Age of Consent

by Amanda Brainerd

A daringly honest, sexy debut novel about three young women coming of age in 1980s New England and New York—a bingeable summer read

It’s 1983. David Bowie reigns supreme, and downtown Manhattan has never been cooler. But Justine and Eve are stuck at Griswold Academy, a Connecticut boarding school. Griswold is a far cry from Justine’s bohemian life in New Haven, where her parents run a theater and struggle to pay the bills. Eve, the sophisticated daughter of status-obsessed Park Avenue parents, also feels like an outsider amidst Griswold’s preppy jocks and debutantes. Justine longs for Eve’s privilege, and Eve for Justine’s sexual confidence. Despite their differences, they form a deep friendship, together grappling with drugs, alcohol, ill-fated crushes, and predatory male teachers.

After a tumultuous school year, Eve and Justine spend the summer in New York City where they join Eve’s childhood friend India. Justine moves into India’s Hell’s Kitchen apartment and is pulled further into her friends’ glamorous lives. Eve, under her parents’ ever-watchful eye, interns at a SoHo art gallery and navigates the unpredictable whims of her boss. India struggles to resist the advances of a famous artist represented by the gallery. All three are affected by their sexual relationships with older men and the power adults hold over them, even as the young women begin to assert their independence.

A captivating, timeless novel about friendship, sex, and parental damage, Amanda Brainerd’s Age of Consent intimately evokes the heady freedom of our teenage years.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction, Coming Of Age, Historical, Contemporary, Summer Reads

336 pages, Hardcover

First published July 14, 2020

About the author

Amanda Brainerd lives in Manhattan, blocks from where she grew up. She was expelled from Choate Rosemary Hall at the end of 10th grade. She graduated from Harvard College, and received a master of Architecture from Columbia. She is the mother of three children, the wife of one husband, and the owner of one dog and two cats. Amateur organic gardener. Age of Consent is her first novel. https://link.medium.com/0e7NQInQOkb

Reviews

[Charlotte C · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely loved this book! The author creates a wonderful sense of place and time and encapsulates what it means to be young and curious. I also enjoyed the close friendships that develop throughout the book. I found many aspects of each character's lively and difficult experiences to be relatable, especially as the three young women grapple with their sense of identity, navigate their relationships with one another, and contend with the ways they are viewed by the men around them. Every time I picked up this book I did not want to put it down.

[Lisa Lippman Finkelstein · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought the book was really well written. Excellent character description and illustrative descriptions of scenes and mood, both of the times and the moment in the book. It describes the era really well and can bring anyone growing up at that time back to the period.
I became attached to the characters, even with their flaws.

The author clearly has a lot of talent and I look forward to more of her books.

[Shipley Foltz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finished it in a matter of days because I couldn't put it down; absolutely loved it. A glimpse into high school experiences more exciting and troubled than my own, but still relatable and familiar. Can't recommend enough.

[Cynthia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Imagine a modern day Edith Wharton - rule breaker and student of society - writing about 80's NYC and a fancy Connecticut boarding school. You feel sorry for the kids, envy them, and finally understand how they figure out life . . .or don't.

I thought it was great

[Susan C Budd · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brainerd’s Age of Consent takes one back to the opulent and indulgent 1980’s as seen through the eyes of adventurous teens attempting to swim in the deep end of adult life. This sassy coming of age story quickly ensnares you with complex characters struggling to define their identity. Brainerd’s portrayal of audacious teenage life in the 80’s juxtaposes towering youthful confidence with overwhelming insecurity. A fabulous read, I couldn't put it down. I can’t wait for the next book in the series--these characters deserve no less than a trilogy.

[Caroline Leavitt · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is just a gorgeous debut about two people, Justine and Eve, both upper strata, blazing a path through the 80s' alcohol and drug soaked era. But it's also a perfect portrait of the art world and of a coming of age that is unforgettable. It's hard to believe this is the authors first novel. It's THAT GOOD.

[Anne Mickle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Didn’t want it to end. Would love to know what happens next to all of the characters. Great coming of age novel.

[NYC Reader · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great read.

Brainerd's novel is as full of surprises as painful truths. The biggest surprise is that wealthy NYC teenagers in the 80s with SoHo lofts, Hamptons deterioration, and a smorgasbord of drugs at their disposal were not only reading, but devouring and absorbing, great books. As in literature. Sex and coke consistently have to wait for the discussion of Flaubert or Baudelaire to climax. The former is the after-smoke of the latter. Art is, in this book, a very real vehicle for friendship as well as love.

(To a gal who went to high school in a farm town, this was a good surprise! So much for my skepticism about Whit Stillman.)

The second surprise is her generosity. The author's bio makes it clear that she's an insider, and the dates work out, and she lets you in. All the fun of NYC downtown clubs, Valentino couture, dining sprezzatura and je ne sais quo, drag queens and Chelsea galleries - spread out in a careless teenage display that's yours for the taking. How can you resist? This is not a world that's easy to access. Moreover, the expected cynicism never appears. No smidge of vendetta. Whatever did or did not happen to the author in the 80s, she's moved on. While her girls are more vulnerable than jaded, she writes like a smart mother who adeptly protects them at the same time she lays them bare. And, often, very bare.

What's not a surprise is that in the 80s, parents were clueless, and a girl with good breasts who loves to read invariably becomes prey. In other hands, and especially now, this might have left me feeling like I'd surfaced and smoked an old pack of clove cigarettes. But art always comes to Brainerd's rescue, and in this case it's both books and David Bowie. Gee my life's a funny thing, am I still young? Answer: yes. This book takes you back, and you won't regret it.

[James B · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful book, set in 1983, about three young woman, Justine and Eve in boarding in Connecticut and India in Manhattan. The first part mostly follows Justine and Eve at school as they try to adjust away from home, deal with a school where they both feel like outsiders for very different reasons and try to figure out the various men they’re interested in. The second half sees all three woman living and working in Manhattan during the summer break, scattering to the corners of the city, but always coming back to one another. Wonderful characters that I could have followed for another five hundred pages.

[Debra · Rating 1 out of 5]

I received a digital ARC from NetGalley.
WTF DID I JUST READ.

I know people like these meandering character sketches with no real plot to them—but I really hoped something was going to come of all this. Instead it was just watching three precocious teen girls, two at a prep school, all at some point getting it on with with older men, and unable to have working relationships with guys their age. And all their parents are screw-ups in some shape or form.

And Clay, you are SUCH a letdown. Just get therapy, dude.

I had also wanted to read it for the setting—New York City circa 1983. Sometimes I actually miss those times. There was no real color or flavor—or maybe, because the galley formatting was so crappy, it kept ruining my ability to focus on details.

I’m just so disappointed I’m actually ANGRY about it, LOL.

[A.H. Kim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Haiku review:
Prep meets Gossip Girl
Rich teens behaving badly
Proving Tolstoy's line

[John Schwartz · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a fellow writer who in fact attended “Griswold” (the fictionalized Connecticut boarding school portrayed so perceptively in Age of Consent) around the same time as the author Amanda Brainerd, I am delighted to say that this debut novel is a double-barreled bulls-eye: at once a gimlet-eyed, pitch-perfect rendering of a rarefied, yet poignantly human, strata of prep school youth in the early ‘80s, and a page-turning, witty, and unexpectedly affecting coming-of-age New York story that brings to mind such 1980s classics of the genre as Jay McInerney’s Bright Lights, Big City and Tama Janowitz’s Slaves of New York.

[troyerlaw · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you liked 'Catcher in the Rye' or 'Bonjour Tristesse,' or the movie 'Dead Poets Society' for that matter, then you'll enjoy this too. The overall mood, the female perspective, the observant and sympathetic rendering of adolescent confusion ... book is both a page-turner and thoughtful look at intimacy, class distinctions, and the difficulty of growing up. Author does great job of telling the story and getting out of the way. You don't feel like author is trying to show how literate or smart she is. She lets the characters and events speak for themselves.

[Angel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received an advance copy from a writer friend and I devoured this book in three days. It is a deceptively easy read -- beneath the excellent writing are complex and sympathetic characters. I live in rural Florida and was worried that I would not connect to teenagers in a fancy boarding school and in NYC but it was the opposite. Brainerd's characters Eve and Justine face the same struggles many of us do in our teen years and their plight is universal. Highly recommend.

[Coco Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

A delicious read! I really loved this one. A perfect escape from what's going on in the world -- I dove in and didn't resurface for a whole day! It is not that often that I read a book in ONE SITTING.

Eve, Justine and India are great and sympathetic characters. Bad stuff happens to them, but they manage to deal with it all. I love when Eve say, "We have to define our lives separately from our parents. We can't let them crush us."

The parents are mostly kooky screw-ups, but it rang so true, kind of in an Ice Storm way.

I will think about these girls for a long time.

[Jan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gulped this book down in one day. The characters feel authentic to me and I loved to be with them and hear their stories. The setting in NY City in the 1980s amongst the upper class private school gang, misfits and druggies and straight arrows is convincing. their exploits and adventures and the grit of the city are so real I was surprised to look up at the end and find it is 2020. Highly recommend this novel — her first— and hope she is already working on her second!

[Michelle Hogmire · Rating 4 out of 5]

First Novel Prize Review #6 (thanks to The Center for Fiction and Viking Books (PRH) for the advance copy in exchange for an honest review/expected pub date July 14, 2020):

Age of Consent is a bold, character-driven novel about the (often harsh) reality of being a teenager in 1980s New York City. The book follows friends Eve and Justine, who meet at Griswold Academy—a fancy Connecticut boarding school. Eve’s wealthy parents get her accepted, after she confesses hatred for the all-girls school she’s currently attending. Eve’s Upper East Side upbringing has been tightly controlled, so she’s very inexperienced when it comes to boys (and men, considering her new English teacher’s inappropriate flirtations). Justine lives a poorer artsy existence in New Haven, with creative parents who run a theater. Justine is much more experienced and confident, when it comes to everything from sex to drugs to alcohol—so her and Eve make a perfect opposites-attract match.

Their relationship vacillates between closeness and distance over time, as the girls experience horrific assaults, romantic relationships, bad breakups, bumbling parental figures, and demanding bosses. The plot culminates in a life-changing summer spent in New York, involving Eve’s compelling childhood friend, India.

Going into this book, I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to relate to the characters at all (my upbringing in West Virginia was a far cry from hanging out in the SoHo art gallery scene), but that wasn’t the case. Amanda Brainerd does an excellent job capturing the general feeling of the teenage experience, no matter the specific plot points. The frustration at adults, the feeling of having no control over your own life, the ecstatic sensation of taking new risks and learning how to define yourself, along with the crushing sadness when you get in over your head and things go badly—it’s a time I’d personally never like to experience again, but it’s definitely fun to revisit in a book.

[Girl Well Read · Rating 2 out of 5]

A special thank you to the author, Amanda Brainerd, for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Arriving to Griswold Academy, Justine doesn't want to be seen in her dad's orange Volvo. She is not as privileged as the rest of her classmates—her parents run a theatre and struggle to pay their bills. Eve, a sophisticated daughter of Park Avenue parents, may be well off, but she too feels like an outsider. The girls become best friends and navigate their way through relationships, drugs, alcohol, and Griswold's in crowd and predatory male teachers.

After a less than stellar school year, the girls spend the summer in New York City with Eve’s childhood friend, India. Justine moves into India’s Hell’s Kitchen apartment and becomes more enamoured with her friends’ glamorous lives. Always under her parents' watchful eye, Eve interns at a SoHo art gallery with an unpredictable boss whereas India struggles to resist the advances of a famous artist represented by the gallery. All three women are affected by their sexual relationships with older men and struggle to assert their independence.

Age of Consent is a story about friendship, sex, and parental damage.

Set in 1983, Age of Consent is a nod to the 80s. Brainerd sprinkles pop culture references throughout but doesn't succeed in immersing her reader in the decade known for extreme fashion and incredible music (New Wave). What happens instead is that the novel is kind of affected, for example, the school is named Griswold Academy...

The whole thing is flat—the characters, the dialogue, the story—and there is an unnecessary subplot. Being set in the 80s, there is a lot to work with and yet nothing really happens. I had such high hopes for this novel, but ultimately it was not the promised captivating coming of age story and failed to evoke any nostalgia for my teenage years.

[Zibby Owens · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved all the references to everything New York in Age of Consent. The story is about three teens coming of age, trying to be adults in an era where the adult role models are also in deep crisis. They struggle to navigate being a teenager and relationships with boys, relationships with older men, and parents who have their own issues and who are unable to parent in the way that maybe the girls need. It starts off at boarding school. The second half takes place in New York City during the 80s. A big theme in this book is about the isolation of teens and how they feel like they are going through things alone.

To listen to my interview with the author, go to my podcast at:
https://zibbyowens.com/transcript/ama...

[Samantha Perkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Age of Consent brought me way back! I miss those years, and Amanda Brainerd really captured the way it was, how angsty we all were. I went to boarding school and I totally loved how she showed the social hierarchies, and the mean girls. And the part in New York was dreamy -- I felt like I was actually there. The other cool thing about Age of Consent is the layering of fun, debauchery, and loneliness. Completely recommend this one.

[Renee Jolly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really well written, although the characters read more like college students than high school and I often had to remind myself it was set in the 80s. I enjoyed the nitty gritty of Eve and Justine's trysts and flops - finished the book in just a few days. Thank you Netgalley for allowing me to review this title. I would be interested in reading more from Amanda Brainerd.

[GGGreenwell · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is being called a fun summer read but it is much more serious than that. Harrowing, upsetting but ultimately uplifting, Brainerd's investigation of parental neglect and her generosity towards her struggling protagonists is remarkable.

[Alyssa · Rating 1 out of 5]

Just terrible. The references are exactly what you would get from looking up "1983" on Wikipedia, and the girls show occasional flickers of 'maybe something about this situation is/was wrong' but otherwise have no self-awareness and are stock tropes: the Overly Sexualized One, the Virgin, the Artsy One, the Rich Bitch Roommate. If you really want to read a novel about underage boarding school girls being groomed and used by men, there are better ones.

[Rachael Wehrle · Rating 1 out of 5]

Thought this was going to be the perfect book but it was pretty whack lol. Pass

[Sarah McCraw Crow · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amanda Brainerd's AGE OF CONSENT follows three teens, Justine, Eve, and India, through a pivotal year. Justine and Eve are new sophomores at their Connecticut boarding school, Griswold, trying to figure out boarding-school culture, class divisions, and their own identities. They quickly become friends, and find a compatible group in new friends Clay and Stanley. Because the novel is set in the early 1980s and almost all the adults in the girls' world are either AWOL, too busy social climbing, or actively preying on young people, both Justine and Eve soon find themselves in compromising and dangerous situations. India, the novel's third point-of-view character, is, though privileged, even more neglected than Eve and Justine--her mother has died and her dad is a hapless drug addict--and she's on her own in an apartment in Hell's Kitchen. When summer arrives, the novel switches its focus to New York: Justine moves in with India, and Eve lands an internship at a Soho gallery that represents the artist who was once in love with India's mother.

This is very much a coming-of-age story, one firmly grounded in its place and time. Brainerd has a keen eye for period details, and for the intricacies of prep-school, New York City, Connecticut, and Hamptons cultures, and varying degrees of privilege--the uptown, monied but social-climbing lives of Eve's parents; the more Bohemian lives of Justine's parents, who run a theater in New Haven; of India's free-spirited mother, and of Clay's mother Barbara, a hippieish artist who wants to party with the kids. The novel is both nostalgic for and clear-eyed about the time and place, depicting both the freedom that teens had back then, and the many ways that these neglectful parents and predatory teachers damaged their kids. This is an ambitious novel, and it takes on several big themes, but it also moves quickly through this year in these characters' lives. I was a teen in the early Eighties, and I loved revisiting this time in the novel and thinking about how much has changed for high-school kids, and how much hasn't changed. I'd also add that if you're a fan of Curtis Sittenfeld's Prep or Whit Stillman's movie Metropolitan, this is the novel for you.

[Vico · Rating 1 out of 5]

Estoy furiosa porq me compré este libro en NiuYork, *la* ciudad para cumplir todos mis deseos y caprichos literarios pero lamentablemente con este malgasté espacio en mi maleta 😭😭😭 podría haberme traído otro mucho mejor 😔
Resumido, se trata de dos amiguitas de apenas 16 que se conocen en un boarding school cuico en los 80s, fuman como cincuentonas, escuchan todo el día a Bowie porque aparentemente era el único artista de la época xd y tienen alguna que otra experiencia sexual con viejos. Después del primer año en el internado pasan el verano en NYC donde se drogan hasta con marcador sharpie y se codean con pintores famosos y van a drag clubs (ojo, solo tienen 16). Onda ya entiendo que era otra época pero yo a los 16 años me iba a dormir a las 10 jajaja. En fin. No existe trama alguna porque aunque suene fun and quirky no pasa absolutamente nada, sin embargo tampoco es un character driven book porque ambas protagonistas son lo más unidimensionales y no se desarrollan en lo absoluto. Bostezaba mientras leía porque se me olvidaba quien era quien. Nada único. El lenguaje era plano y fome. De vez en cuando me encontré con algún pasaje inteligente pero el resto era puro relleno como frases estilo “He looked great.” “She felt bored.” Etc etc. Es decir, los tres pilares importantes de una novela, trama, personajes y lenguaje se sintieron como comer salchichas crudas. Lo más frustrante en mi opinión es la romantización de la pedofilia y el abuso sexual durante toooodo el libro. Ambas niñas tuvieron encuentros sexuales con hombres mayores y por algún motivo se sienten orgullosas por q se hayan aprovechado de ellas? Toxic much?? Y sorry pero LA CANTIDAD DE CLICHÉS. De solo decirles q hay un personaje que se llama India que a los 16 vive sola en Nueva York? Y tiene un caballo en los Hamptons con el que sale a cabalgar y nadar a pelo en el mar? Realmente pensé q me estaban tomando el pelo. Le doy una estrella porque la autora al menos intento de hacer a las dos chicas exactamente opuestos en cuanto a situación socioeconómica y porque al fin y al cabo me lo leí entero. Aparte de eso un mal uso de mis vacaciones de verano bai

[Zak · Rating 5 out of 5]

This portrayal of coming of age in the 1980s masterfully demonstrates how coming of age in this contemporary moment is fraught with many of the same dilemmas, anxieties, & societal conflicts as the experiences of the characters in Age Of Consent and how the parallels between the present & the past reveals that examining the past with nostalgia unearths the roots of the various issues of the future. Brainerd compellingly depicts a coming of age with timeless problems such as anxiety about sexuality, class aspirations, and family tensions which is compounded by teenagers surrounded by adult influences (parents, teachers, employers, family friends, etc) who behave at least as badly, usually worse, than those very same teenagers who will be influenced by these "role models" for better or worse (mostly worse).

[Amanda · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is not good. I honestly don’t think I’ve ever finished a book, and given it a 1 star review. I kept thinking, what is the point of the story that’s being told?

There was no plot, no character development, no deep dives into backgrounds, and the ending was slapped lazily together in half a page. Nothing feels fully formed.

There was a bunch of teenage drug and alcohol use, really unhealthy sex (teacher/student, older man/underaged girl) barely consensual teenage sex, weird allusions to a distant father who is gay but also in a predatory way. Everything that could have been cool about this novel-the time period, the differences in socioeconomic status, the coming of age in the time of hair bands, just wasn’t there.

[Christen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This most be the year for throwbacks to the 1980s in fiction and memoirs. I was born in the eighties, so I have been enjoying stories from that decade.

This book was short compared to other fiction novels, just over 330 pages, and it was an easy read. I read it in two sittings.

The characters are high schoolers who, in the early eighties, were wiser than their age. Private schools, creepy male English teachers, NYC, New Haven, and the East Coast vibe is strong.

I enjoyed this.

I got an ARC from Edelweiss and Penguin in return for an honest review.

[Andrea Katz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Picked this book up one day and couldn't put it down. What a quick, engrossing read. Absolutely love the 80s setting, the book portrays a small window in time and in life with such rich color and attention to detail. Definitely recommend.