Did I enjoy this book: I did enjoy this book. It was a good read, and I was able to read it in about a day. Once I got through the first 75 pages, I didn’t want to put it down.

When I saw The Admissions on the BookSparks Fall Reading Challenge lineup, I knew I had to read it. I read Ms. Moore’s book, The Arrivals, a few years ago (see my review here), and I knew I had to read The Admissions. The Admissions is an interesting look at today’s college application process, the pressure put teens, and the pressure put on everyone to succeed. It also reminds you that not every “perfect” family or “perfect” teen or “perfect” whatever is as “perfect” as they seem. Everyone has a secret. Everyone has pressures. The story is told from many different points of view. It was interesting to read what each character was going through at each moment of the story. I felt for each of the characters in different ways. And there were quite a few surprises throughout the novel. I thought I had a few things predicted, but I was surprised by some revelations. And as for the ending . . . I wouldn’t mind reading a sequel!

Would I recommend it: Sure. It was a good read.

About the book – from Goodreads: One of People magazine’s Great Beach Reads: “This novel about a striving, upscale California family is a bracing entertainment that zeroes in on the modern pressures put on teens–and their folks.”

The Admissions brilliantly captures the frazzled pressure cooker of modern life as a seemingly perfect family comes undone by a few desperate measures, long-buried secrets—and college applications!

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.