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Start giftingThe Admissions
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Learn moreThe Admissions brilliantly captures the frazzled pressure cooker of modern life as a seemingly perfect family comes undone by a few desperate measures, long-buried secret —and college applications!
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 whose sunny futures are all but assured. 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 a cute baseball player. Of course Angela knows the time put into her schoolgirl crush would be better spent coming up with a subject for her English term paper—which, along with her college essay, 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, second-grader Maya, still can’t read; the middle child, Cecily, is no longer the happy-go-lucky kid she once was; and their 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 collision course that’s equal parts achingly real and delightfully screwball—and they learn that whatever it cost to get their lucky lives it may cost far more to keep them.
Sharp, topical, and wildly entertaining, The Admissions shows that if you pull at a loose thread, even the sturdiest lives start to unravel at the seams of high achievement.
MEG MITCHELL MOORE is the author of the novels The Arrivals and So Far Away. She worked for several years as a journalist for a variety of publications. She lives in Newburyport, Massachusetts, with her husband and three daughters.
Reviews
"Every once in a while I read a book so good that the quality of my entire life improves.The Admissions by Meg Mitchell Moore is a fun, fast-paced, completely engrossing tale of a California family trying to get their eldest daughter into Harvard. Let me rave: this book is brilliant and enjoyable on every level. I LOVED IT! It's my money-back guarantee of 2015."-- Elin Hilderbrand, New York Times bestselling author of The Rumor
“The Admissions is a smart, hilarious, compelling novel about college applications, suburban scandals, and risky secrets. I couldn’t stop reading about the Hawthorne’s—a picture perfect family who will “keep up with the Joneses” until they burst.”
-- Jennifer Close, New York Times bestselling author of Girls in White Dresses
"The Admissions is a realistic account of the pressures facing a family that is determined to have it all. At turns funny, touching and wise, it is a sharply observed cautionary tale about the high price of keeping secrets – even ones meant to protect them -- from loved ones. It is also a riotous account of the day-to-day pressures of upscale, aspirant modern life."
-- The Examiner
"There's plenty of drama--and a surprising amount of comedy--in the convergence of events that exposes all of the family secrets. But while Moore lets her characters unravel, she doesn't leave them in pieces."
-- Shelf Awareness
"[A] terrific novel...Her background as a journalist lends a crisp deftness to her delightful writing style, and engages the reader immediately in this engrossing tale about a modern family struggling to have it all — and the consequences when the struggle is just too much to bear..."
-- The Free Lance Star
“The Admissions proves that no cookie-cutter family is as perfect as they seem...incredible character insight”
--Good Housekeeping
"Stellar...This is a page turner as well as an insightful character study."
-- Publishers Weekly
"In The Admissions, Meg Mitchell Moore reminds us that even when things seem perfect, there’s always more going on behind the scenes.... Equal parts delightful and devastating, The Admissions is a cautionary tale about trying too hard to stay on top."
--Bustle
"[Meg Mitchell Moore's] unique voice and unflinching yet sympathetic perspective combine to create a story that is fresh and unexpectedly entertaining. Moore presents her characters in all their flawed glory and lovable short-sighted determination, spinning out the story of one family’s collapse and rebirth with energy and wit. Part thought-provoking commentary, part zany satire on the definition of success and the choices some are willing to make to achieve it, this is a book that is sure to earn a good deal of attention."
-- RT Book Reviews
"When a high school senior is vying for Harvard, her whole family sizzles in the pressure cooker and schadenfreude (good SAT word) runs amuck. Meg Mitchell Moore takes aim at the emotional mayhem of an upscale West Coast family who wants the American dream writ large. This novel is achingly real and delightfully cheeky."
-- Sally Koslow, author of The Widow Waltz and Slouching Toward Adulthood
"A wonderfully complex and relatable portrait of a family and the secrets they keep to protect each other and themselves. When the truth threatens, you'll turn pages faster than ever."
-- Charity Shumway, author of Ten Girls to Watch
“An important subject has its novel: Meg Mitchell Moore’s The Admissions is an engaging, droll and spot-on study of what happens when aspirations become obsessions, when integrity and good sense bend to the allure of preferred outcomes. The familiar compulsions and desperations, the anxieties and delusions, the insecurities and hubris, the elaborate schemes and flat-out dumb choices of a college applicant and her parents hellbent on affirmation in the form of a golden acceptance letter are rendered here with an adroit, knowing and sympathetic hand.”
-- David McCullough Jr., author of the international bestseller You Are Not Special
"Meg Mitchell Moore is a tremendously talented storyteller. Brimming with humor and warmth,The Admissions introduces readers to a family so insightfully drawn and deliciously flawed that it will remain with you long after you reach the final page. This is a story that feels both uniquely Californian and entirely American--aspiration, desire, spectacular failure, and heartwarming success abound. I loved it!"
-- Meg Donohue, USA Today bestselling author of Dog Crazy and All the Summer Girls
“With her razor sharp wit and stirringly keen insights, Meg Mitchell Moore digs deep into the zeitgeist of a modern family desperate to keep their heads above water. Add in long-hidden secrets, cutthroat college admissions, and revolving perspectives and you have an undeniably addictive read.”
--Emily Liebert, author of When We Fall Expand reviews