3.5 stars

The Sandersons of New York City are very wealthy. Will Sanderson is rising to the top of Bedrock Capital, he just needs to take one more step before he makes the executive committee. Wife Ellie isn’t from NYC and takes it all in stride, other than trying to fit in and raise their two girls. Ginny is a senior at the posh Lenox School for Girls, a lauded private school where William is on the board; it is vitally important to William that Ginny go to Yale since “that’s where Sandersons go.” Shy Zoey is Ginny’s younger sister and is also at Lenox, she befriends one of the school’s new students, brought in the enhance gender diversity.

Can the Sandersons navigate this year, where everything they have known turns on its head?

This was a bit BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES-lite. It’s a pity that this didn’t come out before Trump took office because it made more sense in a world where the orange menace wasn’t attacking trans rights every fifteen minutes. Now it already feels a little dated (and that’s depressing.)

Ellie is a little too perfect and Easter is maybe a bit of a cliche, as are her parents, but I enjoyed this well enough.

OMG, I really related to this great satire of the bizarre competition that Manhattan kids and families deal with in trying to get into the “right” schools. I am on my second round as I await my grandson’s college acceptance.

The Sanderson’s became part of the elite independent (private) school strata when Ellie and William move to Manhattan. The book focuses on the time when college madness entered their lives as their older daughter awaited her MUST DO admission into Yale. As they were tensely trying to ensure her admission, the ULTRA-WOKE furies of the Upper Eastside, Elites swirled around them.

Obviously, as with any fine author, Johnston takes the seeds of reality and expands them into a darkly funny, realistic view of Manhattan 1% ers slogging through the horrors of college competition. Theirs made worse by a highly manipulative head of school and very dishonest people trying to take advantage of the insanity.

I did enjoy the book. Sitting here now with fingers crossed waiting for EARLY DECISION results, this really resonated.

Thank you Netgalley for this incredibly, frighteningly realistic novel.

Thank you NetGalley and publisher for this book!

This was a good one! I really enjoyed this book. I had a hard time putting this one down. I really enjoyed the writing style and the characters chemistry was great. This was a first for me by this author but will not be my last!