Recent Reads

Girls with Bright Futures by Tracy Dobmeier and Wendy Katzman

Read February, 2021

I have no idea why I chose to read this book.  I have no idea why I hung with this story, why  I was able to  stick with it to the very end, all 374 paperback pages of this recent work of fiction. Full disclosure: I was  hooked from the first page! I felt like a middle-aged parent again with all of its challenges, often overwhelmed. “Am I doing the right thing? Oh no, this again!”  I sometimes felt felt like I was an academic administrator again, back at work, in a recurring face off  with helicopter  parents, “Why does my daughter have to take English 99, and not English 101? She got all A’s in high school? How dare you?”

Here’s how it happened. I read kudos about the book in one of the several book reviews I subscribe to. The book was co-authored by two writers. I was curious about their writing process, and probably, the most compelling reason of all, the book was set in Seattle at a fictional, private high school, Elliot Bay Academy. (Hello, Lakeside!)

As a retired, senior citizen, I have to admit that college admissions season no longer holds any personal or professional sway for me.  Been there. Done that.  But the familiar locale, the gossipy, backstories of a Facebook group of moms, plotting, planning, and sabotaging each other to get their daughters into Stanford is a rollicking, often dishonest, and unfortunately, a compelling, real life story that most of us are unfortunately aware of. (Hello, Felicity Huffman. Hello, Lori Loughlin. Hello, Mossimo Giannulli. Hello, USC) This book was a piece of real-life fiction, just waiting to be told.

You will meet  parents who use their massive tech fortunes to endow Stanford and build buildings. You will meet parents who are Stanford legacies and expect that their daughter will be chosen first, ahead of other more academically qualified students.   There’s a single mother, scrimping to get by, with no resources at all for college tuition, whose daughter is graduating #1 in the class.  Mix them together and the backstory of Early Admittance to a highly competitive university gets wild, complicated, and unfortunately vicious, even life-threatening.

Told in third person, the reader gets a glimpse of the perspectives of everyone involved; the admissions counselors at the fictional Elliot Bay Academy who are bribed and coerced, the weary, besieged staff at Stanford fielding frantic calls, the semi-involved fathers, and the college-bound girls themselves, who actually seem to have a better handle on how to maintain sanity during the admissions process to a top tier university. The Moms are off their rockers, jousting to be the first on the FB page with bragging rights, “She got in!”

This, occasionally, outrageous read illuminates the potential that each us has to be our worst selves, possibly wanting something more for our kids than they really want for themselves! This could  be a lively read for a book club of people of a certain age, much younger than me.  A thoughtful Reading Group Guide of discussion questions, plus an insightful interview with the authors, are included. Pour yourself a glass of wine (like the senior moms you’ll meet) and enjoy  an evening of reading at home! Unless your daughter is awaiting early admission results from Stanford, you’ll be fine. You may need something stronger than a glass of wine, if you’re in that crowd!