Customer Reviews

Acceptance: A Novel

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

As the season of thick/thin envelopes is officially upon us, I highly recommend "acceptance" as a way of keeping it all in perspective--especially if you suspect your children are secretly referring to you as a helicopter parent. Coll effectively captures both the children's and adults' points of views (although, as in real life, sometimes the young sound a lot more sane than us "adults"...) in a really compelling, and very, very funny story about the "price of admission." Five stars!

Our extended family just completed a year of angst/drama/anticipation as my niece applied to colleges and had the good fortune (and agony!) of having to decide between several outstanding choices. I bought the book thinking I would give it to her parents. But I read a few pages and got caught up in it myself. The storyline of several families with college-bound students was humorous and poignant. But I was most captivated by the story of the admissions officer and her selection process! I felt like I was getting a good peek at the mysterious and baffling admissions system.

For the middle or upper middle class parent of the 21st century, the statements made in this book are not only true, but bitterly true.

Parents of today are addicted to the blogging statements and statistics spewed from the most conventional sources: college confidential, college board, Fiske's, Barron's, U.S. News and World Report and more. If you did not know all of the above-recited sources, there are only two conclusions: you don't have college-age children and their importance does not thankfully exist in your world, or you are deep in doo doo when it comes to handling yourself at cocktail parties in the suburbs like Verona (a D.C. suburb) - the setting of this fictional novel.

The main characters are not average, but they are typical. A minority student who is a jock (swimmer named Maya), an "uber" kid who has been aiming for Harvard since his mother's gynecologist burped him (AP Harry) and a mixed up teenager (imagine) whose emotional conflicts are hampering her life for the stars - as her top 15% and great SAT scores may deliver her to - and do I dare say this? - an unknown LAC named Yates (Taylor).

These three kids and dysfunctional families (typical suburb families) are followed throughout this book. The dialogue and events remind me of Carl Hiaasen - there is real wackiness in these pages.

One statement is hard to tell the parents or the children - there is more than one school for the child. They don't know this their junior year. And, this book which divides chapters by months from the spring of the junior year to the summer of senior year, delivers the characters and the reader to the realization that the previously enunciated statement is true. Some of the characters do not get into the "castle in the sky" school of choice, but so what. Other schools, they learn, are also great. Maybe greater. Maybe better? Whoa, do people at 17 or 18 realize this? Better yet, do their helicopter parents realize this? You will have to read the book to obtain an answer.

Many of the references in the book show the author's deep knowledge of this area. From study? Probably not - any parent seeking to place their child (which the cover admits the author recently did) into college learns the system, the nuances, the craziness, and the madness associated with the college-entrance world of today.

For those who are in this muddle or about to enter it, this book will do two things: (1) make you laugh and actually educate you on a few fine points; or (2) make you think this is too wacky to be true. Unfortunately, each point is only too reflective of the truths lived in suburbs like Verona in 2007.

Susan Coll has written a wise comic novel about something that affects all too many of us -- the college admissions process. She is wickedly funny, and really captures the mania that surrounds this yearly craziness. She is a wonderful writer, so her painful, and true, observations, go down with a laugh. A must read.

As I was reading this book, I realized that this is similar to The Overachievers, a non-fiction account of driven high schoolers in a Maryland suburb. This was published in 2006; is it possible that this was an influence in Coll's novel? The characters & themes seem similar to the real life overachieving students, including AP Frank (see AP Harry in the novel), the athlete with second thoughts, the overbearing parents pushing for name-brand schools, competitive SAT testing, college acceptance scattergrams, and the notion that the University of Maryland is a dumping ground for average students. Has Coll noted this book as an influence?

This most interesting topic lends itself well to fictionalizing. It is interesting to slip inside the lives of well-to-do teens and confirm the pressures that their parents and they themselves exert. The characters are well developed and some of the situations are truly hilarious. It would be unfair to give anything away, but suffice to say that readers will be kept turning the pages. Until the end, when some things remain unresolved. Maybe I just yearn to have all tied up neatly, but there is stuff I would have wanted to know before I found myself turning to the back cover. This, however, should not keep readers from sharing the trials and tribulations of these suburban geniuses.

As a parent that had recently gone through the college application process with my older child and was starting with the secend, this book was a great read. Though initially "annoyed" or "confused" about what the author found funny about the over achieving students and parents, I realized she was describing me! It made me look at my behavior and laugh at my self. And though that behavior did help get my older son into an ivy (he probably should have read the book), I did lighten up a bit with my other son. I gave this book to an overachieving 18 year old. I don't know if she got it or took notes from the compulsive characters!

Somewhere in the first quarter of the book, I started to love the three main characters - AP Harry, Maya, and Taylor, who you hope isn't going to slit her wrists because you find yourself pulling for her because she has the same angst that we had growing up and we made it, right?

Coll doesn't go for the big laughs with one-liners but rather you end up sustaining a warm-hearted chuckle throughout the entire book. I had to decide between reading this book and a nonfiction book on the same topic, and I'm glad I chose this one because as happens sometimes with fiction, the story ends up feeling even more real than the real thing because we are able to get deeper into the characters' heads.

Susan Coll takes the reader through the maddening, some would say insane, college admissions process through her characters. Parents and students who have applied to colleges recently or will do so soon should read it. Acceptance is a highly entertaining and thoughtful look at this rite of passage for many American young people and their families.

With crazy, neurotic parents driving kids crazy, this take on the college admissions process is just perfect. Having been through the process myself a year ago (with my son now at an Ivy), the description of the people and process is spot-on. Highly recommended--this book will put it in perspective. The characters are priceless, the plot absorbing, the ending satisfying. Read it!