This novel captures the very essence of what it is to me a high school teacher at any given point in one’s career. As a beginning English teacher myself, I found that the many nuances of the education system that may be lost to the average reader struck such a chord with me, and the direct, descriptive language is exactly the type of writing an educator would use to clearly articulate themselves to any audience. Just brilliant!

Anyone who has spent any time in public education will immediately recognize the authenticity of this novel. It encapsulates the range of emotions teachers, administrators, and support staff experience every single day. There’s laughter, frustration, incredulity, anger, passion, and - most importantly - deep love and commitment to a profession that is often undervalued.

The Faculty Lounge is told through the perspectives of various school staff. We meet brand new, fresh faced, idealistic, nervous-as-heck teachers just entering the profession and their counterparts; the wizened, exhausted, seen-it-all veterans. There are administrators juggling the demands and needs of parents, school board members, teachers, students, and disconnected central office figureheads all while wading through a multitude of emails, paperwork, and meetings. There’s a long serving counselor, a school nurse who doesn’t always play by the rules, and a custodian who is often invisible, but sees much more than she is seen. Together they form the heart of Baldwin High School.

This book navigates all the distractions prevalent in public education and reveals the very heart of what makes it special: a well-defined sense of purpose and service to others. Jennifer Mathieu has written a highly entertaining and emotionally authentic book.

This was such a fun read! Mathieu is so good at creating compelling, life-like characters. Looking forward to sharing this with the educators in my life!

It was the first time in a while that I read some literary fiction and this was a great book to get me into it. I loved the complexity of the characters and the setting was a lot of fun. It was my first read by Mathieu and I look forward to reading others.

As a twenty=five year veteran of teaching high school English, I could relate to so much in this book! I found myself wishing I could share passages with my teacher buddies. Jennifer Mathieu takes us right into the real world of a high school which is so much more than just students at desks in a classroom. A high school is comprised of teachers, administrators, students, custodians, counselors, food service workers, bus drivers, school security people, substitutes, and more. As The Faculty Lounge opens we discover a beloved substitute teacher has died in the faculty lounge. Many of the subsequent events are framed around this and as the school year unfolds this unfortunate event continues to loom.
I loved the way the author structured her novel around the school year calendar: the holidays, the state testing, the assemblies, teacher observations, and end of the year gatherings are all here. If you've ever taught in a school, you will recognize at least one of Mathieu's characters!
A quick, page-turning read!
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC!

I will be gifting this book to my fellow educators! 5/5 STARS!
Mathieu has done such an amazing job of weaving together several different stories and perspectives of principals, teachers, admin, caretakers and some students at Baldwin High.
As an educator, I was able to relate to more than half of the faculty stories told throughout this book - including how the story starts and ends.
"The Faculty Lounge" provides readers with such a unique point of view and understanding of what goes on at a school, outside the classroom.

I am beyond lucky to have received an ARC of "The Faculty Lounge" - thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Group!

Thank you, NetGalley, for the advance copy of this lovely book!

As a parent, I am so grateful for, and in awe of, teachers. This book was a funny and sweet ode to public education, an environment in which I have zero experience and even less interest. Which is to say, the whole thing could be wildly unrealistic. But I don’t think so. I loved this peek into their professional and personal lives, and how they intersect. Each person has their own chapter, which reads like a connected series of vignettes, rather than a progression of events leading to a plot conclusion. As such, the ending was a slight disappointment, in that there’s no real conclusion other than the passage of time and how a specific event at the beginning of the school year affects the characters as the book travels towards summer break. But I cared so much about these people and their stories! I’ll be looking for more adult novels by this author!

Stories from different points of view at a public high school in Texas over the course of a year. Some stories are funny, some hopeful, some are sad but what brings them all together is that they all attended a memorial for a substitute teacher who taught at the school. As an educator in Oklahoma the almost unbelievable stories about public schools are so true, carpets not being vacuumed since the Clinton administration, half the microphones working at a school play, useless teaching evaluations and a horrible professional development meeting with a district employee with less experience that most including markers and fun introductions. The story I liked the least was the last one about the single teacher on vacation who had a student pet sitting for her.

The Faculty Lounge delves into the tumultuous happenings at Baldwin High during a single school year, offering a mosaic of interconnected stories involving teachers, administrators, and staff. Rather than unfolding like a conventional novel, it embraces the format of linked short stories—a style that resonates, especially for enthusiasts of short fiction. The narrative's common thread is the unexpected passing of Mr. Lehrer, a seasoned educator turned substitute, whose demise in the faculty lounge sparks controversy with parents and the Central Office. The book's diverse tales include a contentious book banning, a man's transformation from punk rock musician to principal, a janitor's touching friendship with Mr. Lehrer, a vice principal embarking on recovery from substance abuse after an encounter with an unconventional colleague, and a nurse whose dedication to students transcends conventional medical care.

Remarkably, despite its high school setting, students are conspicuously absent for much of the narrative until the final stories. Even then, the focus remains primarily on the faculty's relationships with students beyond the confines of the classroom. While this deliberate choice aims to spotlight the individuals behind their professional roles, it occasionally feels disconcerting. The book's predominant concentration on adult interactions within the school environment, excluding significant student involvement, at times appears contrived or artificial. This approach might be more seamless if the narrative exclusively explored the personal lives of the characters. However, given the substantial portion of the story set within the school, centering solely on adult interactions—teachers, staff, administrators, and parents—can feel somewhat forced. Nevertheless, these adult interactions effectively shed light on the challenges faced by educators, including testing pressures, overbearing parents, curriculum disputes, and more.

For those intrigued by the intricacies of teaching, especially with a desire for more classroom scenes, Alexandra Robbins's nonfiction work, "The Teachers," provides a compelling exploration of the subject. Notably, Mathieu, the author of The Faculty Lounge, herself a high school teacher, infuses the narrative with authenticity, love for the subject, and perhaps a hint of frustration, offering a unique perspective on the teaching profession.

This is a fascinating read as I've been retired from teaching high school for quite some time, but still have incredible memories of my students and fellow co-workers who made it the best job in the world. As it opens, we see beloved veteran teacher-turned-substitute found dead in the teacher's lounge. And although the "spreading" of his ashes is quite comical, the rest of the novel has both humor and pathos as we witness all of the behaviors and hi-jinks that both students and teachers exhibit both in and out of school. Great snarky humor paired with pathos makes this a great story that I will recommend to all of my friends!
Thanks to NetGalley for this ARC!

This was a written book and not an audio as a result I was unable to listen to it but I would be interested in that if it were an audiobook it the cover looks interesting and is the type of book that I normally would check out

I really enjoyed this book! I loved the opening lines and thought it was a hilarious way to start a book. I also enjoyed that each chapter featured a different staff member at the school, and it was interesting to see the different things that they were experiencing. I think, educators would love this book, but this is something that other readers would enjoy as well.

I’m sorry to say I didn’t enjoy this one. Each chapter is simply a different vignette featuring a faculty member. Their stories don’t connect much, and most of all I expected their stories to tie back to the death in the story. Instead, the dramatic opening event is quite disconnected from the body of the book. It wasn’t for me, but educators looking for something relatable might like it.
Thank you to Penguin Random House and Net Galley for the ARC.

Everyone should read this. Teachers will relate and non-teachers will get a sense of what it's like to work in a school.

As a teacher, this book is incredibly relatable. Each chapter is told from a different character's perspective over the course of a school year. Mostly teachers, but also administrators, the school nurse, the school counselor, and the janitor. Their stories are intertwined and intersect, and all are flawed yet fundamentally good people who just want to do the right thing. I loved seeing the story come full circle.

Thank you to Penguin Random House and Net Galley for an ARC to review.

This is an honest review of The Faculty Lounge by Jennifer Mathieu. I really enjoyed this book and kept thinking the author must have worked in a school, she has... No spoiler since it is in the 1st paragraph- the book is about the relationship or lack of one different characters in the school had with Mr. Lehrer. Mr. Lehrer worked at the school for decades , retired and returned to substitute when he was in his 80's. He dies on the couch in the faculty lounge. The chapters are like short stories linked by a common setting and character- Baldwin High School and Mr. Lehrer. The book is current- references to COVID, lock downs, CRT and T-SOAR a texas standardized test. The book is believable and relatable. As a former educator, my favorite quote was wanting to die during professional development because it would be a seamless transition. The teachers at the school were likable and recognizable if you have ever worked in a school. The darkest, yet most realistic scene was when a central office person was sent to do grief support and made it "value added" to school test performance.

This is the best book that I have read in a very long time and I have read many excellent books in the last several years. . It could be my love of teaching and knowing so many dedicated teachers who touched my life that made this book so personal to me. Jennifer Mathieu captured the way people who were born to teach feel about their profession. Reading her book gave me the fullness in my heart, that I have felt from teaching my own students and seeing them succeed. The characters range from first year teachers to those at the end of their careers. They include teachers from several disciplines, a beloved counselor, assistant principals, the school nurse, a young custodian and of course the principal. Timely topics include book banning, lock down drills, abortion rights, standardized testing, district office interference and other issues.. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who would like an insight into what it is like inside schools today and how dedicated professionals make a difference.

While there definitely were enjoyable parts to this book, especially since I am a teacher, I found it greatly lacking in plot. I kept wondering when I would get to the main conflict, and I felt like I never did. It was short vignettes about various faculty members with one common thread running through, but no main conflict. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

Wow! What a lovely and timely book. If you are a teacher or work in education in ANY capacity, this is the book you want to read and the book you want every other person to read just so they get it!! (They still won’t get it, but they’ll be closer.) If you’ve worked in education for 6 months or 40 years, what you will feel while reading is summed up in this quote from the book: “There was a sense of solidarity among them that was built around the noble goal of helping young people learn and thrive in the face of constant bureaucratic absurdity and nefarious external forces.”

Set in a present day public high school in Texas, this novel is perfectly written in a sort of short stories—slice of life—type format that works so brilliantly. I was sucked in immediately from the opening scene. I love that the entire story is framed around this one bizarre but fascinating incident that sets the tone for the rest of the characters school year. The symbolism of that event alone is book club discussion gold. Every character is fully fleshed and believable. I enjoyed every sentence of this book and will be telling many people to add it to their list! Thank you Netgalley and Penguin for the advanced copy.

Ah, this book made me so happy! It does not touch on every issue in education (there is little about student trauma, chronic absenteeism or the out of control behaviors that plague our classroom in 2023), but instead focuses on the adults that occupy schools for far longer than the kids who pass through. Experienced educators will recognize themselves and their colleagues in this novel, and laugh in sympathy with the characters who must do their best by their students while dodging the chaos of standardized testing, over the top teacher evaluations, and ridiculous central office mandates.

Synopsis (from Netgalley, the provider of the book for me to review.)
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By the acclaimed author of Moxie, a funny, bighearted adult debut that is at once an ode to educators, a timely glimpse at today’s pressing school issues, and a tender character study, following a sprawling cast of teachers, administrators, and staff at a Texas high school

With its ensemble of warm and unforgettable characters, The Faculty Lounge shows readers a different side of school life. It all starts when an elderly substitute teacher at Baldwin High School is found dead in the faculty lounge. After a bit of a stir, life quickly returns to normal—it’s not like it’s the worst (or even most interesting) thing that has happened within the building’s walls. But when, a week later, the spontaneous scattering of his ashes on the school grounds catches the attention of some busybody parents, it sets in motion a year that can only be described as wild, bizarre, tragic, mundane, beautiful, and humorous all at once.

Amid the ensuing hysteria and threats of disciplinary action, the novel peeks into the lives of the implicated adults who, it turns out, actually have first names and continue to exist when the school day is done. We meet: a former punk band frontman, now a middle-aged principal who must battle it out with the school board to keep his job; a no-nonsense school nurse willing to break the rules, despite the close watch on their campus, when a student arrives at her office with a dilemma; and a disgruntled English instructor who finds himself embroiled in even more controversy when he misfires a snarky email. During a lockdown, there’s also a teacher make-out session in a supply closet.

As these people continue to manage the messiness of this school year, there is the looming threat of what will become of their beloved Baldwin High. Ultimately, at the heart of this unconventional workplace novel is a story of the power of human connection and of the joy of finding purpose in what it is we do every day.

Oh, what a delicious book from the view of this (former) school librarian who knew how twisted her former co-workers were and looked forward to comparing them to this book. (Trust me, this is not weird and you should see what I run into at the public library board!!!) The book is well crafted and utterly readable - I have already recommended it to all of my teacher friends to see if they can identify with any of the stories involved...but it comes out NEXT SUMMER so I feel slightly pregnant with a really enjoyable book.

#shortbutsweetreviews