Written by contributor Elena Horne
Admission by Julie Buxbaum is a coming-of-age YA novel based on the 2019 College Admissions Scandal. This binge-worthy novel takes a hard look at the U.S. college admissions process, parenting, and privileges of the 1% in a heartwarming way.
Chloe Berringer, the daughter of white wealthy parents in Beverly Hills, is used to getting everything she wants from fancy vacations to private college admissions advisors. But when the FBI arrests her B-list celebrity mother for bribing Chloe’s way into college, Chloe’s cushy life is shattered. Facing the very real possibility that her mother will go to jail for up to 20 years, Chloe has to deal with the fallout as the media, her friends, and the world turn against her. More importantly, Chloe must face her own culpability. Is she truly innocent in the admissions scandal, or did Chloe know more about it than she claims?
One of the best things about Admission is that Julie Buxbaum does not try to excuse the behaviour of Chloe and her parents. Buxbaum writes Chloe not as a victim of tragic circumstances, but as a spoiled rich girl in need of reform. Like Emma Woodhouse, Chloe’s story is more about owning up to her mistakes than triumphing over adversity. A choice that works very well for this story.
Though completely fictional, Admission uses details from the actual 2019 scandal, including the bribing of coaches to falsely name students as athletic recruits, the abuse of special accommodations for SATs, the billionaire who tipped off the FBI, and the bribes paid through a fictional charity. These real-world details are sprinkled throughout the novel in alternating Then and Now chapters showing Chloe’s life before and after the FBI shows up at her doorstep.
Though jarring to read at first, the alternating then and now timelines give readers a full understanding of Chloe’s life and what she did or did not know about the scandal. The Then chapters give a lot of page time to her relationships, showing what she has lost since the scandal broke. Her love interest, the forgettable Levi, and her BFF, the unforgettable Shola, both feature prominently in these chapters alongside hints that something fishy is going on with Chloe’s college applications.
The Now chapters focus on Chloe with her family; her drug-addict half-brother, her cheeky and brilliant sister Isla, and, of course, her parents. These two will make you want to yell at the page while simultaneously congratulating yourself that however you mess up your own kid, at least you know committing a felony to get them into a school you can brag about it is a bad idea.
The criminal charges against Chloe’s mother are written with superb legal realism. There are no melodramatic speeches in court or sleazy lawyers bending the rules, for which, this legal realism stickler thanks you, Julie Buxbaum. Amid all this legal trouble and relationship/friendship drama the best subplot of the book is Chloe with her first-grade reading buddy, Cesar, the child of an illegal immigrant. Chloe’s interactions with him ground her in the real world and will put a smile on your face.
When the book begins, Chloe’s goal in life is to have a life goal beyond partying on a yacht with Rihanna. This book is about that girl, who starts out shallow and entitled but, when something upends her world, becomes a kinder and wiser person because of it. Chloe doesn’t get a picture-perfect ending, but she does get perspective that makes her a better person.
Admission is a book that will make you think. It will make you angry and sad, but also laugh. It offers a realistic look at privilege and cheating, and how we’re all, Chloe included, capable of being better than that.
Admission is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore.
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Synopsis | Goodreads
From the New York Times bestselling author of Tell Me Three Things comes an of-the-moment novel that peeks inside the private lives of the hypercompetitive and the hyperprivileged and takes on the college admissions bribery scandal that rocked the country.
It’s good to be Chloe Wynn Berringer. She’s headed off to the college of her dreams. She’s going to prom with the boy she’s had a crush on since middle school. Her best friend always has her back, and her mom, a B-list Hollywood celebrity, may finally be on her way to the B+ list. It’s good to be Chloe Wynn Berringer–at least, it was, until the FBI came knocking on her front door, guns at the ready, and her future went up in smoke. Now her mother is under arrest in a massive college admissions bribery scandal. Chloe, too, might be facing charges, and even time behind bars. The public is furious, the press is rabid, and the US attorney is out for blood.
As she loses everything she’s long taken for granted, Chloe must reckon not only with the truth of what happened, but also with the examination of her own guilt. Why did her parents think the only way for her to succeed was to cheat for her? What did she know, and when did she know it? And perhaps most importantly, what does it mean to be complicit?
