✨️ Book Review ✨️ The Faculty Lounge by Jennifer Mathieu

☆☆☆☆☆

Didn't know what to expect when I started, and it took a bit of time, but by the end, one of my favorites of the year, hands down.

The story kicks off with the death of a well-known, and loved by some, staff member in the faculty lounge at the start of the school year. What follows is a chronicle of events of the rest of the school year, sometimes bizarre, sometimes entertaining, always heartfelt, told through the perspective of different faculty members. Each chapter is a different point of view, and it touches on so many topics and emotions. I cried, I laughed, I didn't want it to end.

And as a product of the US school system, and someone who worked in a school for a few years, it was all so relatable and hilarious, getting insight into systems and thought processes that I am so familiar with.

This is an easy recommend. Go go go and read this one when you get a chance.

Jennifer Mathieu’s The Faculty Lounge is a humorous and heartfelt read that explores the lives of a group of hardworking faculty at a public high school in Texas. There were some laugh out loud moments that felt all too familiar if you’ve ever stepped foot in a school OR had the pleasure of working at one. If you fall into either of these categories, this is a must read book! Each chapter focused on a different faculty member and it was cool to see their different backstories and connections to one another and the events of the school year. The premise of the book was very unique and kept the story centered- from the very first page you are drawn into the world of Baldwin High and what could have possibly led up to elderly Mr. Lehrer dying during his off period on a worn out couch in the faculty lounge. The dynamics of the group made for a very captivating read. I highly recommend this book for anyone looking for a character-driven story!

Thank you to PENGUIN GROUP Dutton and NetGalley for the e-arc.

Well, this was delightful and so, so relatable! If you have ever worked in a school, in any capacity, you will appreciate this book, no question. You will, inevitably, relate to at least one (but likely way more) of the characters, and the situations they find themselves in. I mean- you are, hopefully, not going to find an old colleague deceased in the lounge, I'll give you that. But the other, more day-to-day stuff? Oh, you have no idea.

And wow, the emotions! It ran the gamut, frankly. Many of the storylines pulled at my heartstrings, whereas others made me laugh out loud. Plenty did both, frankly. There is also a lot of fabulous commentary on the state of education. I also always felt such sadness for teachers in certain states, which of course, includes Texas. They tread on eggshells far sharper than those we have to worry about in bluer leaning areas, which, frankly, makes them even bigger superheroes in my book.

If you don't have any particular experience in the education system, the story is still quite entertaining! We certainly all have experience being a student, holding jobs, dealing with bureaucracy, etc., so there is absolutely something for everyone to relate to. And hey, you just might feel a bit more camaraderie and empathy for those of us in the trenches. Frankly, it made me feel so seen, and I will absolutely be gifting this one to colleagues and friends!

Bottom Line: Heartfelt, warm, funny, and emotional, this book has something for everyone- and extra especially for anyone who has the experience of working in schools, trust that you need this in your life!

Imagine you're reading a book version of The Office in a high school setting, except it's not funny and the story hardly moves and you only get character backstories with too much sexual detail. That's The Faculty Lounge. Not for me. I do appreciate the acknowledgement of the weird, happy, sad, fulfilling, overwhelming, confusing, and enlightening public high school environment. Other than that, meh. Thank you to NetGalley for the eARC. I'm sorry it took me so long to get through it.

As a high school history teacher, I’ve read my fair share of books about education, but none have captured the essence of our profession as compellingly as The Faculty Lounge. This book is a delightful and insightful exploration of the inner workings of a school, blending humor, warmth, and realism into a narrative that is both engaging and profoundly humanizing.

What sets The Faculty Lounge apart is its authentic portrayal of teachers as multidimensional individuals. In a climate where educators are often reduced to political pawns or mere statistics, this book reminds us of the real lives behind the profession. It vividly depicts the joys, struggles, and camaraderie that define the daily experience of teachers, making it a breath of fresh air amidst the prevailing discourse.

The book’s quirky characters and their interactions offer a refreshing perspective on school life, illustrating how personal stories and professional responsibilities intertwine. The depiction of the faculty lounge—a space that often serves as the heart of a school—captures the essence of our community, where we share laughter, concerns, and support.

The Faculty Lounge is a must-read for anyone seeking to understand the human side of teaching. It provides a wholesome portrayal that is both entertaining and thought-provoking, affirming the dedication and passion of educators. It is a testament to the power of storytelling in fostering empathy and appreciation for the teaching profession.

The Faculty Lounge is a five-star read for its ability to offer a heartfelt, realistic glimpse into the world of education. It is a celebration of the unsung heroes in our schools and a poignant reminder of the impact they have on their students and communities.

Loved this one! The joy these characters find in fulfilling their purpose is evident throughout this witty and warm book.

The story unfolded from the perspective of a different teacher each chapter but with one seasoned teacher, Mr. Lehrer, interwoven into their stories. I was able to get to know each staff member and their unique story as well as have a better grasp on the impact Mr. Lehrer made.

This gave a peek into the different personalities of several unforgettable teachers, what they did or didn’t enjoy about the job, the relationships that evolved and why they chose to work in public education. An underlying theme I felt was how much this career choice was weaved into the inner workings of who they were. The nuances of a teaching career and all the challenges from state and district level expectations, parent relationships, and staff dynamics were highlighted.

This book brought back so many feelings I resonated with from my days in the classroom. I felt a connection with each character and was cheering them on. I also loved that this was written by a fellow Houstonian and was also based in Houston!

Thank you Dutton and NetGalley for this eARC!

This was such a good read filled with the inner workings of the school system and school politics. As a daughter of a teacher, this felt nostalgic for me remembering all the things my mother went through being a teacher. I found this to be an incredible character study and think it's so important to uplift teachers because they are truly some of the hardest workers.

Author Jennifer Mathieu’s debut in adult-fiction, The Faculty Lounge, is a tender and excellent character study centered at Baldwin High School in Houston, Texas. The dramatic beginning of the novel features the death of an elderly substitute teacher, Mr. Lehrer, who was also a long-time, beloved teacher at Baldwin High School. From there the surviving faculty take the spotlight.

Every chapter features a different faculty member who was present at the ill-fated spreading of Mr. Lehrer’s ashes. I truly enjoyed how most of those chapters highlighted some significant way the Mr. Lehrer interacted with the narrator of the chapter. It breathed life into this secondary, yet primary, character, and it brought a tenderness to the staff relationships. The faculty varied from the idealistic first-year teacher to the should-have-retired-last-year jaded teacher to the beloved school nurse. One of my favorites was Mr. Kendricks, the former punk-rocker turned teacher turned principal, who is loved by the staff for his support, attitude and commitment. He reminded me of a principal I once worked with (she was not a punk rocker).

The teacher-school-district tightrope is featured in several situations throughout the story, and it felt oh-so-true. The texts and emails between staff, the district and parents are hilarious—especially if you have ever worked at a school. While this school-centric story will resonate with current and past public school staff, it is a universal story of human connection. The author’s empathetic characterizations give all readers a relatable character/situation.

This heartfelt, funny story was a home run for me.

This one was enjoyable as a fellow teacher. I loved the quirks of different personalities working together. But I ultimately felt disappointed nothing happened at the end or tied it all together!

I loved this book! This book made me laugh and even gasp a few times. As a teacher I was able to connect with every story and every relationship that was built. I felt all of the feelings these teachers and admins felt. It was very enlightening to see many educators thoughts and views are the same.

I saw another reviewer describe this book as a character study, and that is absolutely true. While I work in a school, I think a high school is a whole different ball game than an elementary school, so parallels were a bit hard to derive. Despite that, I enjoyed a deeper dive into a handful of characters connected by a fairly significant even that occurs on the first pages of this book. I enjoyed Nurse Honeycutt (Honeybutt!)'s POV the most, I think.

Thank you to NetGalley and Dutton for the invitation to read this book in exchange for an honest review!

A substitute teacher dies at the school where he’s working, setting off a year of reflections and recollections by the other teachers and staff. As they deal with their feelings, they must continue to battle the day-to-day life of working in an American public high school. Author Jennifer Mathieu offers warm fuzziness in a book that ultimately feels more like a collection of short stories in her new novel The Faculty Lounge.

No one is sure why 82-year-old Mr. Leher, substitute teacher at Baldwin High School in Houston, keeps coming back, although many of the teachers suspect it has to do with the fact that at one time, Mr. Leher himself was a full-time English teacher at Baldwin. After decades at the school, Mr. Leher retired and that was that. Until the day he asked to come back and sub.

The teachers are used to seeing him on campus by now and don’t mind him so much. He clearly loves the kids and his job. In fact, he loves it so much there’s no doubt that the day he dies is a happy one for him, because he’s exactly where he wants to be: at school. More precisely, in the faculty lounge.

The other teachers and staff are horrified, upset, confused—they feel an entire range of emotions based on how well they knew Mr. Leher. Some worked with him when he was a Baldwin teacher and remember the friendship and camaraderie. Some came to Baldwin just as Mr. Leher was on his way out and see him as a mentor. All of them are affected by Mr. Leher’s loss.

Mr. Kendricks, the current principal, decides to honor the wishes in Mr. Leher’s will to have his ashes spread on school grounds. He turns it into an informal memorial service, which infuriates the parent head of the PTO. How dare Mr. Kendricks spread someone’s ashes and conduct this kind of event at school?

As Mr. Kendricks and the teachers deal with the irate parent over this and several other issues, all of the teachers have a chance to think about what Mr. Leher meant to them and what their own legacy might be at the end of their careers. They deal with the district education office, students with real and imagined problems, and more as they do what they can to make it through another year.

Author Jennifer Mathieu’s book succeeds in giving readers a variety of viewpoints on Mr. Leher as a person as well as the education system inside a public high school in modern America. Hailed by many real-life educators, both current and retired, as a spot-on portrayal of what happens in and around classrooms, the novel does an excellent job of giving just enough insight into each teacher affected by Mr. Leher’s death as to offer a complete story of that teacher.

Therein lies the book’s biggest flaw as well. It feels more like a series of short stories rather than one cohesive novel. The faculty and staff of the fictional Baldwin High School face or come into contact with absolutely every contemporary challenge imaginable in the course of the school year—book banning; alcoholism; illegal immigration; extreme oversight by a district board; abortion; sexual assault; politics. While these topics should be discussed, the novel’s treatment makes it feel like these issues are included more for the sake of increasing awareness in readers and less as an organic juggling of balls real-life teachers probably face daily.

With so many characters sharing stories, it becomes difficult to form an attachment to any single one. Mr. Leher’s own story recedes to the background for several chapters. While Mr. Kendricks leads the charge in protecting his teachers and would have made an excellent protagonist, often his presence is only felt through the discussion of other teachers. Ms. Jackson, school guidance counselor, and Nurse Honeycutt, school nurse, would have also been great choices for protagonists. Mathieu, instead, reduces both of them to a few chapters and then moves on.

The book feels more like a broad view of the trouble with the education system today rather than a novel meant to draw readers into the life and times of a singular character. Readers who enjoy such an approach may want to check this out.

The Faculty Lounge by Jennifer Mathieu was so delightful and funny! I wanted to learn about each and every teacher she described. I knew she had to have been a teacher herself. She really set the tone as light hearted but still interesting. 5/5 ⭐️ thank you netgalley, Jennifer Mathieu, and PENGUIN GROUP Dutton | Dutton for my eARC in exchange for an honest review.

This novel is set at a large public high school in Texas. Each chapter is told from the perspective of someone different at the school - teachers, administrators, a guidance counselor, the school nurse, a custodian - and through their eyes we see the whole school year, along with some flashbacks to their past.

The book is part workplace comedy, part deeply felt character novel, and part a love letter to schools and the people who work there. Think if you crossed Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris, A Little Hope by Ethan Joella, and the tv show Abbot Elementary, and that might give you a feel for what this book is like. There is a quite large cast of characters so that might intimidate those who prefer a more straightforward narrative, but I loved the way you got to know each character as they came into focus, and that the book really came together into a lovely and cohesive whole. Early on it was more funny, but as the book went on I began tearing up more and more at moving moments.

I loved the two YA books I’ve read by Jennifer Mathieu, and loved this, her first adult novel - and I’m impressed by how different all three books are.

To everyone who works in a school, has worked in one, or knows someone who works in one … this book is for you.

Baldwin High School, a fictional school located in Houston, TX, is put under its corporation’s intense spotlight after the death in the faculty lounge of elderly substitute teacher, Mr. Lehrer, a retired member of the school. When Mr. Lehrer’s final wish for his ashes to be scattered in the school’s courtyard goes comically wrong and earns the ire of the uppity, well-connected PTO president, beloved principal Mark Kendricks finds himself in the hot seat with Central Office. As can be expected, the drama doesn’t stop with the principal, as the small group of staff who attended the ceremony all have their own stories and complicated personalities to be revealed!

You’d think that a story launched by such a dramatic event would be about Mr. Lehrer’s death, but it really plays a minor role. It’s simply the MacGuffin used as an excuse to spotlight the lives of those present at the event they’ve come to call Ashgate, though his story threads at times into others and also receives a dedicated chapter. Another important aspect of the book is the perfectly illustrated, tenuous dynamic between schools and corporation bigwigs, who are often blissfully removed from the real-life difficulties of actually working IN a school.

At just over 300 pages, this adult fiction debut from author Jennifer Mathieu is comprised of only thirteen chapters - each a deeper dive into one of the involved faculty members. These range from idealistic newbie English teacher, Ms. Sanderson, to those like crotchety math teacher Mr. Fitzsimmons, to the revered school nurse, struggling counselor, a custodian with secrets, an assistant principal on the cusp of retirement and embattled Principal Kendricks, among others. What this book does SO well, in both a charming, funny and sometimes melancholy way, is to remind the reader that those in public education, as in any other field, are HUMAN. To be a role model for children doesn’t mean your life is perfect!

While I do think this book will resonate more with those who work in public education, I think anyone who’s experienced the workplace dynamics of a large team of people with such different personalities and a clear power hierarchy will find something they can relate to. I’ve worked as a reading interventionist at an elementary school for over a decade and several other roles before that, so although this book was set in a high school, the issues it highlighted were HIGHLY relatable, and I found myself laughing and cringing along with all of them!

If you enjoy a beautifully written, smart, character-driven novel that hits all the emotions and has a great, yet subtle sense of humor, ESPECIALLY if you work in a school or know someone who does, I highly recommend this!

Jennifer Mathieu has written a book that makes educators, staff, and administrators of a high school feel seen, and should be mandatory reading for anyone else. Consider this your reading assignment.

Each of the chapters share the perspective of an employee of the school: a custodian, the principal, guidance counselor, new and veteran teachers during one tumultuous year at Baldwin HS in Texas.
The book shows the humanity - the strengths and weaknesses - of each of them.

It was truly wonderful.

This book is a slice-of-life story of a large high school in Houston. The main plot point is the death of an elderly substitute teacher in the faculty lounge, which starts a ripple of other events and prompts the rest of the teachers and staff to reflect on their professional lives.
It is an easy read that can be considered an ode to teachers and administrators and an encouragement for those considering a career in education (the book also gives a fair assessment of the difficulties the teachers face.)

Thank you, NetGalley, Jennifer Mathieu, and the publisher, for the eARC in exchange for my honest review.

4.5 - This was genuinely so good!! Anyone that knows a teacher or is a teacher would probably love this, it was so heartwarming and funny. Honestly all you need to know is the book opens up with one of the oldest teachers dying at school in the faculty lounge. His dying wish? For his ashes to be spread by the school staff and teachers, in front of the school. The result? The poor principal spreads the ashes and it hits the head of the PTA. I immediately was cracking up, because as someone who grew up listening to my mom's stories from school, it is definitely something that would happen.

The Faculty Lounge is a bunch of stories, following different teachers and staff members, students at a high school. Each person has a different background and story, a unique attachment to the school, a different role, and different struggles. I thought it was such a great way to piece together the school as a whole, by letting each character have their moment to shine and share what teaching/working at the school meant to them, and why they had stayed for so long despite the many ups and downs. I fell in love with each character, their flaws, how much they loved teaching and each other, and the little family they built up in the school.

As someone whose mom has been a 5th grade teacher for 30 years at the same school, I loved this book because so many of the stories and characters I could connect to the stories she has brought home to my family over the years. The constant fights with administration, with the parents, trying to handle a changing world and different worldviews, but at the end of the day reflecting how much so many teachers care about their students and their profession. I found myself laughing constantly throughout the book, really rooting for each character, and ready to tell every teacher I know (and everyone else) that they need to read this book!! I'm so happy I picked it up.

Thank you to Dutton for the advanced reader's copy in exchange for my honest review!!

I absolutely loved The Faculty Lounge by Jennifer Mathieu which centers around the teachers at a Texas high school as they go through a rather chaotic academic year.

An elderly substitute teacher decides to take a quick nap on the sofa in the faculty lounge at Baldwin High School, then passes away. Thus begins the school year for the dozen or so faculty and staff members that we meet in this story. Mr. Lehrer’s unfortunate end is the underlying plot of the entire book, but it’s the character vignettes and behind-the-scenes look at the state of our education system that really made this book stand out for me.

This book had it all starting with a plot line that just has to be read to be believed. Then we begin to meet all of the characters in individual chapters and learn so much more about who they are outside of the hallways of Baldwin High. Each story was incredibly unique and I was rooting for every single one the whole way through.

Jennifer Mathieu also expertly weaves in the myriad of issues that educators deal with every day. I know a few teachers and have heard some stories but to see everything presented on the pages was incredibly insightful.

This was one of my favorite reads of the year! Thank you to Penguin Group - Dutton for the advanced digital copy via NetGalley!

The Faculty Lounge is about what happens to the staff of a Texas high school after a substitute teacher passes away on the couch in the break room.

When a former teacher and substitute is found dead in the faculty lounge, the aftermath affects everyone from the principal to the custodian. Using different points of view, the author shows us the private lives of the adults responsible for ushering in the next generation of citizens. These inner lives are touching, relatable, and often humorous. I think readers will identify with this diverse group of people, especially if they have any connection to a school or education.

I highly recommend this entertaining and heartfelt read.