It was important to Buxbaum that Admission doesn’t read as a plea for sympathy; instead, she sees it as an attempt to understand Chloe’s experience in all its messy complexity. 'The point of the novel is not to make you like the main character but to understand them,' she says. 'As a culture, we don’t have the impulse to understand these teenagers, but it’s important that we do, because it tells us this larger story about how we’re raising a generation.' ... Ultimately, the questions Buxbaum asks apply not only to the extreme cases we see in the tabloids but to any parent who must draw the line between helping their child succeed and showing them how to live. We can all agree that what Singer’s clients did was appalling, but what about sending a child to an elite private school instead of a public one? What about getting them an SAT tutor, or having your professional writer mother give your college essay 'a little polish'? One of the people Buxbaum was seeking answers for was herself.
Ripped from the headlines of the 2019 Varsity Blues admissions scandal ... While not entirely one-dimensional, supporting characters who do not share Chloe's racial and financial privilege sometimes seem to be present as devices to support her awakening. Deft, page-turning, and fresh as the latest college admissions gossip.
Based on the 2019 college admissions scandal, Buxbaum’s ripped-from-the-headlines story gives readers a fictionalized peek into the families who saw no harm in helping their already advantaged children through bribery, cheating, and fraud ... Though Buxbaum is heavy-handed with the moral lessons, her assessment of the entitled 1% feels spot-on, making Shola’s earned success particularly satisfying.
