I read the whole book though I was tempted to put it down several times. The overall appeal was great but there was a lot of underage drinking that seemed glorified. It is disappointing that an author would choose to promote this when they could be promoting good activities for the youth of our times. I also felt like a lot more could have been done to address the young girl's suicide in a way more productive manner.

I did appreciate the ideas surrounding being the "odd duck" and the struggles that presents. I also liked the dynamic of the popular boy choosing the new girl. There were some nice unexpected twists and turns around the mysterious emails. Overall, a disappointing read from an author that usually offers so much more.

Wow, I loved and devoured this book about boarding school and the drama that goes along with it! The only reason I didn't give it 5 stars is because there was one large loose end that wasn't tied up - but, it makes me wonder, will there be a sequel????

Where to begin?! The writing is good, and if both Hilderbrand and her daughter wrote sections, the reader cannot distinguish between the two (which is a feat in itself). Living locally to many boarding schools, including some mentioned in the story, it’s always a fascinating topic for me.

I have to be honest - I did get a bit of an ick factor when reading about the sexually explicit lives of these 16 year old kids, when the target audience of the book is adults.

There are some loose ends never tied up - we never find out why Cinnamon killed herself, and no mention is made of her letter that is mentioned multiple times - Dub is told to only open it on Graduation Day. I can only assume book two is coming for their senior year at some point based on a random comment in the author’s thank you section at the end of the book.

Overall, entertaining and well written. It’s Elin Hilderbrand - the book will do well.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this advanced copy.

Amazing! This has such a juicy voice. It makes me nostalgic for reading Kate Brian's Private series as a teenager. Elin Hilderbrand is an auto-read author for me, and this one did not disappoint at all. Ever since she retired from writing Nantucket summer books, I feel really excited to see her creativity flourish and for her to do different books like this!

This novel is perfect for anyone looking for a suspenseful academia novel, regardless of your age! Highly recommended!

I’m always a sucker for a boarding school book and one by a favorite author, Elin Hilderbrand, and her daughter (I had no idea she was also an author!) This was a definitely a must read. Join the high schoolers (and teachers) at Tiffin for a year of rule-breaking, loving, losing, stressing, making and losing friends, breakups, lies, Zip Zap, and lots of secrets. I’m really hoping this is a new series for this duo!

I am a huge fan of Elin Hilderbrand, and I especially enjoyed "The Academy." Although it took me a moment to keep track of what year third, fourth, fifth forms were and adjust to some of the quirky character names, this story captivated me from the very beginning. I loved learning about life at a boarding school and fell in love with the characters, each of whom had their own past and present story. I enjoyed seeing how all the pieces of the puzzle fit together. The drama unfolded page by page, and I was fully into it. I have many unanswered questions and am already looking forward to the second book!

This was definitely different than her normal writing which we were worried about but this surprised us with how good it was. Fell in love with all the characters! 4.5 stars!

I am a Elin Hilderbrand fan, which means I had high expectation for The Academy. Unfortunately this Hilderbrand novel, written with her daughter, Shelby Cunningham, did not live up to my expectations and hopes. The Academy is not bad, but the text reads like young adult fiction, with its focus on a boarding school. Boarding schools are rather old stuff for a generation who grew up with Harry Potter, which means a boarding school novel needs a reason to exist. Otherwise it is just a series of character studies Young adult novels are no different that adult novels. They both need a plot to move along the story.

What is good about The Academy? The setting actually works quite well. The students and teachers are a captive group of all types of personalities, and they are all imprisoned within Tiffin Academy. Many of the characters are well defined and interesting. But there are a great many characters, and after a while, keeping them all straight becomes a challenge. If these characters were uniformly interesting, they might be memorable, but that isn't the case in The Academy. What doesn't work? There are too many POV and it often isn't clear who is speaking. I assume there will be a sequel, since that mysterious email still needs to be opened, and if so, adopt a single POV, an omnificent narrator to tell these many stories. A single POV would also bring much needed focus to this story. Since there is no actual plot, just a narration of junior year at boarding school, the lack of a plot becomes a liability.

Thank you to Little Brown & Co and NetGalley for providing me with this ARC to read and review. The above comments are my actual thoughts.

3 stars

I've long been a fan of "Prep Novels" and this book was fun to read. It was perhaps a little predictable at times but this didn't detract from the story. Loved the characters and loved how relatable they all were! Good read! Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

Anyone who likes Elin Hilderbrand will likely pick up this book, one of the few not set in Nantucket, and co-written with her daughter. I am really happy for the author that she is starting on a new phase of her career, and got to create this book with her daughter. It is recognizably an Elin Hilderbrand book, with chapters written by the collective mind, and a focus on food and fashion. The storylines were interesting, but they didn’t hold my attention like her Nantucket books do. I still plan to read the sequel to this book, whenever it comes out, but mainly out of curiosity about whether the series will improve.

SPOILER ALERT
Although in some parts the plot was a little slow, I enjoyed this book quite a bit. My only beef is that I want to know WHAT WAS IN THE EMAIL?! The email from Cinnamon was mentioned so many times in the plot. Unless this book is the first in a series why would the author not reveal what Cinnamon's last words were to her love?
Still a worthwhile read with strong characters and all the drama you would expect from a private academy for the rich.
Special thanks to NetGalley and Little, Brown and Company for the advance review copy!

A slow burn that has all the trapping of being incredible but fizzled at the end for me. The payoff wasn’t big enough at the end to warrant such a slow lead up. There needed to be a truly explosive series of happenings for this to have reallllly worked. Boarding school is perfect in terms of a setting, there just needed to be more unph.

I absolutely love the premise of this book. It's so intriguing and interesting, but I found that it fell flat. The introduction (first 30% or so) is so slow-paced, a lot of character introduction (why do they all have strange names?) and awkward real-life references to Taylor Swift and Alix Earle. I could totally do without those. The rest of the book was fast paced, I found myself wanting to read more and more. It was working its way up to 4.5 stars—until the end. Why did it end so abruptly? There was practically no closure. So much promise to this book, but I felt that it didn't deliver on all fronts.

The new school year is underway—move-in day at Tiffin—and the rankings reveal they’ve jumped to the number two spot among boarding schools. The pressure is on. The year unfolds in a series of small but compelling dramas: new faculty, drunken evenings (both student and faculty), cheating, lying, social media scandals, and then—The Zip Zap app, which torments everyone on campus. This glimpse into the lives of students and staff at an elite boarding school offers a sharp look at this particular academic world.

I’m torn on how to sum up this book. I loved so much of it—the setting, the characters, the quintessential elements of boarding school fiction—but there were moments that left me stumbling. Where is the document from Cinnamon at the end? Why does the POV shift so randomly and awkwardly? That said, I couldn’t put it down. As someone familiar with independent school life (at a lower level, not high school), the depiction rang true in many ways. East, Charley, and Davi were standout characters, and I loved the intricate, messy web of relationships. Some parts felt entirely believable, others less so, but the tone and atmosphere were spot on.

I do think the novel could be tightened—streamlining it into a single POV and clarifying the email from Cinnamon would help give it a more satisfying finish. Still, I thoroughly enjoyed it and would recommend it to anyone who loves a good campus novel.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.

This is truly a book that will appeal to so many readers, for so many different reasons. First, it's Elin Hilderbrand, who already has a huge loyal readership. She's teamed up with her daughter to write this one. Instead of her usual setting of Nantucket, it is set in a fictional eastern boarding school and chronicles one school year there. It features strong stories of both adult and teen characters -- I can see this book appealing to adults of all ages and also to teens. There is romance, mystery, gossip, intrigue -- so much going on! I loved it, and because there are a few loose ends, I'm hoping Elin Hilderbrand and her daughter plan on making this a series. I truly look forward to recommending this title.

Elin does it again! While some people are bummed she is no longer writing beach books (myself included), I will take anything I can get! This is the perfect YA book, but also perfect for anyone that loves Elin.

Set at Tiffin boarding school, we see into the lives of students and teachers. It has the typical Elin style: menus, descriptions of people and places, and revolutions that readers love! This book touches on lots of teenage issues. Suicide. Eating disorders. Cheating. Social media. Highly recommended!

Elin Hiderbrand and her daughter have found new scenery to write in: Tiffin Academy, an exclusive college-prep/boarding school. Readers spend a year in the school, digging into student drama and teacher drama.
Hilderbrand's daughter, Shelby, and son, Dawson, both attended their respective boarding schools and brought back stories of their shenanigans and dramas. Hilderbrand tasked high-school-aged Shelby with helping her write this book, and the descriptions of the teens and what they find cool is timely because of it.
Much like Hilderbrand's other books, it's a hefty read, over 500 pages. This shouldn't be a deterrant though - I loved settling in each evening with the story and knowing I could read for an hour and still have plenty more to go. With all the drama it was still very much a comfort read - there's plenty of romances, some more fun than others. The chef's cooking (and descriptions of his food) made my mouth water. Cunningham and Hilderbrand also leave loose threads that can be picked back up in future books (I'm hoping this will be a new series). Other reviewers might fault them for this, but I don't think a book needs to answer all our questions, and even if this ends up as a standalone it still works.

I absolutely devoured this book from the very start, and while I agree with others who have said that this didn't feel like a typical Elin Hilderbrand story, I got sucked in from the start and couldn't put it down. The characters were so diverse and well developed and I loved the timeline of the story spanning an entire school year. I did feel that the ending felt somewhat rushed and that there was a huge plot hole that didn't get revealed by the end - but maybe since most of the main characters were juniors, we'll see a book two that spans their senior year? I can only hope! Thank you, NetGalley, for the ARC!

Overall this was an enjoyable read but I finished the book with a few frustrations. There are SO many characters and many of their storylines were underdeveloped to the point that I didn't understand their purpose in the book. I was waiting for a grand reveal at the end (Cinnamon's email to Dub) and it went unanswered. Maybe because there will be a part two? In any case, I flew through the second half of the book and was very entertained. I would recommend this to a reader with an interest in boarding school/rich people behaving badly.