In BAD HABITS, Amy Gentry explores the ever fertile territory of toxic female friendship. Gwen is beautiful, rich, and has a seemingly perfect life. Mac is the polar opposite, struggling with a drug addicted mother, an autistic younger sister, no money to speak of, and an overwhelming desire to BE Gwen. Despite their differences, the two are best friends, until they are both accepted to the same graduate school and are competing for a prestigious and lucrative fellowship. Things get ugly when Mac and Gwen’s lives become intertwined with those of Bethany and Rocky, a pair of married professors with influence on the fellowship committee. Betrayal, sex, secrets, blackmail, and even murder ensue.

BAD HABITS definitely has some good twists and surprises, but none of the characters, are particularly likeable, so it’s a little difficult to care what happens to any of them. Bethany and Rocky are despicable, and even Mac, who I assume we’re supposed to root for, is so bitter that it’s hard to remain empathetic. I suppose the point is that we all have potential for both good and evil, but this book errs a little too much on the ugly side.

https://www.allisonharbin.com/post-phd/2021/1/20/bad-habits-reasons-to-flee-academia

"Bad Habits and Other Reasons to Flee Academia" by Allison Harbin
If you (or someone you know) are currently trying to transition out of academia, chances are you’re beyond frustrated. This is definitely a feeling that is still omnipresent in my own life as I’ve fought tooth and nail to claim some sort of life and financial stability in the wake of my academic exodus. I am four years out, and the road has not been easy. In one banal job interview after another, I was told that I was “overqualified, but lacked hands-on experience.” But, with an art history PhD and eight years of teaching and writing experience, I was only qualified for entry level jobs. The agony of it all.

I’ve found myself, repeatedly, fantasizing about what my life could have been if I had been able to stay in academia. I imagined my life teaching engaged college students and working on research topics that I loved. I imagined one day having graduate students of my own, and how I would be the one to break the cycle of advisor-advisee abuse. But, of course, that is an idealized fantasy that is just as removed from the reality of academia as I now am.

Which is why, when academic turned novelist Amy Gentry reached out to ask me if I’d be interested in reading an advance copy of her recent thriller novel Bad Habits, which will be released on February 2, 2021, I heaved a heavy sigh. The novel is set in a prestigious humanities program and revolves around desperate power plays and abusive exploitation between graduate students and their ruthless professors.

What could a fictionalized version of my very real experience in a toxic humanities graduate program possibly offer me, other than a deluge of triggering and painful memories?

It turns out, quite a lot.

Gentry’s Bad Habits reminds me of the crucial role imagination plays in how we process our own realities. I think this is the true genius of fiction-- to tell the truth in ways that reality cannot. As I’ve been mired in reality and trying to narrate it in my own writing, Gentry’s Bad Habits is a good reminder of how fiction can tell us truths that we haven’t even verbalized to ourselves.

The plot revolves around the figure of Mac, a driven young woman from a working class background in her first year of a PhD program. We see the world through her eyes, and as a result, the glaring classism inherent to academia comes into full focus. The generational wealth afforded to her peers stands in stark contrast to Mac’s job waiting tables in order to send money back home to her addict mother and special needs sister.

A full professor in the department, Bethany, takes Mac under her wing with such a swooping abuse of power that her every word of encouragement to Mac smacks of future exploitation. We all see it coming from a mile away, and so does Mac. Yet, Mac is as powerless as the reader is to stop herself from being used as a pawn.

What I saw reflected back in me through the figure of Mac was a ghost of Christmases to come in a Bergsonian sense of the virtual-- a potentiality of who I could have been (and might be) in another universe. Am I Mac? That’s the question academics will find themselves asking as Gentry weaves her tail.

The cycles of abuse repeated throughout the novel, usually with the reader fully aware of the repetition before it even begins again, have the effect of a clever temporal displacement. You understand their present moment, but also how they came to be the aggressors in the first place. Bethany is all too real of a professor at a top graduate program, as is the dysfunctional relationship she has with her professor husband Rocky, whose own ego is deflated by two simple words: spousal hire.

However, it is through the figure of the only true academic in the book, the character of Tess, that we see the truth of academia as it really is. The only Black woman in the program, Tess is intentionally and always on the periphery of the main action of the book. In doing this, Gentry exposes how both systemic and internal racism compound the injustice of what happens to Tess. Even though academics who read this book won’t be necessarily surprised by Tess’s cruel fate, with any hope, we’ll all be appropriately sickened by it nonetheless. (I also can’t help but think of Gentry’s PhD in Literature and Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the d’Ubervilles as potential inspiration for her name, because there are some rich symmetries there for anyone who’s looking).

Gentry’s handling of Tess’s trajectory might be the best victory of the book-- it shows white readers what the consequences of racism are in no uncertain terms, and without being “preachy” about it. No small feat! To top it all off, Gentry’s characterization of the complicity that the main character, Mac, in what happens to Tess really enlivens just how shitty white women can be. It’s a sobering reminder of the difference between opposing racism in theory and being anti-racist in reality through your actions and words.

Ultimately, Gentry’s Bad Habits shows just what it takes to survive in academia, and precisely what type of person can do so. Just as you think you can’t bear to read more, a too-perfect Freudian and near-Oedipal catharsis arrives in the form of a series of escalating cruelties and lies that are as unbelievable as they are intensely familiar to anyone who has been exploited by a superior. This book made me endlessly grateful that I chose to get out because it stunningly calls out academic culture for what it is.

So, for all of you disenchanted academics out there, I cannot recommend Bad Habits enough, if only because its ending proves to be immensely gratifying because everyone gets precisely what they deserve (which is why the book is fiction, not fact).

This wasn't the book for me. I don't know if I just wasn't in the mood for it or what but I just couldn't connect with the story. I'm giving it 3 stars because I don't believe it was the book or the authors fault but I also just didn't enjoy it enough to give it a high rating.

As some of you may know I have recently returned to grad school and am doing a 2-year Research MA. I did a 1-year taught MA previously and that was one year of classes, readings, stress, tears, rewarding lessons and exhaustion. My current MA is a bit calmer, but the grad-environment remains one of tension and desire. So of course a thriller set at a prestigious and cutthroat grad program would be perfect to me. Thank you to Mariner Books and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Aaah grad school, the moment where you're both full of dreams and ideals and also still crushingly insecure about your own skills and abilities. Suddenly your professors could also be future colleagues and friends. Suddenly doing your best might actually not be enough, even if it has always served you before. Fellow students really do drop like flies in some grad programs. Of course not all grad programs are like this, but in those that are you either thrive or drown, as just swimming along doesn't cut it. This makes it, alongside elite universities in general, the perfect setting for a coming-of-age thriller, for the genre now called 'Dark Academia'. These environments can and will change you and the books seem to argue they hardly do so for the better. In these novels people become harder, smarter and sharper. They are quick-witted and dazzling, but also terrifying. It's fascinating to read about and no matter how bad it gets, the glamour of these institutions somehow always remains, beckoning the next generation of dreamy-eyed idealists.

Claire is almost there, almost has tenure, almost feels satisfied and safe. But then a ghost from her past appears, Gwen, the girl who never had to feel the sting of 'almost', who always was and had whatever she wanted. As we follow Claire and Gwen on the evening of their accidental reunion, we flash back to a time when Claire was still Mac and Gwen changed her life. Once a contestant in beauty pageants, teenage Mac has too much on her plate trying to keep her family afloat. Gwen is a breath of fresh air and as their friendship takes off Mac starts to want more. Once they both enter the Program, however, it becomes more difficult for Mac to know who to trust and how to stay on top. Bad Habits slowly moves us towards the moment where everything breaks, allowing past and present to intermingle until there are no more easy answers, until everything becomes a danger. Mac is an interesting main character, moving from surprisingly naive and trusting to ruthless and suspicious of everything. And you're not surprised she does. Pretty much everyone in Bad Habits is hiding something, secrets are everywhere and the only way to survive is to strike first. Bad Habits takes this train all the way past the final stop, with countless twists and turns, some of which genuinely took me by surprise.

This is my first book by Amy Gentry but I had heard a lot about her. Although I needed a little bit of time to get into Bad Habits, once we made the first jump to the past I was completely on board. Giving us insights into both young Mac and determined, older Claire, Gentry slowly but surely builds up a fascinating main character who doesn't shy away from acknowledging humanity's darker instincts. Gentry not only crafts a twisty thriller, she also attempts to comment on some of the more insidious truths of the academic white tower. (Whether that qualifies it for the tag of 'Dark Academia' I'll leave up to other readers.) Don't get me wrong, I love the academic world, but it can be a very hard and exclusive environment to those that don't "typically" fit in, whether that is minorities or POC in general or women in STEM specifically. And of course there is the too frequently exploited power imbalance between professors and students. It is a tale as old as time, but no less terrifying in its ubiquity. Mac's naivety allows Gentry to explore all of these and this helps to ground the narrative that occasionally gets almost too outrageous. Towards the end of Bad Habits it occasionally felt like everything was happening at the same time and more than once I had to take a second to recap where we were at. But there was a thrill to this rush as well which had me turning the final page at 1:30am. I will most definitely be reading more of Gentry's books.

Bad Habits is was a thrilling ride. Although sometimes there is a little bit too much going on at once, Amy Gentry keeps you engaged and fascinated throughout. Universities continue to be a great setting for gripping thrillers and surprising twists.

Some people want it all and they will do anything to get it. They are even envious of their friends and will stop at nothing. This was a chilling novel with complex characters and it delves into greed, ambition,and jealousy. It shows the dark side of people and the dark things they do.
Many thanks to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and to NetGalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion.

I love thrillers about the toxic workplace and this is one of the best I’ve read. If you’ve ever worked (or studied) in a toxic environment, you know that it can bring out the absolutely worst in people — at times to the point where we don’t recognize ourselves anymore. Fortunately I never bit a coworker (like in that infamous Ask a Manager letter), or worse, but the premise of it is very relatable. I have also heard, from friends and family, about the cut-throat, pretentious and poisonous environment that graduate school can be. The thing I love most about Gentry’s writing is that it really pulls me into its fictional world through her masterful descriptions of characters, interpersonal dynamics and the scenery. She does a great job at bringing you into the main character’s past, present and state-of-mind. And who doesn’t love a break from reality right now? I do! Especially as a mom with a virtually schooling kiddo and my family far away. Without giving away too much, the twists and turns of this novel kept me reading until late into the night (nights are the only time us moms get to themselves!) . I have already ordered copies for my friends and sister that are currently in, or have been, in grad school. Can’t wait for them to read it!

As a former academic, I was immediately drawn in with this one. This novel is sort of hard to classify--which I hope doesn't hurt the book. It's being discussed as a "suspense" or "thriller"-- I don't know what it is, but I liked it. I was attracted to the premise, found the characters interesting, and thought that the writing suggested an intelligence that I sometimes don't see in other thrillers. I will definitely be checking out Gentry's other books.

This novel flips between the present--when Mac confronts an "old friend" of hers at a conference and they sort of debrief the past--and the past, when Mac was a struggling high schooler, then college student, then doctoral student. Most of the past part focuses on her and Gwen's years during their doctoral program. These parts I really enjoyed because they captured the ridiculousness and competitive nature of doctoral programs (taken to an extreme). Mac has significant imposter syndrome when she compares herself to the perfect, highly intelligent, and wealthy Gwen, who doesn't need to worry about making money while at grad school. I definitely related to the "um, everyone seems to know stuff that I don't know" feelings of a first year student. My quibbles are really minor: sometimes they characters felt more like college students than doctoral students, and the author made a conscious decision to never make it clear exactly what they are studying, but I think that's ultimately fine if it was her deliberate decision. Would recommend to anyone who likes campus fiction.

Claire “Mac” Woods is attending an academic conference, preparing to interview for her dream professorship. She’s disconcerted to run into Gwen, her former friend and sometime rival, who’s sporting a huge engagement ring. The story then goes back to Mac’s childhood. Abandoned by her father, Mac is left to protect her autistic sister Lily from their mother, who habitually spends Lily’s disability income on drugs. In high school, Mac meets Gwen. Rich and brilliant, Gwen seems to have all the things Mac is missing in her life. Separated in college, they both end up in the same interdisciplinary graduate program: the cultish Emerging Studies program led by the charismatic Bethany Ladd.

Bad Habits is focused on three main strands. First, Mac and Gwen’s complicated friendship. Next, an inside look at graduate school, that weird pressure cooker of intellectual pretension, competition for scarce resources, and economic hardship. Finally, Mac’s desire for success so she can support her mother and sister. While Gwen is free to focus on her studies, Mac needs to waitress while scheming to outmaneuver her cohort of graduate students and grab the brass ring.

I thought Bad Habits did a great job of portraying the complexity of female friendship. Mac is fiercely competitive. Gwen, with the inborn self-confidence of the rich, doesn’t really consider them in competition at all.

I loved the portrayal of the Emerging Studies department, complete with a dinner party that’s feels a bit like an homage to Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

While the Emerging Studies department in Bad Habits is an amusing spoof, with courses in unintelligible and seemingly useless things like ethical negation and economimesis, it’s also a fairly accurate look at the claustrophobic, competitive crucible that is graduate school in the humanities. You’re being sized up by your professors and fellow students as future colleagues, you’re competing for limited funding and jobs, you’re trying to survive for years on a tiny stipend. It’s a lot.

As Mac schemes to survive the program and win a coveted fellowship, she has to decide how what she’s willing to do to beat out her fellow students and have a career that might allow her to save Lily from their mother.

Amy Gentry has written an excellent exploration of the depths of the human heart - and how far someone will go to protect what they want.

This is about academia and ethics, prestige and friendship. It's about getting what you want, no matter what.

Bad Habits is both a work of fiction and perhaps, a cautionary tale.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review this book.

3.5 stars for this twisted and suspenseful story of the ruthless climb to escape your class and the casualties that come along the way.

I’m a big fan of Amy Gentry’s writing. She’s sharp and yet poetic and truly knows how to shape a complicated character.

This story is certainly complicated. I walked away from the read not quite knowing how I felt but Gentry said it herself in the Acknowledgments: it’s an unhappy story. What I did enjoy though was the suspense: you switch back and forth between two long lost best friends (one born rich and perfect, the other with a ruthless drive to escape her poor and dysfunctional upbringing) meeting in a hotel to their time together in a prestigious grad school program that ended in an “accident” that diverted their lives.

My favorite part, however, was the character of Mac. You spend most of the book switching between feeling sorry for her, then thinking she’s unlikable, then realizing she’s justified in her actions, then thinking she’s unlikable again... and you finish by feeling a little impressed? Like I said: a perfectly written complicated character!

If you're looking for drama about female friendship, rivalry, class, money, toxic relationships and the dark side of academia, this is the book for you (and it was good for me because I like all those things!), but if you're looking for a fast-paced thriller, this is more literary psychological suspense that doesn't get to most of the twists until close to the end. I'd still recommend to people who would enjoy the former but I think the author's previous book would appeal to a wider readership so if introducing new readers to her--again, unless they were fans of all the aforementioned elements in general--I'd probably start with that one rather than this title.

“Bad Habits” is a slow burn thriller that flashes back between the main character’s adulthood and her graduate school career. While not bad, I found this novel to be underwhelming. It tells the story of a graduate program that is cult-like, but the story did not feel adequately fleshed out or truly believable that characters would act in such outlandish ways. It also introduced a slightly confusing subplot toward the end, which did not add a major “wow” factor to the story. It was a solid read, but not one that I loved, so I’m giving it 3 stars ⭐️. Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the advanced copy.

Claire, who was once known as Mac, has done everything- everything- possible to pull herself out of the morass of her youth. She was inspired by Gwen, a wealthy intelligent teen who became her best friend and then her rival once they got to grad school. Now, years later, they're face to face with one another and there's an accounting to come about their estrangement. The machinations of Bethany, the professor who ran their program, are heinous. This delves into the absurdities of academia in a way that doesn't alienate the non-academic (although you like me might want to tell to grow up). Claire was more likable, perhaps, when she was Mac but she's still a sympathetic character even though she takes steps she shouldn't to get what she wants. This moves back and forth in time as Claire reflects on what happened. No spoilers from me, especially about the ending, which, while dynamic, is perhaps a bit of a stretch. Thank to Netgalley for the ARC. Gentry's a good storyteller and she clearly knows her academia.

A twisted look at the nature vs nurture question....in reverse. When a young woman's skills and abilities are never nurtured, she must put aside any soft feelings she ever had to succeed. And succeed she will.

Mac's youth held no fond memories for her. She feels as if she's scrapped and scraped every step of the way. Then the new girl in class, Gwen, becomes her friend and she sees that life doesn't have to be hard. But for Mac to have the life she wants, she will repeatedly change herself into what the world expects her to be, using her friendship with Gwen to push her way into college and the graduate program she hopes will finally give her the life she wants.

We learn all of this in retrospect as Mac relives her life's journey after a chance meeting with Gwen. Mac is successful, an example to her students of what hard work can attain. The academic life is examined and found guilty of exploiting the dreams of the young to provide entertainment to those who would judge them. An excellent genre bending story that is unique as well as fascinating.

I really enjoyed this book. It definitely was not what I thought it was going to be, but it turned out to be a good thing. I read it in a day.

Mac and Gwen grew up together. Mac’s home life is less than ideal and she struggles with jealousy over Gwen’s seemingly perfect life. As they grow up, they attend the same grad school. Mac carries the same jealousy from their younger days, but the pressure from school and a very prestigious scholarship, The Joyner, amplifies her jealousy to an extreme. How far is Mac willing to go to obtain The Joyner? Will she be the one in her family to break the cycle and create a better life for all of them? Or will her desperate want lead her down a much darker path?

I've been to grad school. It wasn't like this. The description is of two grad students getting caught up in the middle of the marriage of two professors and it goes wrong. I was hoping for a good thriller. Instead I got a soap opera. Sex and gossip can be part of a story but they can't be THE story. At least not for me. For many others that is exactly their niche.

Mac (or Claire) and Gwen become best friends (?) in middle school, go to different colleges, and then meet up again as graduate students in The Program. As far as I ca see The Program is a 6 year, at least, post grad program in which unqualified professors mess with their students, body and mind, until they are through with them. Then they release them on the work of academia to do the same to a new group of students. Why? Who knows?

I am left wondering if this is what you get from a tiny New England college. If so, how glad am I that I got my post grad at a state school?! I have course that helped me with my vision of the world, how the mind works, pedagogy, and actual useful facts that are important to my teaching. I swear to every reader that not all graduate classes are made up words by people who had to prove themselves to other pretentious people to justify their salary. I also swear that I know A LOT of teachers and professors and it is not this common to sleep with students. I've heard about it on the news but it is not something most would even consider.

I liked Amy Gentry's previous book, so I would try her work again. I just kept waiting for a payoff in this one and it simply never came. I know this will be right up the alley of some readers. It just wasn't up mine. It wasn't horrible and for the first half I was really hopeful. It got repetitive and drawn out and by the climax it was hard for me to care. Most of the stars are for the first half and the promise.

Claire followed her wealthy best friend into an intensely competitive rarified world of liberal arts graduate program and gets swept up into the murk.
Dark academia, broken female friendship, and a character-driven suspense - this book has a lot I love.
I recognized my own childhood world in the depiction of Midwest poverty, but I never really understood why Claire wanted what she wants. Money, sure...but a life of (famously poor) academia?
There was a subplot addressing the systemic racism, but it only served to fuel the (white) protagonist’s growth.

Overall I enjoyed my reading experience, but didn’t love the book.

PS. I have no idea what the title has to do with anything in the story.

We meet Claire “Mac” Woods in 2021 and she’s everything she’s hoped and dreamed to be--a popular professor speaking at academic conferences and one step closer to even bigger dreams. When she runs into her former best friend in the conference hotel’s bar, Mac is forced to face a past she thought she’d escaped.

The story switches back and forth from Mac’s past (both high school and post-grad years) and the present timeline. We know something major from her past happened to come between Mac and her best friend Gwen, because the hotel encounter is obviously their first in many years.

Mac grew up in a small town with a single mom who struggled with addiction. Mac was responsible for her younger sister Lily, who’s autistic. Gwen-smart, rich, and sophisticated-moved to town in her teens and immediately took Mac under her wing.

The pair is eventually accepted into an elite graduate program, aka “The Program”, and find themselves competing for a coveted fellowship. They’re pitted against each other by their mentors--a pair of professors married to each other--and secrets start piling up.

Bad Habits is definitely well-written and flows smoothly. I would say it’s twisty without being full of twists, if that makes sense? It's definitely dark. The only part that really got my pulse pounding was in the last 5-10 percent of the book. I don’t necessarily mind thrillers that aren’t fast-paced or full of twists and turns on every page. There are still plenty of moments, while not suspenseful, will keep you wondering who, what, when, where, and how? There’s a certain sense of melancholy that oozes from the story. While I wasn’t exactly rooting for Mac, nor was I hoping she would fail. Finally, while I don’t mind books with academia-based settings, my mind kind of glazed over a bit with some of the “professor” talk.

Two annoyances--the title and the cover. I don’t think the title necessarily reflects the story very well. The cover is very boring and I don’t think I would pick this up if I just glimpsed it on a shelf.

I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys psychological thrillers but don’t mind slower plot and pacing. Thanks to Netgalley and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (Mariner Books) for an eARC. This title will be out February 2, 2021.

Thank you to the author, Mariner Books and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is not so much a thriller as it is an account of struggling to overcome childhood obstacles, and how envy can shape your behavior. Money is the underlying theme: not having enough of it, struggling to get it, and how having money makes for an easier life. The cliche of the best friends, one poor and struggling with all the attendant problems, and one a poor little rich girl, was overused. And don't get me started on the cult-like graduate program - none of the students seemed to quite know what they were supposedly studying, and I didn't have a clue either. The backstabbing politics and hypocrisy of academia came through clearly, but I found it all rather tedious and impossible to care about. There were also a few too many coincidences, more to suit making the story full of twists and turns rather than anything else.

This is mostly a character novel, with just a dash of psychological suspense/thriller, especially towards the end. Main character Mac, now known as Claire, was best friends with Gwen in high school and then they attended grad school together in "the Program." The book alternates between their youth/grad school days, and 10 years later when they see each other for the first time in 10 years. A dark little book but very well written.