The Year of the Gadfly: A Novel

by Jennifer Miller

“Do you know what it took for Socrates’ enemies to make him stop pursuing the truth?”
“Hemlock.”

Storied, fiercely competitive Mariana Academy was founded with a serious honor code; its reputation has been unsullied for decades. Now a long-dormant secret society, Prisom's Party, threatens its placid halls with vigilante justice, exposing students and teachers alike for even the most minor infraction.

Iris Dupont, a budding journalist whose only confidant is the chain-smoking specter of Edward R. Murrow, feels sure she can break into the ranks of The Devil’s Advocate , the Party’s underground newspaper, and there uncover the source of its blackmail schemes and vilifying rumors. Some involve the school’s new science teacher, who also seems to be investigating the Party. Others point to an albino student who left school abruptly ten years before, never to return. And everything connects to a rare book called Marvelous Species . But the truth comes with its own dangers, and Iris is torn between her allegiances, her reporter's instinct, and her own troubled past.

The Year of the Gadfly is an exhilarating journey of double-crosses, deeply buried secrets, and the lifelong reverberations of losing someone you love. Following in the tradition of classic school novels such as A Separate Peace , Prep , and The Secret History , it reminds us how these years haunt our lives forever.

Genres: Fiction, Dark Academia, Mystery, Young Adult, Book Club, Contemporary, Coming Of Age

374 pages, Hardcover

First published May 8, 2012

About the author

Jennifer Miller is author of The Year of the Gadfly
(Harcourt, 2012) and Inheriting The Holy Land (Ballantine, 2005). Her journalism has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post Magazine, Christian Science Monitor, Marie Claire, Men's Health, Smithsonian.com, Salon.com, Guernica.com, the Columbia Journalism Review, The Millions and the Daily Beast.

Jen holds an MFA in fiction-writing and a MS in journalism from Columbia. She is a native of Washington, DC and currently lives in Brooklyn, NY, with all the other writers.

Reviews

[karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

**ooh, now i can promote it on libboo!!
https://www.libboo.com/read/the-year-...**

i have made a lot of bold statements over the course of my life:

twins are evil
NASA is a drug front/the moon does not exist
france is an island
this book is fun.

and maybe you don't want to agree with me on a lot of those things, and i totally understand that. but i stand by my statements and i don't care if i stand alone.

this book is not really like secret history. it is more like special topics in calamity physics, in the age of the protagonists and the role of the teacher-figure, but i liked this one a lot more than that one, for a variety of reasons.

for reminding me that hypercolor t-shirts once existed



for using the word "vertigo" correctly.

for teaching me how to spell "lede."

for casually dropping words like "zeugma."

and for being basically an all-around fun book about the cruelty of youth and the psychological baggage we carry with us over our own teenage mistakes.

is "fun" the wrong word here? it probably is. because it is a very dark book, involving blackmail, bullying, the unsteadiness of the moral high ground, suicide, hallucinations, albinism, roofies, and the high-stress world of the private school.

but to me, it was a page-turning good time.i have different definitions of fun. i would call last night's episode of game of thrones "fun" and that had a TON of bloodshed. fun!



AHHHHHH!!!!!

i was so relieved that this was told from a variety of perspectives. not that i didn't enjoy iris' voice, but i was so grateful when the second chapter was told from the viewpoint of jonah. and as the story progressed, and the narratives began weaving together, i really appreciated this technique, and the delayed gratification it offered. i particularly liked seeing what jonah and iris really thought of each other.

all in all, it is a good mystery story that is peppered with smart and funny characters who frequently say unexpected things. it is occasionally self-consciously written and it lacks the high sheen of sophistication that makes me swoon when i think about the secret history, but again - a lot of fun. but karen-style fun that has a tinge of horror to it. enjoy!

come to my blog!

[Ellis · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to like this a lot more than I did, but “unrequited teenage love” is not an adequate justification for any of the events that take place in this book that are subsequently blamed on unrequited teenage love. Most notably, when high school-aged Hazel convinces a pretentious art student to make a movie wherein the albino girlfriend of the object of her unreturned affection is drugged, filmed saying she’s using the guy for sex because that’s what her “character” should be saying, and has her pubic hair dyed black once she’s unconscious. Not surprisingly, Hazel grows up to be the type of adult who sexually manipulates teenage boys, slaps fourteen-year-olds in the face, and feels comfortable telling men how, in her opinion, they should be grieving for their dead twin brothers.

Much more intriguing is the concurrent story of Iris Dupont, fourteen-year-old prep school student who has a passion for reporting & talks to an invisible Edward R. Murrow in times of trouble. Iris also has a best friend who committed suicide at some point before the book began, but to her great disservice Dalia is more of a plot device than anything. This is Iris's great tragedy, which she feels aligns her with the unorthodox science teacher who was once a student at the same prep school, is the brother of the dead twin, and pined for Hazel when they were all kids. The writing is nice, everyone’s separate parts hang together well, & the characters are pretty okay, even though all the adults seem inexplicably distressed that teenagers are basically herd animals who will do whatever just because anyone who’s popular or an accepted authority tells them to (to which I say, “No kidding”), but by the end I was over it. All the plot twists hang on people being such tremendous jerks & there’s absolutely no repercussions for the awful things they do to each other, besides that one guy who wasn’t even that bad who dies in a car accident (Hazel gets kicked out of the Historical Society building & that’s all? I ask you, where’s the assault charge?) And I also find it ridiculous that anyone would ever get some fabulous internship at the Boston Globe at the age of fourteen.

[Nastja · Rating 2 out of 5]

Никогда не пойму романов, в которых взрослые люди под тридцатник исступленно дуют себе в пупки, чтобы не дай бог не угасли обидки и травмы подростковых лет. Нас не любили, нас не принимали, мы были изгоями, и вот мы выросли, а лицом все равно обращены в сторону пубертата, когда нам было важно мнение людей, которых уже десять с лишком лет нет в нашей жизни, - вот какой это роман, отъявленно плохой и нежизнеспособный, и пусть такие романы останутся в этом году, а Франзен и Стивен Кинг живут до ста лет, пожалуйста, и чтобы в здравом уме.

[Mal Warwick · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I was in high school back in the dark ages of the 1950s, the pranks we played varied from the timeworn to the troublesome, but nobody ever got hurt. For instance, several dozen of us set alarm clocks to go off in our lockers during class time.

That was a hoot. But it didn’t match the inventiveness of the prank we visited upon our unpopular school librarian, Mrs. Fanny Bright (yes, that was her name, I kid you not): during several of the last weeks of the term, up until the day the library was to close for inventory, at least 100 of us steadily checked out as many as possible of the biggest, heaviest books we could locate — and returned them all on the afternoon of the last day the library was open. The scene of pandemonium in the library that afternoon was a delicious treat for our adolescent minds.

I should have been expelled for masterminding that incident, but the powers-that-were eventually decided it wouldn’t look good to expel the valedictorian.

Apparently, times have changed over the past half-century and more, if Jennifer Miller’s suspenseful and often hilarious novel, The Year of the Gadfly, can be trusted. At the Mariana Academy, the snooty New England prep school at the center of her story, student pranks can be lethal. Whether student or faculty, everyone is fair game for the diabolical tricks that a small clique of pranksters unleashes on the unwary.

The tale revolves around two intriguing characters: Jonah Kaplan, who has just joined the Mariana faculty to teach freshman and sophomore science despite a lingering reputation as the school’s resident hell-raiser during his student days there; and an exceptionally bright 14-year-old girl named Iris Dupont, a would-be journalist whose only friend is the spectral presence of Edward R. Murrow, with whom she engages in impassioned dialogue about truth and journalistic ethics. That is, until Iris develops a passionate attraction to Mr. Kaplan. But this is no hackneyed tale of a teenage crush on an older man. If you pick up this book, prepare yourself for a wild ride: The Year of the Gadfly mashes up a coming-of-age tale with a tragic mystery story with a deft send-up of elite prep schools. It’s one of a kind, and a great pleasure to read.

The Year of the Gadfly is Jennifer Miller’s first novel. She also wrote an award-winning work of nonfiction, Inheriting the Holy Land: An American’s Search for Hope in the Middle East.

[Ms.pegasus · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bucolic New England setting with winding backroads, high-powered academically competitive prep school, and identity-challenged adolescents is the stuff of YEAR OF THE GADFLY. It's a day school, not a boarding school, so the parental pressure is unrelenting as well. Miller develops her story through two interlinked time lines. The present is 2012. It is narrated alternately in the first person by Iris and Jonah.

Iris has transferred to the Mariana Academy and is entering her sophomore year. Despite her youth, she has high ambitions of becoming a top tier investigative journalist. Her idolization of Edward R. Murrow takes the form of imaginary conversations with the man, whom she revamps as her spiritual mentor. Her family has initiated the move at the prompting of her therapist. Jonah Kaplan was once a student at Mariana. He went on to earn a Ph.D. in microbiology and is scheduled to begin research funded by a modest grant in entomology in the spring. In the interim, he has returned to Mariana as a teacher, determined to divert his students to the elusive pursuit of knowledge and not just grades. He is also motivated by a personal makeover project. Like Iris, his story hints of a troubled past. The makeover is a naïve endeavor, Justin concludes: “I'd been deluded, thinking I could return to Mariana, and not encounter my past at every turn, but I had always imagined my adult self and my boyhood as a double helix: twisted threads that traveled in a spiral but never actually made contact. Returning...had tangled the strands together.” (p.108)

The second timeline takes place a scant twelve years earlier. In 1999 Jonah Kaplan was a student along with his brother Justin, the headmaster's daughter Lily, and an intense classics major named Hazel. Each in his own way is an outsider. Lily is an albino, Jonah and Justin are both socially awkward and wrestle with sibling rivalry issues, and Hazel is a close friend to both of them. These events are told from Lily's point of view through third person narrative, as well as Jonah's as flashbacks.

Two mysteries are presented to hold the reader's interest. The first concerns the truth about what happened 12 years ago. The second concerns the identity and intentions of an underground student organization which styles itself as an anti-establishment avenger bent on exposing hypocrisy. However, its actions include staging flash-mobs, cyber bullying, vandalism, and making surreptitious surveillance tapes.

Miller captures the painful ambivalence of adolescence perfectly. Iris considers the development of her acquaintanceship with another student named Peter. “I was starting to think there were two Peter McCaffreys: one of them awkward, the other confident. But there were multiple versions of me, too. The brazen girl, the shy girl, the good girl, and the grieving girl. Could all of these personalities exist in an integrated whole, or would one ultimately take over? And what if the wrong identity asserted itself?” (p.271) She might have gone on to add the multiplicity of conjured identities so easily summoned in this formative stage. Who hasn't wanted to change their clothes, their body, their interests, their style, in order to fit in with some random clique that represented a version of adulthood or sophistication or talent? Those elements are poignantly expressed in Lily's story. The attractions in this adolescent world feel more like imprinting than relationships.

Miller's narrative of Lily's story is especially strong. Unfortunately, these elements do not begin to coalesce until the final third of the book.

The development of Iris's character felt unconvincing. She is quick to assure the reader that she realizes her conversations with Murrow are imaginary. However, that reassurance erases the incipient tension of a psychological thriller. The conceit soon wears thin, and her constant self-editing of cliché feels like affectation. Ethical paradoxes are touched upon obliquely and from a vantage point of safety.

Dialogue is another problem. It is a difficult task to straddle profound insights articulated with clarity and the shorthand patois of adolescent conversation. One way around this is through introspective glimpses. Sometimes, Miller applies this technique brilliantly. Iris reflects on the effects of grief, including her own. “Hazel talked about grief like it was a carnivorous parasite, destroying the person you'd been before it infected you.” (p.234) Jonah's internal dialogues, however, felt indistinguishable from Iris's. Perhaps because of the scant age divide of only 12 years, a large part of him still felt very adolescent.

This was a strong “coming of age” book that promised more but failed to deliver. I wanted more.

[Emily]

I've promised myself that I will stop finishing books that I dislike. This seems like a redo of Special Topics in Calamity Physics, and I've maxed out on my East Coast prep for this year with Seating Arrangements. I already think this book is ridiculous. Back to the library it goes!

[Blair · Rating 4 out of 5]

If I had to sum this book up in just one word, it would be FUN. When I think about it, I imagine everything in the book taking place in super-bright Technicolor, but also having a kind of retro sheen - it has a distinctive 80s/90s feel, which I think made it a particularly enjoyable experience to me because I grew up reading the YA novels of that time. It is an adult book but it's also something of a love letter to that particular type of YA (think Point Horror/Point Crime and, one of my personal favourite series that probably nobody else remembers, The Mystery Club) that now seems rather quaint. It certainly has dark themes but it's a very easy read and has a lightness of touch that stops any of the bad things that happen from actually seeming at all horrifying. It would make a good film!

Things I liked:
- The setting. Obviously. It's a private school with a strange history, full of privileged, competitive kids behaving exactly as you would expect them to, except this school has a weird, zealous emphasis on equality and a rather liberal interpretation of whatever its curriculum is supposed to be. It's instantly captivating.
- The plot is a proper, old-fashioned mystery. The kind where everyone has terrible secrets and has done dark deeds and all the characters are a little eccentric and possibly mad. I mean, there's a secret society that publishes newsletters exposing staff and pupils' misdemeanours! And nobody knows who they are! How could you not want to know more about that?
- Iris is a really engaging heroine. Once I got past a bit of initial annoyance at her precociousness, I was completely rooting for her to get to the bottom of the mystery and succeed in her aspirations to be a prize-winning journalist. I even loved her imagined conversations with Edward R. Murrow, to the point that I was annoyed when her love interest was introduced because I knew she'd be speaking to him instead.
- Although I liked Iris a lot, I was glad the other narratives (Jonah and Lily) had been included because, if there hadn't been at least one adult voice, this would have felt too light to be classified as anything other than YA.
- That said, it still reminded me of all the best things about the YA books I read when I was a near-teenager/young teen. It's occasionally schlocky, silly and even slightly surreal, but all the better for that!

Reservations I had:
- The opening is too fast-moving. There's no sense of Iris adjusting to Mariana and no real suggestion of how she feels about being uprooted and thrown into an unfamiliar environment; nor does it seem like any of her new classmates react to her at all.
- While I enjoyed the often-quirky description, the book sometimes felt like it was a little overwritten.
- Iris and Jonah's narratives are too similar, stylistically speaking, to be believable as individual voices.
- Some of the details stretch the truth too far, even for a YA-alike novel, for example the cameras being all over the school and yet remaining undetected, even when incriminating photographs taken from mysterious angles had been published and seen by all the staff and pupils.

[Jeanette (Ms. Feisty) · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars
Inventive, darkly charming, well written, and absolutely preposterous. Miller creates some fascinating characters and develops them quite well as she weaves together the lives of several students past and present at a Massachusetts prep school. She took it a little too far for it to be a convincing portrayal, but I enjoyed entering the strange world of science geeks, an albino outcast, and an aspiring journalist who has imaginary conversations with Edward R. Murrow.

If you have a fondness for the fictional prep school milieu, you'll happily take the bait on this one.

[Sheila · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 stars--I liked the book. What I liked: the dual timelines. The multiple points of view. The secret society and school setting (always a sucker for a good elite prep school in fiction). Iris, the intrepid girl reporter. Things I didn't like: lack of character motivations. The insta-connection characters feel for no reason. Muddled plot details. Kind of a mixed bag, but overall entertaining.

[Sarah · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm a little sad and a little angry that someone spent so much time writing this book and ended up with such a turd.

Character motivations make no sense, with the occasional exception of Iris (she's so tiny! But with perky tits!). Jonah (why is everyone named like they attend a Park Slope daycare?)--why would Jonah come back to the school, given his role in the you-know-what? And why would the board of directors approve a huge salary (several times the usual) for a troublemaking ex-student? They said in the book PhD teachers are not that unusual at the school. Hazel, we are told, is charismatic and larger than life, but the author will be damned if she'll show us anything other than Hazel acting like a creepy jerk. OK, I guess I didn't hate Lily, but she deserves a better book.

The accident takes place in December or June, depending on which chapter you're reading (either that, or the writing is terrible, and I'm not willing to forgive either). The mystery is not that challenging. The pacing is off--by the time Iris (tiny!) discovers that Justin and Jonah were brothers, the reader is like, "Duh, we knew that 100 pages ago." Oh, and tiny, tiny Iris likes to speak with the ghost of Edward R. Murrow, because why the hell not?

What I really want to say is, don't read this.

[Phee · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

I've been trying to do better at splitting my free time between my hobbies. I have a pretty obsessive personality so when I get into something I get really into it. That means I blaze through books or TV shows or whatever else I'm doing. I focus on that and only that.
Usually when I read a book, though I don't mean to, I compete with myself. How quickly can I get this finished? You need to get X number of pages read today and this many tomorrow etc. I get anxious that I'm taking to long to read a book and I forget that I'm actually doing this for fun. Despite the fact the only person that I am reading for is me. So I am trying so hard to go slower. To have days where it's perfectly fine for me have only read a chapter or two in a day. For it be absolutely okay for me to take 4 days to read a book I would normally read in 1. It's so hard and I have slipped up a little. But I really want to start loving what I'm reading again.
We put so much focus on the number of books we read that we forget to actually enjoy them. As I'm getting older I am starting to realise that I want quality over quantity. That's why I DNF so many books these days. I want to read the books that sound right up my street. I don't have to read what is popular and I certainly don't have to like them.

I picked up this book because I found it on a list of books like 'The Secret History'. I absolutely love that book. In fact I am planning a reread very soon. I wanted a book to give me those vibes again. And to a point, I got a book that certainly has a kinship with The Secret History. But is also unique and its own thing. Dark histories, academia, secret school clubs, sinister happenings and more than a few mysteries to unravel. It's many facets and layers give it depth and while I think that the characters were a bit weak at times, it was so nice to just get absorbed into a book again. What is it about school/campus novels that I just love so much.
At its heart it is a coming of age story. I don't typically like reading books from younger characters perspective but this one felt more like an adult novel whilst being set at a school. I think it helped having the chapters from Jonah's perspective (he is 29). He grounded the seriousness of the themes and turned what could have been a YA book about high school into something that any adult can resonate with.
I guess this book is exactly what I needed and what I wanted.
So if you want a book like the Secret History but also not at all like the the Secret History then maybe give this a read?

[Craig · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is an odd one. Intensely over-written and in need of cutting about 1/3 of the content. Splitting up the narrative voice between first person (2 characters) and third person (one character) is a lame way to create mystery - and just trust me, the reveal of the "mystery" is almost the dumbest reveal in the history of fiction. Spoiler: the graffiti did it. Sigh. Really?!

To that, this is first novel syndrome at work: too many ideas on display and often in competition with one another. I never connected with the characters, and the "we're still holding on to the glory days of high school" reveal is pretty pathetic. I also don't buy that a 14 year old girl would even know who Murrow is, and that's the most intriguing contradiction of the book, and the one that gets explored the least.

Note to authors: if you write a character as a blowhard for talking about his education, it might be a good idea to leave references about your Alma maters out of your author bio. No one cares as much as you do.

[Jill · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a difficult book for me to evaluate, because there is no way I’m going to enjoy reading about the bullying and psychological torture of young kids. For that matter, I am ill-disposed from the very beginning to like reading about private academies for privileged kids. There are some aspects to the plot that intrigued me though, and I wanted to see how they played out.

It seems like there are only two types of students at Mariana Preparatory Academy in Nye, Massachusetts: incredibly cruel, or incredibly stupid. The former prey on the latter, as you might expect. The faculty isn’t much better, but to describe them we can add a third category: ineffectual.

The story is told from three points of view. Iris Dupont, 15, a new student at Mariana, wants to be a reporter. Her hero is Edward R. Murrow, and she frequently conducts “conversations” with him in her head. She and her family are residing at the temporarily empty house of the former Mariana headmaster who is away in London. Iris is sleeping in the former bedroom of the daughter, Lily, who provides the second point of view.

Lily is an albino who attended Mariana at the same time as one of Iris’s teachers, Jonah Kaplan. Jonah tells the story from the third point of view. Jonah’s twin brother, Justin, used to be Lily’s boyfriend.

One additional main character has a large role in the story but no point of view of her own, and that is Hazel Greenburg, a contemporary of Lily, Jonah, and Justin, who is important to all of the other characters.

Mariana’s environment is intense; the students are under pressure from their parents to perform academically so they can get into the best schools. They also are subject to the usual adolescent stress to belong, to fit in, and to be popular. Fueled by the influence of a few unbalanced individuals, they come to take all of this tension out on each other. Miller is showing us an “extreme” ecosystem, which is the focus of Jonah Kaplan’s curriculum in science class. As the author explains:

"Extremophile is a scientific category, which literary means “extreme loving.” … The name applies to microscopic organisms that thrive in places inhospitable to life…. I think that’s a pretty apt summary of teenage life…”

And yet, as Mr. Kaplan explains in class, these organisms cannot survive in a “normal” environment. They are trapped, just as the students are trapped in the prep school with its distorted survival mechanisms. Some survive by attacking those who are weaker; some react to the isolation and despair by capitulation to the mutant social system; and some even choose suicide. Iris wants to believe she is better than the others, but she, too, adapts to her new habitat. Even Edward R. Murrow, Iris is finally forced to admit, harbored a complexity and darkness at odds with his public image.

Discussion: One of the recurring discussions in the book is over whether those who give in to the bullying of or entrapment by the stronger students are culpable. As one victim thinks to himself:"You are gullible and disgusting; you brought all of this on yourself.”

It is interesting that every single one of the victims has a similar reaction.

The bulliers justify their behavior in a similar way:"People act within their nature. [The victims] didn’t have to participate… but [they] did.”

The collaborators in bullying too have excuses:"What were we supposed to do? We trusted [that person, who] changed our lives, pulled us out of our pitiful, weak existences….”

At the end of the book, most of the bulliers have not learned anything, nor have the collaborators. This is perhaps the scariest message of the book. Maybe they couldn’t live with themselves if they thought they were wrong. But maybe whatever made them act like that in the first place is so strong that they are impermeable to self-doubt.

I’m not sure how Iris comes out of this. She knows she “had become lost in a moral maze” but she is still so lonely and in search of connection that it’s not clear the choice she makes at the end of the book is any wiser.

Evaluation: The author did a fairly good job of keeping my interest in spite of my dislike of the subject matter and virtually all of the characters. I can’t honestly say I had fun reading it; it is a pretty nightmarish story. But I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it for a book club: there are plenty of issues in this provocative book to keep any discussion group happy.

[Starry · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is of in the elite prep school mystery genre, like Donna Tartt's The Secret History and like Marisha Pessl's Special Topics in Calamity Physics.

I don't know, maybe I'm too old for this kind of book. I read the others years ago. But I just couldn't get excited about high school dramatics this time around, kids learning that it's more important to be yourself than to try fitting in with the popular kids. Seriously, you reach my age and, well, let's hope you're beyond that lesson. But that's my problem, not the book's.

I give the author credit for her pacing of the action and how she keeps the suspense going as the plot and its twists are revealed. I imagine that to be the hardest part of writing a book of this sort, so kudos to first-time fiction writer Ms. Miller.

There are also some clever bits in here: thoughtful playing with themes (eg, extremophiles) and use of language.

The parts that bothered me, were:
1. The main characters' voices. Jonah is a 29-yr-old PhD returning to his alma mater to teach science and to teach students how to think for themselves; Iris is a precocious freshman and the only person who is able to think for herself. They're both annoying and neither is entirely believable. When the action focuses on Iris' perspective, the narrator uses every big word imaginable, like a newbie writer or a 14-yr-old who thinks she's really smart. Yes, that fits with who Iris is, but it's also really distracting, like bad writing. Iris is not endearing -- pitiable, but not likeable. Jonah is even worse. In his past, he was supposed to be a fireball, but he never does anything fireball-ish. In the present, he uses horrible science analogies. Seriously, I can tell you that no self-respecting microbiology PhD talks that way. We just don't.

2. In the last pages of the book, the author writes, "prep school scandals are like cheap sex for the American public..." While parts of the book feel pretentious, other parts feel like tabloid-esque sex scandals. It cheapens the novel and its theme.

[Diane S ☔ · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have to say I am drawn to any book with an academic setting and this book took me right back to high school days. Iris is not quite your ordinary 14 yr. old, as she seriously wants to become a journalist, and her hero is Edward Murrow, who she talks to quite often. Yes, she knows he is dead but the fact really alarms her parents. Mariana Academy is a school for intense students who want to go to an ivy league colleges and it was founded by Prisom with a serious honor code. There is a group Prism Party, that is bent on revealing all infractions of the honor code, by students or teachers. But is Prisom Party good or are they out for their own nefarious purposes. This is one of the things Iris hopes to find out. Miller does a wonderful job exposing the vulnerability, self consciousness and heartbreak of the high school years. She uses three different characters for her narration, a great vehicle for exposing the reader to all sides of the story. This is a remarkably well written, yet easy to follow story, showing the many ways that these school days mark our lives for good or bad and that some people can never progress from those days. I am so glad I have and also glad that I do not have to go back and do them again. Will appeal to fans of coming of age stories, those who like academic settings and those who like very likable young characters.

[Emily Crowe · Rating 3 out of 5]

As much as I dislike the aches and stuffiness associated with having a cold, I love the fact that I get more reading done when I'm sick than when I'm well. Must have something to do with the hours spent lying horizontal on the bed or library loveseat, and if I take a medicinal sip of bourbon every now and again to heal my sore throat, what of it? (Yes, I drink lots of hot tea with honey & lemon, but I swear that they don't feel like they're doing half the good that a shot of whiskey does.)

Anyway, I digress. The other day I started and finished two novels with similar settings, beginning the first one at about 4:45 am when I was too congested to sleep/breathe lying down, and finishing the second one around 10:30 that night. If I'd known just how similar they were, I probably would've separated my reading of them by more than 15 minutes. By the time I came to the end of the second one, I was having a little trouble separating the details from the two books, but that says more about my frame of mind after reading two books back-to-back at my advanced age than it does about the books themselves.

The Year of the Gadfly by Jennifer Miller captures one of my favorite settings/genres: academia, particularly prep schools. It also happens to be set in western Massachusetts, not far from where I live, so it gets bonus points for that! Anyway, Iris Dupont is a teenager living in Boston when her best and only friend commits suicide. A sensitive and curious girl by nature, she deals with the trauma by having conversations with her imaginary friend, the ghost of Edward R. Murrow. Instead of letting their daughter adjust in her own time, her parents decide to enroll Iris at Mariana Academy, a prestigious prep school two hours west of the city in the Berkshire mountains, so that she can "make a clean break of things." All this really does is isolate Iris further and drive her to use the mute button for her ongoing conversations with Murrow.

At Mariana, though, not all is as placid as it seems on the surface. There's corruption in the self-governing student body, the student newspaper is a joke, the headmaster has the local clout to prevent all kinds of incidents from reaching the media, and the members of the mysterious, rabble-rousing secret society called Prisom's Party are the only ones brave enough and dedicated to the truth to do anything about it.

Or are they? There are some voices who whisper that Prisom's Party delivers justice that is heavy on the vigilante, light on the actual justice.

In the meantime, new science teacher Mr. Kaplan is trying to start a revolution on his own by getting his students to think for themselves, question authority, and seek Truth with a capital T, leaving him unpopular with the administration. His extreme, occasionally bullying methods, leave him unpopular with most of the pampered and privileged students as well, since most of them want nothing more than to earn their A for the course and move on to their Ivy League college of choice.

Except Iris, of course, whose determination to uncover the secrets of the Prisom's Party leads her into both the near and distant past of Mariana Academy, and what she finds is troubling. Very troubling indeed. Because more than one student's sanity, or possibly even life, is at stake, and she learns first hand the seduction of power and the shifting shape of truth.

The Year of the Gadfly has the right blend of edginess and day-to-day life to make it an exceedingly quick read. Fans of the prep school sub-genre, conspiracy theories, Donna Tartt's The Secret History, or Rachel DeWoskin's Big Girl Small will find much to appreciate here. Its point of view dodges back and forth between past and present, and among two different first-person narratives and two different third-person ones, a style that usually bothers me quite a bit, but Miller carries it off well enough here. What I liked most about the book, though, is the way it exposes the capacity for brutality that exists within us all. Well, that and a character who is always asking herself, "What would Ed Murrow do?"

Some passages I liked:

"You'd have thought that the Academic League would be more understanding of Iris's quirkiness. They weren't exactly the social creme de la creme. But contrary to popular belief, high school did not run according to a horizontal social hierarchy with the nerds as serfs to the popular despots. The alliances and antagonisms were more complicated than the political dealings of a Third World country. In high school you never knew who was your enemy and who was your friend (154)."

"I felt liberated, free of my previous teenage angst. Though I once believed my superior intelligence would protect me from this Salinger-induced adolescent cliche, it had not. Angst is like the chicken pox -- anyone under the age of twenty-five is susceptible. But as with chicken pox, once you've had your angst, you become more or less immune. How else could high school teachers do their jobs? (187-188)"

This is one of my favorite descriptions of New England mud season. It describes my feelings exactly: "This snow melted into fetid bogs. In those early days of March, you couldn't walk two feet without accruing diarrhetic splatters on the backs of your legs or hearing the sucking, slurping sound of your shoes in the muck (217)."

[Patty · Rating 5 out of 5]

 



This book is one of those books about private school (that I love), a secret society and a girl reporter who likes to chat with Edward R. Murrow.
My thoughts...
Iris and her family have moved to a new town and a new school.  I am imagining Iris as a bit on the odd side.  She carries around a sort of briefcase and she styles herself as a reporter in the manner of her idol, Edward R. Murrow.  She is on the school newspaper but her ideas are severely restricted by the editor.  She feels a kinship, a connection to her science teacher who also attended school here years ago.  There is a sort of shrouded mystery going on with acts of bullying and both Iris and her science teacher are trying to find out who is involved. There are also secrets and questions about Mr. Kaplan and what happened to him while he was at this school twelve years ago.
To be perfectly honest...I didn't get invested in this novel immediately.  There are flashbacks...lots of them. The story alternates between school now and school then.  I was reading an egalley on my iPad and constantly checking back to keep characters and events straight in my head was tricky.  Soon, however, I came to a point in my reading where I felt as though I knew the characters and knew the times that everything was happening. This was my point of total and thorough immersion in this novel.
Iris is approached by masked classmates with a secret task to carry out...or else.   The members of this secret society have the ability to bully, scare and manipulate.  Iris has been "chosen" to work for this group but... is she really working for this group?   Who actually is doing the manipulating?  Mr. Kaplan is also tasked by the school's headmaster to find out who is in this secret club. The mystery just gets more and more complex and fascinating.
Added to this mystery is a tragedy that occurred while Mr. Kaplan was a student.  It involved three other students...Hazel, Lily, and Mr. Kaplan's twin brother.  Iris is actually living in the house that Lily lived in...in Lily's room with Lily's things.  This only makes her more curious about what happened then and sort of connects her to Mr. Kaplan now.  
What did I love about this novel?
Hmmm...
What I loved was the way the author connected then and now.  I loved the quirky parts of Iris.  I loved the surprises.  Characters I thought were sweet and nice...really were just the opposite.  I loved the weak parts of some of the characters as much as I loved their strong parts.  I loved the slow reveal and that moment near the end when all the plot pieces and character actions fell neatly into place.
This book is different, surprising, and thought provoking. It is complicated.  It drew me in slowly with its complex plot.  It kept me guessing about its nice and often not so nice characters.  It gave me lots to think about.  It made me feel sad about what happened and it made me feel angry about wasted lives and the blindness of people.  And at the end of the book...I was able to have hope for them....especially Iris and Mr. Kaplan and Lily.
I do like that from a book.
So...ultimately...should you read this book?
Should it be Kindled, Nooked, purchased, placed in a must read pile?
My answer to that would be yes!!!
The author wrote it brilliantly.  There are so many things that you will learn by reading it.  I can't even begin to tell you about the science part of it...the quirky parts of Iris that melted my heart.  In spite of me not getting it at first...and that is just me...
it unravelled in just the right way.  
I am still thinking about the complex character relationships.  Still pondering the ending...
Sigh!
Thanks to Hannah and Carla at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt...
I have a lovely hard copy to give away...
Just leave your email in the comments...I will random.org a winner next Friday!
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars
This really is a story about the outcasts of a high school. I am not talking about the troublemakers or those who purposefully hold themselves apart but the intellectual nerd who just don't fit in. You know in 10-15 years they will computer millionaires, future Nobel Prize winners, research scientists or some other successful professional but for those important high school years, they just don't belong. They tend to congregate together not from any real liking but because there's really no one else to hang out with.
Iris Dupont is one of those nerds. She has long discussions with the ghost of Edward R Murrow about her future journalism career. She has just moved to a new town and a new school and doesn't fit in there. She meets a teacher, Mr. Kaplan (Jonah), who inspires her and lives in the room of the former headmaster's daughter, Lily. As she noses around, she starts to unravel the story of Lily, Jonah, and Hazel's (her new "mentor") high school years at the same school she attends.
The story is told from Iris, Lily andJonah's point of view which is quite a feat. The story fluctuates between now and 1999, when the adults were in school. It sounds more confusing than it is. Each voice is authentic and the different stories fit together well. There is a mystery of the death of Jonah's twin brother and it is resolved very tidily.
An entertaing read and the characters are so alive, so believable that you are drawn in immediately and throughout the story. I highly recommend this.

[Carol · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book just never connected with me for some reason. Couldn't believe that the main character was only 14 years old and her "talking" with Edward R. Murrow was just ridiculous. It was very slow and plodding in the beginning.

While no doubt teenage sub-groups in a school can wield tremendous power over fellow students, it is doubtful that such groups can exert the KGB-like control that the author bestows on Prisom's Party. Beyond those elements of implausibility, main story threads are not all that gripping; they get lost in the disjointed telling.

[Erincarlyle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jennifer Miller's 14-year-old protagonist, Iris, is a delightful, intense and precocious protagonist. Iris's insatiable curiosity and insistence on communing with the ghost of her journalism hero, Edward R. Murrows, coupled with her charming loathing for cliches, makes The Year of the Gadfly a must-read from page one. Jennifer Miller's debut novel intrigues, dazzles, and moves. Certain to be a popular choice among book club devotees as well as lovers of exquisite writing the world over.

[Emi Yoshida · Rating 1 out of 5]

YA. Smug little sh*t 14-yr old shows no respect to completely ineffective parents. Guy Noir-type schtickiness so irritating I can't even.

[Sharon Estok montecalvo · Rating 1 out of 5]

Didn't even make it to page 50. The jacket summary sounded much more interesting than the book itself was.

[Samantha Trillium (Just Reading in the Rain)☂ · Rating 3 out of 5]

The mystery in this story was enough to keep my attention but I did not warm to many of the characters and I think that really took away from the grand scheme of things in this book.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

My favorite parts of the book were Lily's POV and the mystery of her and Justin.

The twist at the end felt kind of underwhelming and I think it should've been explored more

[tatum · Rating 3 out of 5]

not a fav but reading the boston parts was very fun for me, a girl currently in boston

[Doreen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have a weakness for prep school novels. Having gone to public, private and boarding schools, I love the idealized and/or scandalous versions presented in the genre, because they make my own experiences feel less insane. So when I saw the blurb for The Year Of The Gadfly in Glamour magazine a month or so ago, I put it on my mental to-read list, though wasn't going to make a particular point of getting the book till it came out at my local public library.

And then Jennifer Miller ambushed me here on Goodreads (in the nicest way possible) and next thing you know, I'm sitting in the front row of her book-signing at Politics & Prose, listening to her read excerpts from the novel. I had to clear a small backlog of other reading before I could finally start TYOTG, and at first it was a little odd, as I kept hearing Ms Miller's voice in my head as I read (which is especially disconcerting when the narrator for about a third of the book is a 20-something male.) But once I got past the bits she'd read aloud, it was easy to immerse myself in the distinct voice of each narrator, and lose myself in the layered, nuanced plot.

As far as prep school novels go, TYOTG is definitely on the better end of the scale. I'd rate it closer to The Secret History and The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie than to A Separate Peace (which I read in my early 20s -- my much younger brother read it at the same time and loved it, but I was unimpressed) or the perfectly awful Prep. The central mystery is unraveled subtly (though several clues are marked with neon signs, with no explanation of why they're there except to point us in the "right" direction) but, to me, finding out what really happened at the turn of the century isn't the point of this book. While Jonah is an important part of the narrative, the book really belongs to Iris and, to a slightly lesser extent, Lily. Lily's travails at Mariana Academy made my heart lurch for her, but Iris is the one who carries the book, powering through her fears and mixed emotions to focus on what's most important to her: her journalistic ambitions. It was a nice change to read a book with a heroine who wasn't punished for putting her own self-actualization first (and the matter-of-fact lack of vanity at the end was pretty awesome.) I also really enjoyed reading both sides of her relationship with Jonah. I appreciate that Iris never quite manages to come to terms with her feelings for him, but carries on regardless. She's a great character, and one of my favorite young heroines in recent memory. I only wish the progression of her relationship with Murrow had been drawn out a little longer: what happened near the end seemed a bit sudden, especially since she'd relied on him for so long.

I also enjoyed the character of Hazel very much. I was almost seduced by some of what she said near the middle, so thoroughly understood her effect on others. I didn't quite get why she wasn't arrested for assault after what she did to Iris but I soon forgot that as the novel moved towards its luminous end. I was actually a bit disappointed that it stopped where it did, though I suppose Ms Miller intended for the reader's imagination to provide a better scene than any she cared to furnish -- I always appreciate when an author trusts her readers with enough intelligence to do so.

A wonderful book, and while I usually sigh with annoyance when contacted by authors on Goodreads about their work, I'm very glad Ms Miller took the time to e-mail me about hers.

[Sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Iris is a fourteen-year-old aspiring reporter whose parents move to get away from everything, enrolling her in Mariana Academy - a private prep school with so many secrets just waiting for her to discover. Iris is kind of a loner, but she thinks she's found someone who understands her in her science teacher, Mr. Kaplan (Jonah), because of their shared experiences. In an effort to better understand her new world, Iris sends herself undercover, investigating Mr. Kaplan's own time spent as a student at Mariana and Prisom's Party, a secret society at the school that exposes secrets and scandals as they see fit.

The story is told from three perspectives - Iris's, Jonah's, and Lily's (Lily's part takes place 12 years earlier, when she and Jonah were students at Mariana). At first, their voices sort of blended together because they sounded so similar, but as the book went on, I really enjoyed the different narratives. All were telling the same story, but at different points, and from vastly different perspectives. I loved getting to see Iris investigate a mystery she really knew nothing about, while Jonah stressed about how past and his present converging, and Lily describing events in her own life as they unfolded - the same events that Iris was looking into and Jonah continually thought about.

I'm not quite sure how to classify this book. It wasn't a full mystery or thriller, despite the secret society aspect and the fact that Iris was trying to investigate something, and it wasn't a young adult/teen novel despite Iris's age and the high school setting. Instead, the book was fairly quiet with so many thoughtful sentiments and a lot of interesting turns. It's not a style that's for everyone, I'm sure, but I loved it. The writing was beautiful, and I continually highlighted passages because of how much the sentiment resonated with me. I'd actually originally borrowed this book from the library but because I couldn't renew it, I ended up buying a copy; I'm glad I did, as this is one I may reread or reference in the future. It was just beautiful.

The best part of this book, for me, was not the plot itself or even the characters. I simply loved the way that the author used the story to illustrate - without a heavy hand! - how high school experiences stay with you and mold you into the adult you'll eventually become. I loved seeing the ways these characters responded to problems and how they'd grown - or not - due to circumstances they'd been thrust into and choices they'd made. It was such a nice depiction of secrets and longings and how everything mixed together to manifest itself later in life. There was a lot of retrospect and thoughtfulness throughout, and it was exactly the sort of slow-paced book that is probably underrated overall but just so good.

I loved so much about this book and would easily recommend it to others with the disclaimer that it's not action packed or particularly thrilling but simply a really wonderful story about the complexities in life. I'm so glad I read this and will be definitely picking up future books by this author.

[Vicki · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hovering around 1.5

I think Miller put her money on a “proven” formula: prep school + secret society = narrative gold.

Here’s what we got: Prep school + secret society + flimsy characters + a dash of wtf = why did I fall for this, get me out of here.

I knew I was going to be annoyed with a 14-year-old “journalist.” Overly inquisitive, irritatingly dedicated. That fly buzzing around your head. Wouldn't have felt this way if I found Iris clever, witty or winsome. But she ended up being like 5 steps behind “the enemy” and quite clueless in the end. I wanted a Veronica Mars, and I got a kid playing grown up.

So I skimmed it. Not the whole thing…just like 60% of it. And by skimmed I mean, I read the dialogue and could give a crap about all the mundane descriptions and shallow commentary. That all became filler, just puffing up the book so it doesn't seem like you can pretty much get the full sense of it in the dialogue—but you can.

And then the structure of the book gave me friggin whiplash! Why did anyone think it was a good idea to have 3 different perspectives that change every single chapter?? It reminded me of Thirteen Reasons Why (that book I loathe) and how it was so frustrating having to actively think,Ok, this is Clay talking now. Same thing happened here. Your characters, Miller, do not each have well-defined, distinct voices, so all the voices sound the same. I often read a chapter thinking it was Iris’ voice when it was actually Jonah’s: Confusion ensues. I think you have to be really good at character development to handle that many perspectives, and I'm not convinced Miller is.

But I appreciated the attempt at intellectualism. The book is separated into 6 sections, introduced with a quote from a scientific text Iris comes across, called “Marvelous Species: Investigating Earth’s Mysterious Biology.” Anything thought provoking about The Year of the Gadfly comes from these quotes and how they relate to character behavior throughout. For instance:

“These extremophiles thrive in darkness, feeding on poisonous methane and sulfur gases. The renowned molecular philosopher Lucinda Starburst has written that ‘intraterrestrials grow strong on substances utterly destructive to human life, and yet they shape our lives at the most fundamental level. They force us to reexamine what it means to create and destroy, to benefit and harm.”

Extremophiles, intraterrestrials, whatever you want to call them—they’re a cool source of comparison to what the book’s secret society, Prisom’s Party, is and stands for. But it somehow turned juvenile when the characters started referencing it. Let readers infer what they will from the quotes; retain a modicum of subtly. Instead, we get a teacher who introduces the idea at the very beginning of the book, with that nauseating, condescending contrarian-teacher-challenges-a-classroom’s-whole-perspective-on-life cliché. Really—get me out of here.

[Laurel-Rain · Rating 5 out of 5]

Set in a New England prep school, "The Year of the Gadfly" takes the reader into the very halls and dungeons of a school that prides itself on its honor code, yet seemingly maintains a studied ignorance of a secret society that has thrived for years and now threatens its placid halls.

Enter Iris Dupont, budding journalist who carries the baggage of a recent loss. Into the world of Nye, Massachusetts and the Mariana Academy, she comes wearing her hopes and dreams on her sleeve, even as she presents with a pseudo-sophistication combined with a fierce desire to fit in. Never mind the presence of her secret mentor, Edward R. Murrow, who speaks to her on a regular basis.

Science teacher Jonah Kaplan, who has a Ph.D., but prefers the title "Mr.," seemingly stands out in the crowd as Iris surveys her new domain, and she feels oddly connected to him.

What will unfold between these two as the story reveals itself? How will the past students at the academy insert themselves into the present day and resurrect some of the worst happenings of the school's history?

Narrated alternately by Iris, in first person; Lily, a previous student afflicted with albinism, and in whose home Iris now resides; and Jonah, also in first person voice, the tale flips between the past and the present, and introduces other characters, like Hazel, whose past connection to Jonah and his deceased twin Justin, as well as Lily, we slowly come to understand. And we clearly begin to realize how the past has informed the present.

The slow and unyielding revelations of past betrayals, horrific secrets, and cruel manipulations kept me turning these pages, even as I despised almost every character. But then again, like real humans, vulnerable and flawed, they each gave us a piece of the story that would have been incomplete without them.

I like this passage in Lily's voice, as she recalls Justin:

"A butterfly was the first insect he'd ever preserved and, according to his mother, a coming-of-age milestone on par with his bar mitzvah. Lily hated the term "coming of age" and its suggestion of menstrual cycles. But in this case, Mrs. Kaplan was right. The moment you killed something—a living creature or a false hope—was the moment you came of age. Loss of innocence wasn't a passive experience that happened TO you. It was something you gave up."

The themes and characters were totally engaging. This story stands out from the usual prep school tale in its depth and its unerring diligence at piercing through the facades and showing the truth, no matter how unpalatable. And the ending left me with a feeling of hope. Five stars.

[Natalie (Natflix&Books) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've always been enamored with the East Coast, especially New England. I love the fall foliage, the Victorian and Cape Cod houses, the fair isle sweaters, but more than anything, I love the schools. Growing up in small-town Wyoming, I fantasized about the prep and boarding schools on the East Coast. The gothic buildings, the ivy, the intellectual debates I thought must occur in the dorms. I still have a soft spot for this idealized world and if a synopsis of a book includes the words "prep school", I will almost always check it out.

The Year of the Gadfly by Jennifer Miller was an interesting, well-written addition to this world. It follows 14-year old Iris. A girl who is new to Mariana Academy. After her best friend committed suicide, her parents moved her to a small New England town named Nye for a fresh start. Iris is an aspiring journalist and frequently talks to the ghost of her ideal, Edward Murrow, the esteemed journalist. She wants to write real stories for her school newspaper, but is blocked by her editor who believes any story that hurts the reputation of Mariana will hurt the chances of the students getting into good schools. When the long-dormant secret society, Prisom's Party, starts to dole out their own brand of justice under the idea of the truth and brotherhood, Iris becomes intrigued and decides to do a little digging for a story.

Also interested in the society is Iris' science teacher, Jonah, a man in his 20s who went to Mariana Academy as a boy. He is returning to Nye for the first time since his twin brother's death 12 years earlier. He is happy to hear that the girl he loved in high school, Hazel, is also back in town and running and living in the Historical Society House.

The book follows two intertwining story lines, the present with Iris and adult Jonah and Hazel, and the year 2000 with Jonah and his brother, Hazel, and Justin's albino girlfriend, Lily, who grew up in the house where Iris and her family are staying while waiting for their own house to be completed. The chapters shift between time and characters, expertly weaving the stories together until its conclusion. The mystery of the society is intriguing and the writing is sharp and original.

I thoroughly enjoyed Year of the Gadfly and would recommend it to people who like stories based in academia. I look forward to reading what Jennifer Miller writes next.