This book was fairly entertaining, even though the twists were somewhat predictable and the main character wasn't very likeable. Luckily I enjoy an unlikeable narrator, so while not spectacular, I did enjoy my time reading this.

One of my new favorite books! This author has such a way with words the pages flew by in no time! I can’t wait to see the next work by this author! This was such a joy to read!

The Drama Teacher by Koren Zailckas was a book I was not expecting to enjoy as much as I did. In fact, I found I could not put it down. Gracie is your average mother of two living with her husband in upstate New York with all the stresses of any average family. Except that Gracie isn’t really your average woman who deals with the stresses of life in normal ways. Gracie is a con artist who turns to cons to handle and solve the stresses of life. The story flips back and forth between the current stresses and cons Gracie finds herself involved in and her past where we learn how she learned to be a con artist and why she uses cons as her way of coping.

I found the story to be quick reading and entertaining. There were a few things that I felt were a bit rushed and some details left out that I think would have made more sense as to some of Gracie’s actions.

Gracie is a very complicated character. Some people might not like her at all but I found her totally fascinating. I found her cons fun to read about and I loved getting a behind the scenes look at how a con artist works and thinks. Gracie has done some truly awful things but I found myself rooting for her and hoping she could find happiness. I think Gracie was the reason I could not put the book down. She sucked me into the story.

Koren Zailckas wrote Smashed, one of my all time favorite memoirs, so I was expecting to love The Drama Teacher just as much. From the very beginning, I was let down. It felt like Koren was trying to be something that she's not. The writing was off, the phrasing was weird, and over all just not something I am into.

As the book went on, I thought it was fairly decent. The main character, Grace, is a mother, wife, and teacher, but she's hiding a secret-or actually, many secrets. She's not who she says she is, and throughout the book, we get to see the back and forth from past to present to piece together all of the hidden lies.

The book was neither good nor bad for me, just middle of the road. Would I recommend it to a friend? Probably not. Would I read another one of Koren's books? Yes. I think I would give her another try. This was her first foray into thrillers, I believe, so maybe the next one will be better. All in all, I give this a 2 out of 5 stars.

The Drama Teacher is a psychological thriller with an unlikeable character yet somehow Koren Zalickas pulled me in from page one!

Grace is con artist but a nice one if such a thing existed. We are introduced to Grace as she begins her life as Tracey Bueller trying to get her kids some food and entertainment for the day. While at the pool, she befriend Melanie. This meeting with Melanie and later "friendship" changes Grace's life more than she could ever imagine. It leads her down a winding road of even more lies than truths that effect not only her own life but her children's lives.

Besides the current lies Grace is living out, we get a glimpse of how Grace came to be back. Erin, a.k.a. Grace, grew up in the con life thanks to her father. Her father, according to him, took her from her mother amid an upcoming divorce. She remembers her parents fighting so his explanation is plausible so she doesn't hesitate to follow her father into the unknown. To help provide a living, her father commits cons to get access to money and housing which leads to a rather transient lifestyle for the two of them. Readers will see schoolgirl Erin transform into world traveling adult Grace.

The alternating timelines are artistically sound allowing the reading to understand which timeline is taking place in a given chapter. Karen Zalickas writes with such conviction that as a reader you'll be rooting for Grace but also at time finding her irredeemable. With the introduction of the third act of the novel, as a reader you have an idea where it's heading but Zalickas throws in some curve balls that add to the story and will surprise readers. In the end, Grace will start to question how far she's really willing to go for a con and if you want to find out you'll just have to read The Drama Teacher.

What a twisted tale best-selling author Koren Zoilckas tells with "The Drama Teacher." The protagonist Gracie Mueller is the mother of two and the wife of a wandering husband. She's also a con artist and a liar. When a woman she's befriended/conned is found drowned in a river, Gracie takes her children and runs. Like she's done so many times before, she assumes a new identity and tries to make a new life. As Zailckas details, life has never been simple for Gracie. She's spent a lifetime running from her past and the truth. But someone can only run so long and so fast before hitting a wall. The author presents a tense psychological thriller that will keep readers guessing. Which Gracie is the real one, and what really touches her soul? How far will she go to find happiness?

This gives such a dark (but humorous, even though you'll feel guilty finding the humor) take on how far a mother will go to protect her life. Including dredging up her extremely dark past and feeding you the deception bite by delicious bite. This is one you'll stay up all night to finish, thankfully Daylight Savings is on its way!

Grace Mueller is a con artist and mother who has led a very complicated life, which she is constantly trying to keep from catching up to her. The book goes back and forth between past and present, highlighting the many traumas of Grace’s life that have led her to be where she is today.

I have very mixed feelings about this book. I loved the beginning and the accounts of how Grace is a very talented scam artist and computer expert. Though hopelessly flawed, she is a strong, independent woman who I grudgingly admired, despite her lifestyle. The main negative that I have with the book is that it got complicated at the end with way too many things going on, some of which were pretty far-fetched. I got pretty confused with the computer talk and the scamming schemes with several different characters involved at the end. I became frustrated and finally just gave up trying to figure it all out.

Many thanks to Netgalley, Crown Publishing, and Karen Zailckas for providing me with a complimentary e-copy ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Erin Grace Aelish had an emotionally devastating childhood. Her father expected an extravagant lifestyle while mother insisted upon doing away with waste. Continuous fighting ensued until Grace, at the tender age of ten, chose to go to Belfast with her dad. Eventually, their money ran out and Dad embarked upon "cost cutting" measures. Why not hook up with a "cash cow" as a means of saving on rent? Leaving Belfast, dad rented a cottage on the Isle under the guise of an American tourist. Grace did not attend school. She intimated, "...the longer my father kept me from other children, the more I began to confuse his crimes for mine".

Until she struck out on her own and traveled to India, she watched, learned, and became complicit in her father's cons. Many "marks" were women who thought poorly of themselves. Grace felt "...like a method actor studying a part". In India, she met future husband, Oz. She fled when Oz was jailed for investment fraud. Now living in New York, Grace and second husband Randy Mueller would soon be homeless as a result of Randy's scams. By the way, Grace was a bigamist. She was not divorced from Oz. She had a phony green card and was wanted for her role in Oz's bogus property deals. Grace and her two children, Fitz and Kit, ages 5 and 2 respectively, must stay under the radar. It's time for a new "mark", phony passports and new identities. Is there a way for Grace to jump off the grifter's carousel? Constant scams. Always looking over her shoulder. She really was trying to provide stability for her children. Will Grace be able to leave her flim-flam existence behind or will her past catch up to her?

"The Drama Teacher" by Koren Zailckas is a character study of a protagonist raised by a father with no moral compass, an untrustworthy schemer. By seeking anonymity and trying to reinvent herself, she continues to fall short creating the need to proceed to the next con. Will a stint as "acting" drama teacher lead her on the road to destruction or to recovery? It's anybody's guess. This novel is a read that points out ways to scam people. Arguably, it can be viewed as a cautionary tale reminding the reader to maintain a heightened awareness of identity theft and on-line or phone scams.

Thank you Crown Publishing and Net Galley for the opportunity to read and review "The Drama Teacher".

I liked that the premise of the book was new and creative and something I hadn't seen before. The story flowed nicely and while I could predict some events, many were a surprise, and I was satisfied with the ending.

https://www.amazon.com/review/R2P9PQ308Q6N26/ref=pe_1098610_137716200_cm_rv_eml_rv0_rv

THE DRAMA TEACHER
Koren Zailckas
Crown Publishing Group
ISBN 978-0-553-44809-2
Hardcover
Thriller

I heartily recommend THE DRAMA TEACHER if you are...well, not tired, exactly, of all of the new books of which seem to hang their respective hats upon the damaged, unreliable narrator who manages to rise above it all and recover some lost element of her life. THE DRAMA TEACHER takes that plot device and turns it on its head. Author Koren Zailckas demonstrates in her sophomore fiction effort that the critical success of her suspense novel MOTHER, MOTHER was no fluke. THE DRAMA TEACHER will leave you doubting everything and maybe just everyone in your life by story’s end.

THE DRAMA TEACHER features Gracie Mueller, who, as the story begins, is pulling a mild con so that she can take her children swimming --- and maybe to lunch --- at the Odell Resort and Spa in upstate New York. It only takes Zailckas a few pages and a phone call to put the reader deep into Mueller’s moment, and Mueller is in deep. She isn’t just trying to sneak her two young children into the exclusive members-and-guests-only establishment. She is also balancing a home on the verge of foreclosure while her husband Randy --- who isn’t really her husband, but that is another story --- is in Florida, trying to salvage his rapidly failing real estate agency. Gracie, it is quickly established, is a master manipulator, who in the course of an afternoon manages to begin ingratiating herself into the life of a woman at the club named Melanie Ashworth. Melanie is buying Gracie drinks and her children lunch before the afternoon is over, and within a few days have moved into the (relatively palatial) Ashworth estate at Melanie’s insistence. Gracie --- now Tracey Mueller --- goes with the flow, but when that flow turns into a tidal wave she flips the script and flees to New York, where she befriends an instructor at a posh New York school and insinuates herself into a situation where she begins doing what she does best, until the lies of the last twenty or so years begin catching up with her. Someone like Gracie, or Tracey, or whatever she happens to be calling herself, does not spring fully formed from a god’s forehead, and so it is that her first person narrative of the present in THE DRAMA TEACHER is interspersed with the description of her past, wherein we learn that Gracie learned at the knee of her author, a master of deception whose biggest marks included his own daughter. Gracie is not exactly an innocent, not entirely, but the depth of Zailckas’ talent is such that the reader cannot help but sympathize with her larcenous client, if only for the innocents’ that tow along in her wake. The conclusion is unpredictable, and not entirely neat and tidy, but that doesn’t keep the reader --- or Gracie --- from hoping that everything will work out for her somewhere beyond the final crease in the book’s back binding.

THE DRAMA TEACHER is in part a cautionary tale for our times. Zailckas fills her tale with the whats and hows of online, telephone, and street scams, and while you boys and girls won’t necessarily want to try any of them at home or on the street it behooves you to keep an eye and ear out for them so that you don’t fall victim yourself. Packing a copy of THE DRAMA TEACHER in the knapsack of your supposedly worldly college freshman wouldn’t be a bad idea, either. The real reason for picking this late summer work up, however, is to bear witness to how Zailckas plays and manipulates the emotions of the reader. One call almost see Gracie nodding approvingly. And, as with the best cons, Zailckas leaves the reader happy. Recommended.

Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
© Copyright 2018, The Book Report, Inc. All rights reserved.

In direct opposition to the shock factor that opens and colors Our House is the slow and subtle premise in Koren Zailckas’s The Drama Teacher. Gracie has been a grifter since childhood. Her father was charming and fun while her mother was strict and practical so when he suggests they run away for a bit she goes with him. She thinks it’s a holiday, but they never return to Ireland. Eventually, she leaves him when he indicates she’s slowing down his cons, but she never forgets what she learned. When the novel opens she’s befriending a bored housewife in the Catskills. A woman she proceeds to scam in her disguise as an architect. When things go wrong and the woman dies, Grace heads to NYC with a new identity for herself and her two children. There she meets a nice guy who’s a teacher at a prestigious private school. She starts falling in love, even as she’s building a whole new persona.

Unlike Bram in Our House it’s not hard to accept Gracie as a sociopath. She has layers upon layers of lies swirling around her but because she is so well constructed by Zailckas, it’s believable. She writes The Drama Teacher in the first person making it easy to conjure up the cheeky Gracie who is wicked, but isn’t lying to the reader about it. And, as she starts caring about someone else, you can’t help but hope it will work out. But does it? Or is the web so big that is collapses under its own weight?

The Drama Teacher will not be for everyone. It is a character study wrapped in a thriller surrounded by a game of cat and mouse. At some points Zailckas stretches plausibility a bit thin, but I still wanted to see where this novel would go. It reminded me of Sunburn, but without as much tension. Zailckas conveys the weight of so many lies in one person’s mind, but keeps Gracie from being one note with hints that her past is not as she remembers it. It’s good reading, but not as strong as her debut, Mother Mother, which I loved.

What a ride! To tell the truth, I'm a little bit exhausted after reading about all the exploits and schemes of the main character, Gracie aka Tracie aka Marianna aka Erin. On top of that, I'm a little uncomfortable that I found myself rooting for things to work out for this woman at the end of the book after all the chaos contained in the chapters before. Holy cow.

The story begins with a seemingly normal mother trying to entertain her children with a trip to the pool...one they don't have a membership for. We pick up on her skills of schmoozing and manipulating an easy target to help further her motives. From there we are exposed to her, at times, savage trickery and conning that snowballs from shrug-worthy to complete shock.

Throughout the book, we switch back and forth between Gracie's past and her present. The author provides a very detailed accounting of the messy events that have led this character to become the woman she is. It helps the reader feel some kind of sympathy for her, despite her awful deeds piling up higher and higher. I hated the life she created for her children, but when details of her own childhood/parenting are revealed, it really shed a light on the long-term effect and turmoil that one can experience due to factors beyond their control at a young age.

I usually mention the assembly of characters within each book I review since I love when an author can pull multiple personalities out while still keeping the storyline fluid and on-point. I feel like with this story everyone was background noise; dull at times with some high sparking notes, but never detracting or outshining Gracie. And there isn't anything wrong with that because Gracie's life is just so large and complicated that each of her aliases takes the place of needing deep and developed supporting characters buffering the plot.

Overall, I liked it. It was different from my norm, but the writing was well done and it kept me hooked until the end. I think it can be difficult to write such a difficult and oftentimes terrible character who is still able to pull empathy from the reader, so props to you, Author!

This was really good. I enjoyed the first half immensely even though it was slow reading for some reason. Then it took not a bad turn but one that didn't interest me as much. I still loved the writing of this one and the building anticipation. The character development was sublime! Gracie Mueller was a joy to step into even despite her cold, cold heart. I definitely want to find more from this author. Definitely a unique but well written beach read! Unexpected but delightful!

The Drama Teacher came out earlier this week on August 7, 2018, and you can purchase HERE.

He was so square, you could wage a game of chess on him, and I reckoned he had the sort of bohemian parents that were a regional trend Some failing authority figure had left him with no other course of rebellion. When sex, drugs, and a vegetarian diet are the norm, only steady employment has shock value.

The Drama Teacher by Koren Zailckas is a highly recommended drama about a con artist.

Gracie Mueller is a habitual liar, a con artist and the mother of two. She learned her craft from her father, and later her husband, Oz. Once Oz was put in prison in the UK, she took her fake passport and headed to the USA with her son where she eventually "married" Randy. Now she's the mother of two and Randy has moved to Florida for his job. Their home in upstate New York is in foreclosure, Gracie is out of money, and she needs to set up a new con to make some quick cash. She picks out a new mark, a wealthy woman, and befriends her while putting her plan into place. When an accident happens, Gracie runs away with her kids to NYC and looks for her next big score.

The novel is narrated by Gracie, who is telling her present story, starting in upstate New York and through to the current situation in NYC. As she relates this, there are also flashbacks to her childhood and life before she moved to the USA, first with her father and later with Oz. It becomes obvious that she has been on the run her whole life, moving from one scam to another. She's used to changing her name and finding a way to side-step the law. At first she is not particularly likeable, but as she tells more and more of her story you will admit that, while she is a liar, often it is related to her trying to find a way to survive.

The Drama Teacher is an entertaining novel, whether you like Gracie or not. The writing is excellent and I was engaged with the novel the entire time I was reading it while the plot unfolded. There are a few stretches when you may think, as I did, she's a bit too skilled in specialized technical ways to be a completely believable character, but it is fascinating. It also has a few sections that seem over-long. The ending, however, will totally make up for it. This is a great choice for a vacation read or an airplane book. It is going to hold your attention and entertain you.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Crown/Archetype via Netgalley.
http://www.shetreadssoftly.com/2018/08/the-drama-teacher.html
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2487081380
https://www.librarything.com/work/21538257/book/159172095
https://twitter.com/SheTreadsSoftly/status/1027297033802211331

I'm a big fan of Koren Zailckas and her writing. There's a truth to her writing. Smashed was raw and open and painful and the reason that I was excited to read The Drama Teacher.

It took me awhile to get started. I read the first chapter - felt it was very chick-lit/thriller - and put it down for about a week. After picking it back up, I found, instead, a character study of a woman who only knows how to lie and con people for her own gain. Gracie is a mother, in a loveless marriage. She scams her way into a friendship, which leads to a long-term stay in an expensive guest house and money. Money is tight and her marriage is over - so Gracie returns to the family business - of running scams and cons for money.

We, the reader, follows Gracie to her past, to meet her father and learn why Gracie is the why she is. We watch as she rebuilds her life - trying hard but still full of lies.

This is a character study of one woman and exactly how far she will go to save her life and the lives of her children. This isn't the next "Women's Fiction/Thriller", it's something else.

Thanks to NetGalley, the publisher and Koren Zailckas for the opportunity to read and review this book.

3.5, rounded up. As many other reviews have stated, if you are not a fan of unlikeable narrators, this will not be a story to pick up, as the main character, Gracie, does a number of things that to her, are in the name of survival, but might be unpalatable to those who don't have her history. It takes time to reveal her full history, but the story of how Gracie ends up where she is and her background are all interesting, and Gracie will test readers- if the things she does are really with the primary goal of keeping her children with her, and giving them a life that's more than what she knew as a child, would they do the same?

DNF @ 7% (30ish pages). I picked this book up because the author's debut Mother, Mother was unputdownable. The Drama Teacher just wasn't for me, at least not right now. I've given it a month, but I just couldn't get into it. The first few chapters reminded me of the opening of the movie Ocean's 8. I know that sounds intriguing, but the main character Grace was a little bland to me and I didn't care about any of her future antics. I felt bored and thrust into the middle of something that I didn't quite understand. It's possible that I'm just not in the mood for a slower read right now. I had the same feeling towards it that I did for All Things Cease to Appear & Two Days Gone, two other suspense novels with a character focus and a formal, literary feel. If you liked those two books, you might be interested in this one too!

I realized shortly after beginning The Drama Teacher that I am really quite over unlikeable characters and unreliable narrators, but I do have customers who love this type of story. I will keep it in mind as a recommendation for them. We did purchase a copy for the library and there are holds on it!! It just wasn't for me, and I have adjusted my expectations accordingly to what I will request in the future. I do appreciate, as always, the opportunity to preview an early e-galley.