Definitely a top contender for this year. Loved this book!!!

Thanks to author,publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book. While I got the book for free,it had no bearing on the rating I gave.

What does it mean to be complicit?

This is basically the story of Lori Loughlin and the admissions scandal - a B-list, Hallmark and sitcom actress, her successful husband, and their 2 daughters gearing up for college admissions. I do not know if I fully realized how competitive all college admissions - not just the Ivy Leagues - had become in recent years until the real admissions scandal mentioned USC more than once. USC here is very thinly veiled as UCC, right down to the colors of the school and the name of the athletic teams.

In the center we have Chloe, a high school senior at a very competitive private school where everyone has gone college crazy. Chloe cares about the typical teenage things - her boyfriend, her best friend, what she is going to wear to prom. She idles toward the bottom half of her class and academically, she coasts. She reads Spark Notes and not the book; she studies but not before taking a dip in the pool.

Chloe definitely does not start off as likable as Buxbaum's previous female protagonists (bonus points for having references to Hope and Jessie!). And while she does not quite end up as likable as them either, she does make strides - she tries harder, she starts to take responsibility.

The real heroine here is Isla, Chloe's younger sister who DOES read, who DOES study, and who DOES have the grades and scores to go to college on her own. Growing up in the same household, with the same parents - how could Chloe be quite so gullible - and quite so complicit?

I read this in a day and as usual, I love Buxbaum's writing style. It did not make me more sympathetic to the people embroiled in the admissions scandal. It did however make me wonder about Isla's story moving forward - I would love to read about what happens to her in the world moving forward.

Thank you Netgalley for this preview!

I absolutely thoroughly enjoyed this book! What a fun book to read, and very culturally timely at that! This book follows the college admissions scandal from the perspective of the daughter, who did not know what was going on. I devoured this book in a few hours and found all of the characters to be compelling and interesting. Just a phenomenal and fun book! Be sure to buy this one in May when it comes out!!

This timely young adult novel was inspired by the recent real life college admission scandal - narrator Chloe is the daughter of a (fictional) B list TV star, a middling student at a private school whose parents go to great lengths to try to get her into a better college than even she wants to go to. The book alternates between her mother's arrest and the months afterwards, and portions slowly revealing all the events that led up to it.

I have been a HUGE fan of Julie Buxbaum ever since I read her debut novel all the way back in 2009, so when I got an advanced copy of this book (which comes out in May), I couldn't resist reading it right away! It definitely has Buxbaum's usual knack for bringing characters to life - indeed, if when you heard about the college admission scandal you wondered what it was like for the kids of the parents charged and how much they knew, this book is definitely for you. My one quibble, which I know is kind of a strange one, is that this is the first Julie Buxbaum book that didn't make me cry. Still a great read, just not quite as emotionally transcendent for me as her others.

Admission by author Julie Buxbaum is a look into what parents will do for their children to make it into a preferred college! Told through the view of the teenager, which is a different account for me, but it did not disappoint! At all! Loved Admission!

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I love everything Julie Buxbaum writes, and this was no exception. I flew through it in an evening and was then sad it was over. Terrific writing, amazing character development, and a relatable plot (even for those of us who did not grow up rich). I cannot wait to booktalk this to my HS students, and I will be ordering multiple copies!

Julie Buxbaum has authored another fantastic novel! "Admission" is based on the college admissions scandal, and takes you into the life of a teenage girl who finds out what her parents have done to help her be accepted into her preferred college. This scandal has fascinated me, and I really enjoyed reading a fictional account of how the teenagers involved must be feeling.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC. All opinions are my own.

This book relates directly to the current college admissions scandal that is always in the news. The book reads as an insider fictionalized telling of what it is like to be involved in the scandal. The main character Chloe wakes up one day with the FBI on her doorstep looking for her famous mother for charges having to do with "the scandal." Chloe has never fully excelled in school like her sister and her friends do but she had accepted that. Chloe's parents were unable to except that Chloe might not get into the best most well known schools and only wanted to push their daughter to be the best and they wanted the best for her. In order to achieve these goals, Chloe's parents hired someone to make Chloe look like the ideal candidate. The novel is split up into alternating chapters of then and now to explain how the scandal came to be and the aftermath of it. Throughout the course of the novel, Chloe wrestles with the idea that something isn't right with her admissions journey. Chloe grows as a person from the beginning to the end as does the rest of her family. It seems that in the face of this tribulation Chloe's family is able to become a family again. There are a mix of emotions that the reader is able to feel while reading this that helps to keep it interesting and all the characters to read as humans. The alternating timelines gave a good perspective into just how much Chloe changes as she processes what has happened. Overall, if you're interested in the colleges admission scandal this is a great book to get a taste as to what it might be like for the families going through it and how it also affects the people around them.

I would have been interested to have seen even more of the secondary characters like Cesar, Shola, and Aunt Candy. They all had interesting parts to play in Chloe's life and I wish there was more of them.

***Thanks to NetGalley for providing me a complimentary copy of ADMISSION by Julie Buxbaum in exchange for my honest review.***

5 HUMUNGOUS STARS achieved without any felonious cheating or bribery

What if you were an average high school senior among the elite? What if your younger sister, best friend and your not-so-secret crush were brainiacs who barely had to study? What if you knew you weren’t good enough?

Chloe believes her low self-esteem is warranted. After her actress mom is arrested for fixing her SAT results and college admission, now the world knows too. Chloe blames herself for her mom needing to go to such extreme and illegal measures. If she were smarter, her mom wouldn’t have felt the need.

Julie Buxbaum’s ripped-from-the-headlines fictional story ADMISSION, aside from being compulsively readable, gave me an entirely different perspective on the real life scandal playing out in the news. Initially, I saw the true story as one of privilege and entitlement, spoiled kids who never had to work for anything. ADMISSION is not that story.

Chloe’s privileged life is not her fault. While not the best student, she’s not a slacker. She loves her volunteer work because unlike school, reading to kids comes easier to her and she excels. Loving school isn’t difficult when learning comes easy with the added perks of constant external validation. Those kudos are not Chloe’s experience.

Her mom may seem like the villain, for cheating on Chloe’s behalf, especially when we see poor minority mothers sentenced to years in prison for enrolling their children in better public school districts by falsifying residency. Beneath both of these crimes, love of children motivated poor decision making.

Before reading ADMISSION, I judged Felicity Huffman harshly. I didn’t consider a wide variety of possible reasons. I didn’t know one of her daughters had a learning difference, which affected her standardized test taking and grades. I didn’t know Felicity’s daughter’s level of suffering from her mother’s lack of faith in her, self-blame and the possible lifelong damage to their relationship. Federal prosecutors better ask jurors if they’ve read ADMISSION during voir dire or else acquittal will be guaranteed at trial.

Through complex characters and beautiful storytelling Buxbaum caused me to open my mind, google and develop empathy and a broader perspective. I never felt as if Buxbaum was lesson teaching or spoon feeding me opinions. I was fully immersed in Chloe’s journey, experiencing her feelings and going through her trials and triumphs.

Buxbaum’s books get better and better. She’s a must-preorder writer for me.

My strongest recommendations for ADMISSION.