Ugh! DNF'd this one early on, I received a copy of this on NetGalley in exchange for an honest review and this is as honest as it could be when I DNF'd it early on. When I requested it, early in the year, I did not realize it was YA, which I rarely read, because I never enjoy it. This book irritated me so. Although I never have watched The Kardashian, it makes me think this is similar. It also reminds me somewhat of Jackie Collins'books from the early 90s or late 80s. I was not the target audience and life is too short to read books I'm definitely not enjoying.

This book hit so close to home for me, as my daughter went through the college admissions process just prior to the college admissions scandal that rocked the nation. She even applied to USC, one of the main universities involved in the controversy. She didn't get in. With the school's reputation now in shambles, I think we dodged a bullet. While my daughter is very happy at an amazing college, we will always wonder if someone bribed their way into a spot she could have gotten.

With this in mind, I read Admission, by Julie Buxbaum. It was riveting to imagine what the young students must have gone through, as they came to realize what their parents had done. Or were they in on it too?

What I Liked:

Characters:

I did feel sympathy for Chloe, the mostly clueless high school senior who is at the center of the fictional college admissions scandal. As the daughter of a famous actress, she feels the pressure to attend a prestigious university. But she's really not into it. She's an average student at a high-priced high school where everyone is expected to achieve greatness. While everyone is caught up in the admissions process, Chloe would be happy to attend a low-key college in Arizona. But her Hollywood parents won't be content unless she can attend SCC (a fictional version of USC). Chloe really doesn't realize what her parents have done. But she does have inklings that something is off.

I liked that the character Chloe is actually a good person. In the real-life scandal, it certainly didn't appear that the students cared how they got into college, or who they hurt along the way.

Inside Story:

What is so compelling is how the reader gets to see how the families lives are turned upside down once they are charged by the Feds. There are lawyers, PR firms, and image consultants camped out in their living rooms. Plus the students involved need lawyers for themselves. They are also not permitted (by the lawyers) to even talk to their parents about the case. This creates a pent up anger for Chloe as her questions remain unanswered. Did her parents think she was too stupid to get into college? Was their true motive to help her, or was it just for bragging rights. And how does this affect the other members of the family?

What I Was Mixed About:

Characters:

While I liked most of the characters, I couldn't quite feel sympathy for the parents of the story. The author paints a picture of entitlement that leaves very little room for empathy from me. As they try to justify why they used the "Side-Door" to get their child into one of the best colleges in the country, it made me so disgusted. They never truly understand how incredibly unfair all the consultants, private tutors, special SAT classes, and then bribes, and test cheating, were to students who play by the rules.

I used to be addicted to celebrity gossip. I had subscriptions to BOTH People and US Weekly. I am not sure if my interested waned when all this info became readily available online or if I just grew up, but I am definitely
not keeping up with the Kardashians anymore.

Admission by Julie Buxbaum brought me right back to my obsession of celebs and their families. Chloe Berringer is the eldest and somewhat average daughter of actress Joy Fields, a famous sitcom star. Chloe is having a great senior year having fun with her best friends, having a boyfriend for the first time, and struggling with college applications and essays just like everyone else. But when the FBI shows up one morning to arrest her mother she discovers that her parents have collaborated to buy her way into SCC, her college of choice. Chloe and her mother both learn who their friends really are, how their privilege has damaged them, and the importance of family.

I enjoyed this book and appreciate being selected to read an advanced copy. It is a Young Adult novel that is my first Julie Buxbam book and I definitely will recommend to middle school and high school readers and their librarians.

With the pandemic going on, students are even more focused on college admission than even before, whether it is an escape from real life or wanting to move on. This book focuses on the college admissions scandal and the motivations and possibilities behind it. But it does put a very human face on it--delving into the student view instead of the parents view. Although it does not have the fairy tale ending, it does present, what I think, is the right ending. I think it presents a lot of thoughts for teenagers to ruminate about while they are going through the angst and joy of college admission.

I'm a Lori Laughlin/Felicity Huffman fan from watching them in shows over the years, but the whole college admissions scandal didn't really rock me as much as it did everyone else. Yes, I thought it was super wild, but I didn't follow it all too closely. However, ADMISSION intrigued me right away when it was announced. I love Julie Buxbaum and knew she'd turn this into a fascinating story.

If you're someone who said "so what?" about these admissions scandals, you'll be forced to reexamine that position when reading this book. It looks at the abundance of privilege the main character really had, and how it affected other people in her life directly.

The story basically mirrors the real-life college admissions scandal I mentioned before. Chloe's mom is a famous actress and decides to help her daughter get into college by buying new SAT scores, faking a pole vaulting team, and more. I LOVED that this went back and forth between "then" and "now," in order to see the pieces come together. Chloe's life was really looking good in the past chapters.

Overall, this was a solid read that will probably stick with me for a while. I thought the ending was realistic and enjoyable, albeit a little bit sad. Chloe ended up where she "deserved" or where it made sense.

There's no excitement like having a favorite author release a new book. I adore Julie Buxbaum's YA novels, but sadly Admission was just an average read for me.

My main disappointment? There's not much plot or surprise. If you read the summary on the book flap you've more or less read what happens in the book. Chloe unexpectedly got into the college of her dreams but it turns out her mother was involved in a major college admissions bribery scandal. The book is mostly about the emotional ramifications of Chloe's situation and its affect on her family. It is largely a story about privilege, entitlement and what money can and can't buy. This message is repeatedly and overtly mentioned and while it's true and important, it's not earth shatteringly deep or nuanced.

The good... Julie Buxbaum's writing is always excellent and she's a master storyteller. The subject matter felt very timely and held my interest well enough. I also enjoy the double meaning of the title. There's the obvious connotation, the admissions process of applying to college, but also Chloe's admission of guilt, that she was complicit and actively chose to not acknowledge that something was wrong. I just wish more happened with the story.

Recommend for: Readers easily swept up by celebrity scandals who enjoy family drama novels

May not be for you if: You're hoping for a charming YA read. You need relatable or likable characters.

"Admission" was a great exploration of wealth and privilege through the eyes of a teenage girl. I think it will be eye-opening for a lot of young people to read and will help them interrogate their own ethics and internal biases. I'm not sure I completely bought the mother's remorse in the ending, but it was still entertaining and would make a great addition to most YA collections.

Flew through this in a few days! The suspense was very high in this one. Throughout the book you find yourself alternating between rooting for and rooting against the Berringer family. You get an idea how privileged these kids are, while also sympathezing for them because nothing that happened was their fault. Definitely makes you think how many incoming college freshman are only there because their parents bought a building or otherwise paid their way into the school. I'm sure this happens every year. Such a quick, captivating read!

This is a "ripped from the headlines" fictional account of a family caught up in a college admission scandal. Chloe is a mediocre student from a privileged upper class white family. Her mom is a popular actress and her dad runs a venture capital firm. They live in Beverly Hills and seem to be the perfect family who has it all. She's just not interested in school and doesn't put in any hard work to make good grades. Of course, her parents want the best for her and have the means to pay. They hire a college admissions coach to help her get into her dream school. Cheating, bribes, and lies lead to her mom getting arrested by the FBI.

It was interesting to see Chloe change over the course of the story. She’s smart but doesn’t think she is. Her family is rich but most of the time she takes that for granted. She’s a lazy student and it takes her awhile to realize that. But she has a good heart. She forms a real bond with a little boy she tutors after school and that helps her see how privileged her life is. As the scandal engulfs her family, she questions her decisions and her complicity. She realizes that she must choose her own path to her future and do what’s right for her, even if it differs from her parents’ expectations.

I think this will be popular with teens since the story played out in real life with a popular actress. Teens going through the admissions process will understand the pressure Chloe and her friends fee to get into their dream schools. This is a solid pick for high school libraries.

3.5 stars

I received this as an arc on Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you Netgalley and Delacorte Press.

While I loved the alternating 'Then' & 'Now' chapters there were a few times where it just lagged for me. A realistic take on the admission scandal while being fictional and relying more on the family dynamic. It's hard to feel bad for the situation the parents put everyone in but I did enjoy how everything was handled and seeing the family come together by the end.

Chloe's life is turned upside down when she opens her front door early one morning to find men in FBI jackets there to arrest her mother. Chloe finds out that her parents have been accused of participating in a giant college scandal, to get Chloe into her dream school. Told in dueling timelines, Chloe must come to terms with the fact that her mother is guilty, her role in the plot, what it says about her that her parents felt the need to do this, and her privilege.

An interesting enough read, but nothing very substantial. I was disappointed by the lack of introspection or criticism of the main characters - it's never in doubt that they were just "doing the right thing for their children" which is infuriating given the real-world sentencing of Lori Loughlin et al. and the sentencing discrepancies between privileged and underprivileged people in the criminal justice system. I'm sorry, but I'm not at all inclined to be sympathetic towards people who think the rules don't apply to them, and I don't think the author did nearly enough work to win me over.

This is the second YA book I’ve read by this author, and my critique is the same - she doesn’t write effectively in a teenage voice.
The story itself is entertaining, as a fictionalized version of the recent “rich people” college scandal. Not gonna lie, I enjoy a bit of schadenfreude as much as the next person, so reading about some comeuppance was fun. Buuut...it’s written in first person, told by seventeen-year old, Chloe, who is reluctantly dragged into the infraction by her wealthy, celebrity parents. As with her previous novel, Tell Me Three Things, I don’t buy the teenage characters. The dialogue is wrong, the interactions with each other are wrong, the text messaging is terrible, and it distracts me the whole way through.
I think the author should either:
a) stop writing as a teenager
or
b) have a teenager seriously edit her manuscript.
Thanks to #netgalley and #delacourtpress for this ARC of #admission in exchange for an honest review.

Julie Buxbaum deftly handles a ripped-from-the-headlines college admissions scandal story without trying to make us feel too sorry for the privileged people behind it, The characters are sympathetic and realistic. Kids will love this.

Great read, This book had a lot of interesting twist that young adults never really think about. Sometimes, I thought it was a little slow for high school level, but I think they will enjoy the story line.

Chloe leads her normal life, as only someone as priviledged could, and is preparing to head to college when her mother is suddenly facing charges of frauding the admission system for her college.

3.5 rounded up to 4.

The story happens in two timelines, the before the FBI raid in Chloe's house and the present while she faces the risk of her whole family going to prison. I'm not usually a fan of two timelines and I won't say I loved it here but I also think it was a great way to show it all. Chloe is a very oblivious character, but was she really unaware of the whole scheme? Did she know something? What happened to her friends that they're not with her?

I've read two of Buxbaum's novels and this is probably my least favorite. At the same time, it still held the quality you'd expect from her. It was just not comfortable to follow Chloe's opening her eyes at last, or rather her whole family's. Considering there was a recent scandal involving a real-life actress (as Chloe's mom is), that also made too attached to reality, when I prefer escaping it. It's not that raw, it's still a fluffy read to be honest, but it did make me freak out to watch the family go deeper into the fraud and know it'd come back to bite them.

For those who like Buxbaum's romances like I do, there is one here and they're as cute as those in her other books, but it's definitely not the focus.

This book is the kind that is worth reading with a partner or a book club, because it'll be great food for thought. How much can a person know without knowing? And would you stick with a friend who did what Chloe did? Just some examples of discussions this will feed you. It's not your feel-good coming-of-age.

Admission is basically Olivia Jade fan fiction and I for one am here for it! If you were obsessed with the varsity blues/college admissions cheating scandal, this book is for you. The book follows Chloe, a high school student and SCC admit who is caught up in scandal when her B-list celebrity mother is found out to have paid for her admission to college. It flashes between before and after the scandal comes to light. Admission is well-written, timely, and addictive. I highly recommend it for people who love books about entitled high schoolers and family scandals, two of my favorite genres.

This was a fascinating read, even though it was all truly fictional. Based on the recent college admissions scandals in the worlds of the rich and famous, Julie Buxbaum wrote an engaging story from the perspective of the child of what happens when the rich use money to their advantage. I enjoyed Chloe’s character...her friends, not so much. But all in all, I enjoyed the read!

A very timely read. As with other books by this author, I am looking forward to adding this to my class library.

DNF @ 35%

I can't read anymore of this book. I didn't have super high expectations while going in, but I also didn't expect to be so worked up over a book either. I'm sure the main character Chloe will better understand her privilege and all that by the end of the book, but I'm not interested in that development because a part of me just feels like she should have known. I don't feel bad or empathize with her because what she did to get into the mess she's in was on her. When there were signs, such as getting a 240 point increase on her SAT score, she should have talked to someone about it. I'm not sure if I couldn't relate to the characters because I'm not part of some high class society or a parent, but my parents always preached to me about hard work and learning things to do on my own. Personally, this book was not for me and I couldn't go on reading it.

Thank you for kindly sending me an advanced copy of this book, I hope other readers were able to get more from it than I was.