From School Library Journal
Grade 9 Up–After skipping out of an SAT prep class, juniors Leo, Daisy, Max, and Jane agree to meet regularly at Jane's apartment for their own study group. They all work hard, seem to improve their test-taking skills, and forge friendships in the process. Soon, Max reveals to best friend Daisy that he wants more than friendship from her. Daisy, however, falls hard for Leo, who appears to fall back but doesn't know how to be devoted in a relationship, especially when he is drinking. Jane is the rich, beautiful wallflower whom Max could ask out if the idea occurred to him. After the SAT, a senior high scorer confesses that she was paid to take the exam for someone else. The whole school is in an uproar as the senior refuses to disclose the cheater's name. When two members of the study group are among the suspects, things begin to unravel. The extreme preoccupation with the SAT and getting into good colleges becomes somewhat weighty during the course of the novel and some of the plot elements test believability. However, because it is, for the most part, insightfully told from the various viewpoints of the four main characters in short, quick-moving segments with true-to-life dialogue, the story is redeemed. Readers will wonder what will happen to the friends as they embark on senior year at the conclusion.
–Diane P. Tuccillo, City of Mesa Library, AZ Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
Gr. 8-11. "In life there are those who count and there are nose pickers," says Leo, who along with three other juniors at his private Manhattan high school, has blown off traditional SAT prep courses and founded a private study group. The four teens--Leo, Max, Daisy, and Jane--move in different social orbits, but as they share the enormous pressures of preparing for the SAT and college applications, unlikely friendships and even romances form. Then comes the news that one student has paid another to take the SAT, and suspicions land on members of the study group. The narration, which moves briskly among the four teens' authentic voices, doesn't always allow for full character development. But as in
The True Meaning of Cleavage (2002), Fredericks writes about high-school academics and social rules with sharp insight and spot-on humor, and the questions about social judgments and the intensity and fairness of the college-admissions process ("I guess there's no test that measures 'amazing human being,'" says Daisy) will resonate strongly with teens.
Gillian EngbergCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
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