Title: The Admissions
Author: Meg Mitchell Moore
ISBN: 9780385540049
No. of Pages: 320
Genre: Literary Fiction
Origins: Knopf Doubleday
Release Date: 18 August 2015
Synopsis:
“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.”
Meg Mitchell Moore perfectly skewers the culture of busyness and overachievement that is so prevalent today. Readers who are parents of school-aged children will find themselves equally amused and horrified by the pressures students face. At the same time, the discomfort they feel at recognizing themselves in Nora and Gabe drives home Ms. Moore’s point. The sardonic humor is biting, but it is the despair under which each member of the family soon strains which strikes the strongest chord within readers. The story is humorously bittersweet while striking a bit too close to home for comfort. More importantly, the message is not only timely but very important and well worth the read.