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Higher Education
'Funny, sharp and tender, McPherson brings great insight to the struggle to reconcile where we’ve come from with who we want to be.'—Diana Reid
There’s who she is, where she’s from, and who she could become.
Sam is struggling to find her place at university. There are so many parts of her that don’t seem to fit—her family doesn’t understand her new life, and her new friends don’t know the secrets that she carries with the sudden death of her father, her brother’s trouble with the law, and her sense that she feels things that make her different.
That changes when a lecturer introduces Sam to Julia, his charming wife and a corporate lawyer who agrees to mentor Sam through law school. Their closeness provides a way for Sam to understand who she is, and who she wants to become.
With time, this unspools into a dynamic of mutual preoccupation and boundary crossing, as they navigate their feelings for one another, the appropriateness of their relationship, and where it might be heading.
Higher Education is a story about identity, intellectualism and class, and the transformative power of education from an exceptional new voice in Australian literary fiction.
Praise for Higher Education
' Higher Education is brilliantly sharp, comedic and insightful comment on class and growing up. This highly accomplished debut, from an author to watch, is a book for everyone’s to-read lists for 2023.'—Sara Jafari, author of The Mismatch
'Intelligent and funny, a book about being young and feeling old, and feeling smart and being dumb. Higher Education is an outsider story with a twist, a millennial novel with a playful quality as it subverts expectations. Beautiful, sharp writing about desire and confusion.'—Jarred McGinnis, author of The Coward
' Higher Education is a stimulating, witty and life-enhancing read. McPherson navigates the nuances between societal expectations and reality. Her characters remain with you, and the slow reveal of people and their privacies is a gift in McPherson's writing.'—Tice Cin, author of Keeping the House
There’s who she is, where she’s from, and who she could become.
Sam is struggling to find her place at university. There are so many parts of her that don’t seem to fit—her family doesn’t understand her new life, and her new friends don’t know the secrets that she carries with the sudden death of her father, her brother’s trouble with the law, and her sense that she feels things that make her different.
That changes when a lecturer introduces Sam to Julia, his charming wife and a corporate lawyer who agrees to mentor Sam through law school. Their closeness provides a way for Sam to understand who she is, and who she wants to become.
With time, this unspools into a dynamic of mutual preoccupation and boundary crossing, as they navigate their feelings for one another, the appropriateness of their relationship, and where it might be heading.
Higher Education is a story about identity, intellectualism and class, and the transformative power of education from an exceptional new voice in Australian literary fiction.
Praise for Higher Education
' Higher Education is brilliantly sharp, comedic and insightful comment on class and growing up. This highly accomplished debut, from an author to watch, is a book for everyone’s to-read lists for 2023.'—Sara Jafari, author of The Mismatch
'Intelligent and funny, a book about being young and feeling old, and feeling smart and being dumb. Higher Education is an outsider story with a twist, a millennial novel with a playful quality as it subverts expectations. Beautiful, sharp writing about desire and confusion.'—Jarred McGinnis, author of The Coward
' Higher Education is a stimulating, witty and life-enhancing read. McPherson navigates the nuances between societal expectations and reality. Her characters remain with you, and the slow reveal of people and their privacies is a gift in McPherson's writing.'—Tice Cin, author of Keeping the House
- GenresContemporary
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First published February 1, 2023
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214 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 41 reviews
January 31, 2023
DNF about 10% in
It’s like they got an AI to read Love and Virtue, Vladimir, and Normal People and write a story
Actually maybe ChatGPT would have done it better
It’s like they got an AI to read Love and Virtue, Vladimir, and Normal People and write a story
Actually maybe ChatGPT would have done it better
March 1, 2023
I think if it had speech marks I may have been able to enjoy it more!
October 31, 2023
Higher Education paints a vivid picture of Sam's journey as she treads the line between her modest upbringing and the unfamiliar realm of university life. With prose reminiscent of Rooney, the narrative thrives on intricate social dynamics and Sam's continuous struggle to find her footing.
I will admit though that the absence of quotation marks constantly hampers the flow, making the initial dive into the story challenging. I often found myself super confused as to who was talking and if they were talking which just led to frustration more times than I could count.
However, the book shines when it delves into Sam's relationship with Julia. This bond, infused with nuances, emotions, and vulnerabilities, becomes a sanctuary for Sam, offering her a glimpse into a life she yearns for. This is not a romance though, at all, and to be honest the conclusion was a tad depressing but very realistic.
I think I may have enjoyed this novel slightly more due to it being set in the state that I live in. I work in higher education and the university the book is set in feels very familiar. I also really enjoyed the depiction of uni life in a similar era to when I studied, and it honestly triggered a lot of nostalgia. A great feat for a novel.
Overall, Higher Education has its moments of brilliance, capturing the subtleties of ordinary life. Although its writing style might be polarising, there's an undeniable charm in its grounded narrative.
I will admit though that the absence of quotation marks constantly hampers the flow, making the initial dive into the story challenging. I often found myself super confused as to who was talking and if they were talking which just led to frustration more times than I could count.
However, the book shines when it delves into Sam's relationship with Julia. This bond, infused with nuances, emotions, and vulnerabilities, becomes a sanctuary for Sam, offering her a glimpse into a life she yearns for. This is not a romance though, at all, and to be honest the conclusion was a tad depressing but very realistic.
I think I may have enjoyed this novel slightly more due to it being set in the state that I live in. I work in higher education and the university the book is set in feels very familiar. I also really enjoyed the depiction of uni life in a similar era to when I studied, and it honestly triggered a lot of nostalgia. A great feat for a novel.
Overall, Higher Education has its moments of brilliance, capturing the subtleties of ordinary life. Although its writing style might be polarising, there's an undeniable charm in its grounded narrative.
April 6, 2023
Higher Education is a book about a young woman, Sam, navigating her 5 years at uni. It’s about the conflict between her poor working class upbringing and the shiny halls of university which she feels alien to. Written in a Rooney-esque style it is full of social observations and the logging of the protagonists every social calculation.
I didn’t love the first 2/3rds but really liked the last third. There’s this dynamic in the book where a lot of people say these left wing things and hate the system but it doesn’t resonate with the protagonist despite being far poorer. It kind of annoyed me that the leftists are not written as smart or nuanced leaving Sam’s moderacy to look intelligent in comparison. Also the lack of quotations marks did get to me. It detracted from the coherency of the writing making it difficult to read at first.
The most interesting thing about the book was her relationship with Julia. To me Julia and to a lesser degree Anselm are this shiny escape, they represent a life Sam wants. Julia becomes almost a person she sees as a sort of refuge, a feeling that doesn’t go unreciprocated by Julia. I really liked the conversation in the car where she told her she loved her, it caught me so off guard. That moment was so tense. All their interactions after that were made interesting by the confession hanging between them. And I kind I liked the way everything played out.
Overall there was something subtle and ordinary about the plot of the book which I appreciated despite finding the way it was written annoying at times.
I didn’t love the first 2/3rds but really liked the last third. There’s this dynamic in the book where a lot of people say these left wing things and hate the system but it doesn’t resonate with the protagonist despite being far poorer. It kind of annoyed me that the leftists are not written as smart or nuanced leaving Sam’s moderacy to look intelligent in comparison. Also the lack of quotations marks did get to me. It detracted from the coherency of the writing making it difficult to read at first.
The most interesting thing about the book was her relationship with Julia. To me Julia and to a lesser degree Anselm are this shiny escape, they represent a life Sam wants. Julia becomes almost a person she sees as a sort of refuge, a feeling that doesn’t go unreciprocated by Julia. I really liked the conversation in the car where she told her she loved her, it caught me so off guard. That moment was so tense. All their interactions after that were made interesting by the confession hanging between them. And I kind I liked the way everything played out.
Overall there was something subtle and ordinary about the plot of the book which I appreciated despite finding the way it was written annoying at times.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 8, 2024
some good little lines and nice prose but i felt a lot of depth or detail was missing and i didn't have enough to get into the main character's head. she should've been relatable--first in family to go to uni, queer, australian, etc--but i just couldn't connect. so much was hinted at but never fully explained
February 28, 2024
The lack of speech marks, jumping over months, general lack of detail and no character development at all, barely any plot development either, all of it. I almost DNF’d.
June 25, 2024
DNF page 53. In theory I should like this one but the writing style is painful and doesn’t allow the reader to feel involved or build closeness to any of the characters.
July 15, 2023
Quite an enjoyable read looking at the experience of a uni student as they (kind of) engage with the world around them. Could have gone deeper but the lack of depth was also the point, I think, so a bit of a catch 22.
May 20, 2024
yeah ouch lol
Read
January 13, 2023DNF @ 13%
June 17, 2024
To all the punctuation pedantics out there, you should know this book has no quotation marks…
I felt distanced from the story, like I was hearing a story of a friend of a friend, the sentences all jumbled together and left to me to piece together who was saying what versus what the narrator was commentating.
I also had no reason to root for the protagonist, Sam. In the opening chapter, we read that she was a bully at school. I expected to root for her redemptive arc, but no. It's pretty clear as the story goes on that she's a bland character who is making steady progress toward finishing her Arts/Law degree and that despite her impoverished upbringing, she stands a reasonable chance of becoming a lawyer. All of this seemed ordained; Sam didn’t have to fight for anything. She coasts through life and feels miserable anyway. Her emotional distance and introspection keeps her from pursing her relationship with Mink, and, well, how could she not read that Julia was straight and just as much of a heartless woman as Sam is?
The novel is structured in 5 parts, around the first 5 years of Sam's Arts/Law degree, and yet, the campus is utterly inconsequential to the plot. Despite the title 'Higher Education', Sam learns nothing at uni, nor in her mentorship with Julia or in her relationships. How can this be a novel about 'the transformative power of education' when Sam is the most static character in the novel? She is exactly at the end of the novel as at the start.
I wondered if the endorsers read a different book to the one I was reading because the endorsements made me think the story was deep and thought-provoking, but it didn’t deliver in the slightest.
I felt distanced from the story, like I was hearing a story of a friend of a friend, the sentences all jumbled together and left to me to piece together who was saying what versus what the narrator was commentating.
I also had no reason to root for the protagonist, Sam. In the opening chapter, we read that she was a bully at school. I expected to root for her redemptive arc, but no. It's pretty clear as the story goes on that she's a bland character who is making steady progress toward finishing her Arts/Law degree and that despite her impoverished upbringing, she stands a reasonable chance of becoming a lawyer. All of this seemed ordained; Sam didn’t have to fight for anything. She coasts through life and feels miserable anyway. Her emotional distance and introspection keeps her from pursing her relationship with Mink, and, well, how could she not read that Julia was straight and just as much of a heartless woman as Sam is?
The novel is structured in 5 parts, around the first 5 years of Sam's Arts/Law degree, and yet, the campus is utterly inconsequential to the plot. Despite the title 'Higher Education', Sam learns nothing at uni, nor in her mentorship with Julia or in her relationships. How can this be a novel about 'the transformative power of education' when Sam is the most static character in the novel? She is exactly at the end of the novel as at the start.
I wondered if the endorsers read a different book to the one I was reading because the endorsements made me think the story was deep and thought-provoking, but it didn’t deliver in the slightest.
January 8, 2024
I absolutely couldn’t get past the lack of speech marks in this book, I kept getting lost between conversation and story. Mentally i placed it in Melbourne and in the dying chapter realised it was set in Sydney. Confusing
June 3, 2025
i feel bad for writing such a bad review when the author is from my hometown but this reads like a draft rather than a fully finished novel. it was quite difficult to get through and honestly the only reason i did was because it was set in my hometown at roughly the same time i attended university. i really wanted to give it a chance and like this but it just did not work for me.
the novel spans over roughly 350 pages and it was honestly a struggle to finish. the pacing was poor and it was difficult to get a sense of time. it’s set over the five years of the protagonists law degree, however there are large skips in time of months/weeks and i had to keep
going back and rereading as i was getting confused.
SPOILER
for example sam’s brother mentions he might be going to jail, then this isn’t mentioned again and sam doesn’t really seem bothered. after a few chapters she gets a call from a custodial officer to say that - shock - her brother has been sentenced and is in jail. no one really seemed to care that he had an upcoming sentencing which is strange considering sam is studying law. i would have thought she would have better understood the gravity of the situation given she is supposedly a top law student.
other reviews have mentioned the lack of quotation marks for dialogue which makes the book really difficult to follow in some points. while authors like sally rooney use this device well, in Higher Education it’s often difficult to know whether someone is speaking or if it has switched back to the internal dialogue. this is probably down to the lack of any real narrative voice as all the characters (there is a whole ensemble, many of whom are mentioned once and never again) pretty much talk and sound the same, regardless of whether they’re a uni professor, a working class middle-aged man, or the protagonist herself- a young lesbian woman from a working class background who’s just begun her law degree at the start of the novel.
sam as a character seems flat and despite the book being set over five years you never get any real sense of who she is. likely a narrative choice as this is basically the whole crux of the novel, however it’s difficult to read a whole novel when you can’t even get a sense of why the character is doing what they do. supposedly sam is a high-performing student but you never really get any sense of that. she doesn’t seem to study much or have any particularly in-depth understanding of her chosen degree.
i gave two stars as there are a few decent bits and because the author really did give a good sense of place and you really get the sense of perth in the late-2000s/early 2010s.
the novel spans over roughly 350 pages and it was honestly a struggle to finish. the pacing was poor and it was difficult to get a sense of time. it’s set over the five years of the protagonists law degree, however there are large skips in time of months/weeks and i had to keep
going back and rereading as i was getting confused.
SPOILER
for example sam’s brother mentions he might be going to jail, then this isn’t mentioned again and sam doesn’t really seem bothered. after a few chapters she gets a call from a custodial officer to say that - shock - her brother has been sentenced and is in jail. no one really seemed to care that he had an upcoming sentencing which is strange considering sam is studying law. i would have thought she would have better understood the gravity of the situation given she is supposedly a top law student.
other reviews have mentioned the lack of quotation marks for dialogue which makes the book really difficult to follow in some points. while authors like sally rooney use this device well, in Higher Education it’s often difficult to know whether someone is speaking or if it has switched back to the internal dialogue. this is probably down to the lack of any real narrative voice as all the characters (there is a whole ensemble, many of whom are mentioned once and never again) pretty much talk and sound the same, regardless of whether they’re a uni professor, a working class middle-aged man, or the protagonist herself- a young lesbian woman from a working class background who’s just begun her law degree at the start of the novel.
sam as a character seems flat and despite the book being set over five years you never get any real sense of who she is. likely a narrative choice as this is basically the whole crux of the novel, however it’s difficult to read a whole novel when you can’t even get a sense of why the character is doing what they do. supposedly sam is a high-performing student but you never really get any sense of that. she doesn’t seem to study much or have any particularly in-depth understanding of her chosen degree.
i gave two stars as there are a few decent bits and because the author really did give a good sense of place and you really get the sense of perth in the late-2000s/early 2010s.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 3, 2025
It is difficult to write a review for this novel as I was friends with the author while at university together (2009-2013). We took some of the same courses and occasionally sat together.
McPherson captures the characters and the setting all too well. That was the vibe back then. It is like going back and looking at an old Facebook photo or post. Were we like that?
It is very particular in many ways and perhaps that is why some readers find it difficult to enter that world. In many other ways it is not very particular at all.
There are aspects of biography in this novel that I appreciate. It is still not auto-fiction. It is still fiction.
I’ll dump an extension of my review here. It is more of a response than a review, as I dug up something from a lecture sitting next to the author back in 2011.
https://open.substack.com/pub/normalm...
McPherson captures the characters and the setting all too well. That was the vibe back then. It is like going back and looking at an old Facebook photo or post. Were we like that?
It is very particular in many ways and perhaps that is why some readers find it difficult to enter that world. In many other ways it is not very particular at all.
There are aspects of biography in this novel that I appreciate. It is still not auto-fiction. It is still fiction.
I’ll dump an extension of my review here. It is more of a response than a review, as I dug up something from a lecture sitting next to the author back in 2011.
https://open.substack.com/pub/normalm...
January 2, 2024
A shame to see so many DNFs in the reviews for this book, because the story, characters and general sense of impetus warmed up so much in the second half. The first half meandered; it would have been better to edit it savagely down to its bare bones and get to the meat faster. Agree with other reviewers that the lack of speech marks achieved nothing except the occasional confusion as to whether someone was speaking or not, and more traditional grammatical choices would have strengthened this novel. I think McPherson’s next novel could be something special, especially if it does away with the Rooney-esque contrivances that nearly ruined this one.
June 19, 2024
As many others have said, the lack of speech marks was infuriating- I kept having to back-track and re-read sections, which impeded the flow of reading. Cleverer people than me have appreciated the references to Rousseau, Machiavelli, Baudelaire etc etc, all of which went right over my head. I had a lot of trouble visualising the story- usually when I read a novel, it’s like watching a film unfurl in my head- one of the joys of reading, but mostly I felt like I was crawling around in the dark, trying to work out where I was and what was going on.
April 25, 2023
A lot of potential but not quite there in the writing, please I cannot take anymore contemporary authors who don't use quotation marks 😩 I really enjoyed a lot of the relationship dynamics between so many of the characters but also the pacing felt super random and the protagonist is so annoyingly unaware of herself. Would defs improve volumes with deeper character development and clearer punctuation!!
May 4, 2023
I’m unsure how I felt about this book. The many one star reviews definitely left an impression and there where moments in the book where I was lost as to where the characters actually were but overall it wasn’t so bad ( a bit of editing would be great) but also I didn’t care for any of the characters too much as well hmm
November 15, 2024
The lack of quotation marks made it hard to follow the dialogue. Really dislike this trend. Also felt like the words didn’t paint enough of a picture of what was going on - I had to strain to understand what the author was trying to convey. The story felt washed out and kinda bland. Does Sam even have a personality? The book in general felt like a really bad rip off of Conversations with Friends.
March 1, 2025
It contains far too many unnecessary small details. The characters are like robots, devoid of emotion. This is the most boring book I have ever encountered in my life, even more so than science books. When I finished it, I realised my patience had reached its limit.
dnf
February 3, 2023dnf at page 111.
March 4, 2023
I found this book really hard to read, I couldn’t work out who was saying or thinking what half the time.
March 14, 2023
Forced myself to 37%.
DNF
DNF
March 18, 2023
DNF @ 12%
April 8, 2023
Couldn’t read after p 31. Boring af.
April 28, 2023
This was so boring. WHERE ARE THE QUOTATION MARKS?!?! It made it very hard to read and understand who was speaking when. I did not finish it. Stopped reading at page 147
June 2, 2023
Not bad - interesting things to say about class, education, power - and a decent read.
June 12, 2023
2.5
read this after love & virtue which meant it never really stood a chance
read this after love & virtue which meant it never really stood a chance
Read
July 14, 2023DNF
December 8, 2023
For fans of Diana Reid and Sally Rooney
Displaying 1 - 30 of 41 reviews