Admissions: A Memoir of Surviving Boarding School

by Kendra James

Early on in Kendra James’ professional life, she began to feel like she was selling a lie. As an admissions officer specializing in diversity recruitment for independent prep schools, she persuaded students and families to embark on the same perilous journey she herself had made—to attend cutthroat and largely white schools similar to The Taft School, where she had been the first African-American legacy student only a few years earlier. Her new job forced her to reflect on her own elite education experience, and to realize how disillusioned she had become with America’s inequitable system.

In ADMISSIONS, Kendra looks back at the three years she spent at Taft, chronicling clashes with her lily-white roommate, how she had to unlearn the respectability politics she'd been raised with, and the fall-out from a horrifying article in the student newspaper that accused Black and Latinx students of being responsible for segregation of campus. Through these stories, some troubling, others hilarious, she deconstructs the lies and half-truths she herself would later tell as an admissions professional, in addition to the myths about boarding schools perpetuated by popular culture.

With its combination of incisive social critique and uproarious depictions of elite nonsense, ADMISSIONS will resonate with anyone who has ever been The Only One in a room, dealt with racial microaggressions, or even just suffered from an extreme case of homesickness.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Race, Audiobook, Biography Memoir, Education, Biography

304 pages, Hardcover

First published January 18, 2022

About the author

Kendra James was a founding editor at Shondaland.com where she wrote and edited work for two years. She has been heard and seen on NPR and podcasts including "Thirst Aid Kit," "Three Swings,” “Star Trek: The Pod Directive,” “The Canon," and "Al Jazeera." Her writing has been published widely from Elle, Marie Claire, Women's Health Magazine, Lenny, The Verge, Harpers, Catapult, and The Toast, among others.

Reviews

[Traci Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this book a good deal. Humor. Candor. Retrospection that wasn’t entirely cliched. Taft (and NE indie boarding schools)sounds exactly like what you’d expect. James brought the world to life. My biggest issue was the book was too long and lost it’s way before the end. Overall very strong and entertaining and easy to read.

[Lisa (NY) · Rating 3 out of 5]

[3.25] This book was a mixed bag. I found myself mostly bored by the author's daily experiences at boarding school and her obsession with online role playing. As a Black student, James didn't fit in at Taft, but it wasn't until years later that she realized what a big role racism played in her unhappiness. As a result, the sections about her experiences at school had a weird dissonance. The second part of the book, where she described the microagressions directed toward her (and other Black students) was more powerful.

[Nancyann · Rating 1 out of 5]

Bitter much? I have a tenuos connection to The Taft School. It was at a summer workshop for teachers held at the school where I met my husband forty years ago. I was a teacher from an east coast private prep day school. My own background is that of coming from a blue collar, single mother family, myself graduating from a state university. I was envious of my elite, entitled students who did not appreciate the rarified education they were receiving. Which brings me to Kendra's complaints at Taft. I can never understand the challenges of being a minority student but I do know she had opportunities at Taft that less fortunate children and their parents would die for. If the school was so terrible why did she become an admissions officer? Leaving my personal quibbles with our author, the book itself was not particularly well written. How did Ms. James choose which stories to include? In all honesty they did not make interesting reading nor illustrate her accusations of racism. Admissions was a great disappointment.

[Renata · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was fun for me because I think I'm basically the same age as Kendra so I enjoyed the reminiscing about LiveJournal/AIM and such, which is obviously not the main point of the book. I think at this point in my educational journey I'm not shocked by the microaggressions (and macroaggressions) Kendra experienced as a Black student at a prestigious, majority white boarding school, but I don't think it was trying to be, like, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents. It's her own memoir and her own changing perspective on education.

I think this would be a great Alex award book--an adult memoir with a lot of teen appeal, especially since boarding school is such an intriguing concept.

[Caitie · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is incredibly disappointing for me, I am fascinated by boarding schools and I thought this would make an interesting read about a woman of color attending one of these elite boarding schools. While Kendra James is a legacy at the Taft School, I found her to be boring and annoying at the same time. She kept going on and on about how "weird," she was at the time, and how hard it was to make friends at first. While she did mention microaggressions that she faced, she didn't really go into much detail.....it felt very surface level to me. I feel like I got more from the book's introduction than from the rest of the book. I wanted more boarding school traditions, more about the classes, more about how diversity was handled. It lacked depth in my opinion. I guess I was expecting something more from this, it's hard to explain why I didn't like this so much. Part of me felt like Kendra James expected people to just know about how these boarding schools operate (she went to Taft, but other examples of these elite schools are: St. Paul's, Philips Exeter, Andover, etc.) even though they're all different. Not was I was expecting and I was deeply disappointed.

[Nevin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really really wanted to love this book.It ended up being an OK book for me in the end.

It’s about an adolescent Black girl who’s father was a graduate of a very elite, predominantly White private school in Connecticut. Kendra (his daughter) is a legacy student attending the same school.

The whole book is pretty much about her experiences during the three years she studied there.

Honestly I was expecting so much more from this book. But it fell short for me. First half of the book felt like “coming of age” biography. Who was wearing what? Who had money? Who didn’t? Who was wearing their hair how? Who came from where? Etc etc. Pretty much all the same stuff any teenager would worry about. I found it boring and unnecessary.

The second half of the book delves more into the important issues such as racism by other students, daily verbal insults, derogatory or negative attitudes towards students of non white ethnicity. But even these issues were scratched on the surface. Again disappointing!

Pretty much very little was included about her job being a admissions officer, specializing in diversity recruitment for independent schools. I would have found that part to be much more fascinating and engaging.

Some parts where witty, some parts were heartbreaking and some parts were hopefully.

Over all a solid ⭐️⭐️⭐️ for me.

[MookNana · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is fascinating, horrifying, and sad all at once. I'm glad to have heard the author's experience, but furious at what was allowed to happen and devastated by what it cost her. The extra burdens placed on the author didn't belong on a teenager, who should have been able to learn and grow as her nerdgirl self without being asked to put up with endless insults and injustices, to say nothing of everyday microaggressions and othering. I hope telling her story was cathartic and that it reaches people who need to hear it.

Many thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review!

[Elsie Birnbaum · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been excited about this book since Kendra James announced it on her twitter months ago. As someone who attended a New England boarding school (albeit one that's more of a feeder for Oberlin than the Ivies), I'm always interested in honest looks at the student culture since as James' points out books about boarding schools are often inaccurate. I was not disappointed.

I read this book in the course of six hours. James' classic wit (I regularly think about her piece about the American Girl Doll store) makes what could have been a very slow look at three years of high school legitimately a page turner. God this book cured me of my early 20s high school nostalgia. It really feels like what it was like to be a student at one of these institutions and I say this as someone who obviously did not experience the racial ostracization and discrimination that is the main focus of the book. That said her description of honor court and the school's handling of her supposed guilt felt eerily familiar to my own experiences with gender violence in high school. So too did her description of returning to campus when the buildings are a site of trauma. I only wish she had talked more about the contradictory feelings of hating the social element of your private school experience and feeling as though the administration of the school was not on your side but benefiting from the academic experiences, a contradiction that I'm still trying to work out in my own life.

This isn't related to anything and was only one paragraph in the book but James states that she didn't apply to Smith College because it had Greek Life. Smith College doesn't have Greek Life?? It's very culturally similar to Oberlin, although obviously lacking a cis male population which was clearly (and justifiably) important to teenage Kendra James. I'm not sure how she came to the conclusion that a women's college in the lesbian capitol of the United States is a buttoned up institution but I'm sorry she's just wrong. Again this is a non-sequitur, I loved this book, its great and you should read it, I just couldn't stand for this Smith slander.

[Cayla · Rating 4 out of 5]

ADMISSIONS: A Memoir of Surviving Boarding School by Kendra James is an insightful introspection from the first African-American legacy student to graduate from one of the world’s most elite prep schools.

When I first read the subtitle about this being a boarding school memoir I was excited. Okay, where are my Zoey 101, Strange Days at Blake Holsey High, and Blood & Water fans who had youthful dreams of attending an elite prep and/or boarding school? I definitely dreamed of moving away from home in my teens, getting a world-class education, and having my pick at Ivy League Institutions. But the unfortunate reality is that many of these schools like Choate (shoutout to my Power fans) and Taft weren't built with Black people or any people of color in mind.

I really enjoyed the vulnerability, evolution, and raw humor of this book. This is another memoir that felt like I was reading a YA novel with built-in reflections and lessons that she learned. The middle was filled with some details and happenings that made the book a little longer than I think it needed to be; otherwise, I enjoyed the moments of nostalgia, blerdism, and high school drama.

Thank you to Grand Central Publishing for this advanced reader’s copy!

[Brynn | readyourworriesaway · Rating 5 out of 5]

Admissions is an honest memoir detailing an alumna’s experience as a student at The Taft School. Kendra James was the first African-American legacy student to graduate from Taft. While working as an admissions officer as an adult, she couldn’t help but reflect back on her own time at an independent prep school and feel as though she was selling a lie.

Kendra is an incredible writer. As she detailed her story, there were times that were humorous, times that were completely devastating, and everything in-between. Kendra shared great insights on how students of color were treated differently, and how the journey to change has been slow-going. She is vulnerable in sharing examples of racism and microaggressions that she experienced. I appreciated reading about Kendra’s evolution from student to professional. Admissions is an introspective memoir about a legacy student who graduated from one of the most elite prep schools.

[Kea4 · Rating 1 out of 5]

I thought it was going to be a fun book about what happens in a Boarding School. Instead, it’s a mess of a book with far too many cultural references and uninteresting stories all out of place.
I found the book tended to be filled with filler and jumps way too much.

Also the activism push… of course.

She talks about black classmates that have died but never what happened. Was it a car crash? Health? Drugs? Drive-by? It seems so focused on race which takes away from this book. This was an opportunity that so many would love to take.

Honestly, it comes across as bitter instead of a fun time.
Also, is the reference about peeing in a bottle needed?

https://theworldisabookandiamitsreade...

[Defne]

the audacity, the gall and the gumption of these schools will never fail to make me smh…

act surprised when i pop out and recreate this cover though.

honestly, i am in such awe of how she balances the tension between rage - grace/forgiveness - resentment

[Chandra Powers Wersch · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't usually review or really even like to rate memoirs, because it's their story, so who am I to judge how they should or shouldn't tell their experiences? But I decided to write this because I disagree with some of the other reviews. I think the coming-of-age aspect is strongly woven throughout the entire book. Each section (year of her life), and usually each chapter, ends by broadening out to discuss the larger issues of being a teenage WoC, albeit upper middle class (she acknowledges that privilege), at a prep school that really had/s no structures in place to deal with blatant racism, or the microaggressions that she and other BIPoC face(d). James is super reflective of how she's changed and matured since the mid aughts, especially by the end, and she details how her own social-emotional intelligence and empathy has increased, as she looks back on her teenage years. I definitely took a hard look at my past (even not so distant) and the ways I've unintentionally perpetuated microaggressions (even in my own head) towards/about others, so I came away introspective, as well.
The nostalgia throughout the whole book was the cherry on top for my millennial self (graduating HS 1 year before James). I found a kindred spirit in someone who was unapologetically them-nerdy-self (unlike myself who was afraid to reveal a lot of my interests or hobbies for fear of being judged and ridiculed, even to my own friends). I found solace and even some healing in these parts.
Again, I don't really like to rate memoirs, but I think if you enjoy memoirs or subjects like history and sociology, and/or if you're an older millennial, this is a book worth reading.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love a memoir that drops me in a world I know next to nothing about. I want to hear your stories, people. There are so many stories out there, and how lucky we are when they fall into the hands of the right storyteller.

…like this one, which is about the complexities of being Black in that ne plus ultra of privileged, white-catering spaces: the New England boarding school.

James and I are about the same age, and because of that, two things about this book in particular caught my eye: Number one, I can officially confirm that if you did any coming-of-age in the early aughts, it doesn’t matter if you were Black or white, or went to boarding school or not: that was a cringey-ass time. Lord, we had no idea what we were doing on social media, did we? The mall-forward fashion was EXCELLENT, though. (Heavy /s for those of you who regrettably missed out.) Also, holy hell, how did the 2000s become a day-of-yore under my very nose!?

It’s fine, everything’s fine. I’m perfectly comfortably with my vanishing (vanished?) youth.

Anyway.

The second thing is that we have so, so far to go in the name of racial justice, but compared to my high school and college years, we’ve come a loooong way in how we think and talk about racism. I didn’t go to a boarding school, but my high school had a similar racial and economic makeup to Taft — that is to say, there were lots of rich white people who had no ability to comprehend there was a whole world out there that wasn’t rich and white. We had approximately zero awareness of our reeking privilege or of our microaggressions and our lack of inclusivity. We thought “racism” meant pointy white hats — end of list. James takes us to a time where we didn’t have the words to define what was happening around us. It’s still a work in progress, and our pace is far too slow, but we’ve got a whole generation* of humans now who know better and (are trying to) do better.

If I were being more sharply critical, I might give this book three stars. I maybe wanted more inner conflict, more of the double—edged sword nature of boarding school. How did James reconcile her experiences with her subsequent success, and how did she ultimately choose to walk away from her role as an admissions counselor? Still, it’s not my story to tell, and I enjoyed her voice so much — the book is legit l-o-l funny — that I’m giving the edge to the ol’ heartstrings and giving this one that extra star.



*Or at least >50% of a generation. Elections matter, don’t vote for racists, thank you for coming to my TedTalk.

[June Davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting to read since my dad taught at Taft and I grew up there (my definition of a faculty brat!). I didn’t attend there as I graduated from high school before Taft went coeducational. I did go to another “elite boarding school”. It was interesting to read her perspective. I would love to think things have changed both at Taft and other schools for the better.

[Jenn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having attended a prep school (not boarding, though) about a decade before the author did that had a similar demographic make up, I found Admissions to be eye-opening. Although I was not a visible minority, I earned my spot via academics. My family didn't have the financial advantages the majority of my classmates did. I understood, to a small degree, how it felt to be "other."
When BLM took the spotlight during the events of 2020, two of my classmates took to the internet to describe their experiences at my school. Other alumnae did as well. For the first time, many of us realized how different their experiences were from the majority. This book made their experiences hit home.
I'd like to think independent schools have learned. I'm not sure that they have, though.

[Abby Stathis · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a really eye-opening portrayal of not only the experience of attending a mostly white boarding school as a black student, but also the microaggressions embedded within the American educational system.

Always honest, at times it was sad, and, at other times, laugh-out-loud funny. I highly recommend. I truly feel this book has made me a more emphathetic—not to mention less ignorant—person.

[Leigh Kramer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kendra James reflects on her experience as a Black legacy student at a mostly white prep school in this engaging memoir. She illustrates that it’s not enough to simply have marginalized people at your institution. The institution needs to demonstrably change to be truly inclusive and to protect newcomers from bigotry and hate. Her reflections about who is a part of institutional memory, especially given that she was a legacy student, were particularly interesting. The author is about ten years younger than me so I enjoyed reliving her pop culture interests from a different lens. She also admits where she went wrong as a teen, which was refreshing.

It needed a stronger connection between her work in admissions and her school experience. It’s really only touched on in the intro and epilogue so that component should have either been expanded on or omitted. I would have loved to have heard how she decided to work in admissions and at those specific schools and what was the final straw that made her leave. Perhaps that will be the subject of her next book.

Note: there are a lot of Harry Potter references with nary an acknowledgment of the JKR’s transphobia. I can see why HP might have meant something to the author, beyond also going to a boarding school but the degree to which it came up was jarring.

CW: bullying, racism, racial slurs, microaggressions, misogynoir, sexual harassment, false accusation of theft, discussion of officer-involved shootings, homophobia (not toward or by author), homophobic slur, sexism, body commentary, death of classmates post-graduation (including murder-suicide and car accident), bierasure/biphobia (author states her only option at school as a straight Black girl was straight Black or Latinx boys), teacher convicted of possessing child pornography (post-graduation), author stole a goose egg from its nest and it did not hatch, vomit (food poisoning), underage drinking, inebriation, hangover, drug references, cigarettes, brother is adopted, witchcraft, STD stigma (not countered), conversation about an actor/character being “dickless”, gendered pejoratives, gender essentialist language, ableist language, frequent Harry Potter references, hyperbolic language around suicide, mention of teachers who had inappropriate relationships with students, mention of school that covered up sexual assault incidents for decades, mention of fatshaming (author’s friend), brief reference to disordered eating (not author), references to parents’ divorce (post-HS), reference to mom’s past miscarriage, reference to infidelity in movie

[Olivia · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 Stars. This was an incredibly compelling story from the memories of a Black student at the predominantly white boarding school in New England. James writes with humor and a candor that is easy to appreciate, and while it is difficult to ask for more from a memoir (these are people's lives and they don't owe us a deeper dive!), I still found myself wanting more retrospection on the memories she was sharing. Why was it so difficult for a teenaged-Kendra to fathom that her close friend was not applying to college programs? What undertones in the situation was she missing? How did Kendra end up working for independent schools and affiliate programs after college despite her feelings of nonacceptance during her time at Taft and her unwillingness to send her own children to a boarding school? But perhaps we are being left with the questions James has not worked out for herself yet, which in and of itself, is a vulnerable thing to share.

[syd · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5⭐️
when i bought this book i read the title and assumed it was about surviving boarding school with rich kids from the perspective of a scholarship student but it is actually about surviving boarding school with white kids from the perspective of a black student. it was very interesting to learn the experience of a black student going though high school in a predominantly white school and im glad i picked this book up!

[Bowman Dickson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a good read and helped me process some stuff about my own elite school experience, both as a dumb white kid in the early 2000s and as a teacher now. I thought it was really strange that she didn’t talk more about her decision to work for admissions given her experience at Taft? Would have been really curious to hear more discussion of that

[Lainey Stacks · Rating 2 out of 5]

i wanted more stories of the boarding school. like crazy events that took place. i didn’t really get that

[Jamie Feuerman · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well-written book that I’m glad James was able to share. There were humorous as well as really distressing and sad moments that were equally needed for this story. It’s clear she’s done a lot of reflecting about the best way to tell it. I wish there had been more about her time working in admissions and what eventually caused her to leave the field.

[Kristen Claiborn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Boarding schools fascinate me. I feel it’s possible boarding schools fascinate many people, largely because none of us had the resources or opportunity to attend any of the elite boarding schools in the United States. Most of us don’t have the resources necessary for boarding schools to be considered, and most of us couldn’t imagine going to school in a place where we had to SLEEP, LIVE, and LEARN all in the same place. Nope, I appreciate that when my learning day was done, I got to go to a place that wasn’t associated with the learning. I had a home that was completely separate from where I went to school. However, like many educated humans, we understand that those who had the resources required to attend a boarding school had a bit of an upper hand in this game we call life.
Kenda James, on more than one occasion, admits she had a certain level of privilege. That’s not the primary focus of this book, but it was one of those chips on my own shoulders when I started reading. I didn’t want to feel anything other than disdain for Kenda James, because she had this neat thing called opportunity that wasn’t available to us poverty-stricken kids wading through the mediocre trenches of public school. There was a section when she was describing her conversation with a college admissions counselor that stuck out for me. I was absolutely floored. This guy had knowledge of her interests and activities and was able to suggest schools that aligned with those. He also was able to determine she didn’t want to go to an all-girls school and didn’t want to go to a school that was close to home, though he did point out the benefits she might receive if she were to go there (it would Rutgers, imagine turning your nose up at Rutgers?). He was extremely knowledgeable about both her and the prospective colleges. When I sat down with a counselor to discuss college back when I was in high school, the message was pretty much: “don’t bother, you won’t get in.” While she was correct (I refused to take two years of a second language, I didn’t see the point…30 years later, I regret not taking Spanish), there was no effort put into ME. At all. She just looked over my grades and said it was unlikely I’d be successful in college. I did, in fact, go to college. I even graduated from college (Go Lobos), whereas many of my peers that had been touted as those who would be successful, never even tried. I wonder how my own life would have been different if I had had that one adult that believed in me, like this one admissions counselor believed in her.
This shouldn’t be a huge surprise, but I’m a white girl. I have no knowledge of what it’s like to not be a while girl. Recent events have helped me realize that I also have privilege, simply because I was born a white girl. Reading this book was an eye opener for many reasons. The term “microaggression” wasn’t even on my radar prior to the “me-too” movement. Now, though, it’s all I can think about when I encounter misogyny on a daily basis. I smile, nod, and imagine I’m squishing heads rather than get outwardly angry. Kendra James had to deal with racism AND misogyny. There’s a section where James talks about the conversations that were had surrounding the college acceptances and rejections that made me want to hunt down her former classmates and put pins in their eyes. According to many of her classmates, the only reason any person got into any college is due to affirmation action. Kendra James had an outstanding academic record, she had great extras, and she was a phenomenal writer, allowing for what I assume were some great essays on applications. But some of her classmates decided her only claim to a good college was the color of her skin (my opinions on affirmative action are a very different conversation, best had with a bottle of tequila). It made me sick to my stomach. Her account of her time at this exclusive school shows that privilege can butt heads with racism. It was truly fascinating, and Kendra James is very good with words. I cannot possibly recommend this book enough.

[Ana Scoular · Rating 3 out of 5]

Having only attended majority white institutions, I was very interested in this book! James fully acknowledged how insufferable she was as an teenager, which mollifies my critique a bit. I have a lot of the same lived experiences so this book was easy for me to relate to. Yet, I’m sorry to say, there were some boring parts! I wish James had reflected more on her experience post-Taft about the program she worked for. I think even though she reflected about her negative experiences in a majority white institution, it still had me googling the cost of tuition at Taft. I hope this gets more buzz!!

[Brianccc56me.Com · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are several reasons I felt compelled to review Admissions.

First, I loved the book and read it in a single setting. Admissions is about Kendra's trials and tribulations at the Taft school as the very first African-American legacy student that was able to graduate. Her story rings true and demonstrates that the more we think attitudes regarding race have changed, the less they have. Her story does not put the Taft School in a very favorable light nor should it. While a few doors were opened for Kendra the vast majority remained firmly closed.

Second, Kendra is an outstanding writer and has been one for years prior to penning Admissions. I have had the pleasure of reading Kendra's work since not long after her Taft days. Kendra can place every detail of her experiences into the mind of the reader with relative ease. She isn't an angry writer but she has no problem letting the reader know exactly how she feels on every issue whether it be her experiences at The Taft school or Star Trek.

Finally, it important for the reading public to support young new authors. especially when they write a compelling and readable book. I cannot wait to see what Kendra writes next.

[Kyle C · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an honest, fair-minded book. Kendra James reflects on her experiences coming to an elite boarding school, the Taft School, populated by rich white students whose wealth makes them oblivious to their own racist actions. They assume she is on financial aid and that she comes from New York City. When she tells the field hockey team that her brother was adopted, they guess that the child must have been adopted from Africa and are astounded to learn that a black family can adopt a black child in America. Her peers don't believe her when she says that her father was on the board of trustees. As a young adolescent she does not yet have the framework or language to understand these daily humiliations as racial microaggressions. She has not yet learned how to hear the covert racism in seemingly innocent remarks. Movingly, she writes about the mental calculus she made every time she entered a room (how white would it be? how much would she stand out?) and how she would collect Taft gear and sweaters to swaddle herself in a sense of belonging.

James is a reflective memoirist with an even-balanced perspective. She does not deny the problems at the alternative public school or the privilege of attending a school like Taft, and she has high praise for a number of faculty. She confesses that she was an awkward, bratty teenager who only wanted to talk about a narrow range of topics (Lord of the Rings and Orland Bloom). With good humor, she tells an anecdote about a time she performed a magic ritual in her room to expel her roommate (a modern-day heiress who had condescendingly said to her "just because you're black doesn't mean you have to do your hair in the morning"). She has a wonderfully sardonic voice and subjects herself to her own irony (for example, she obstinately refused to accept a scholarship offer to Rutgers and decided to go to Oberlin -- on the grounds that Avery Brooks went there, only to be told mirthfully by her mother that Avery Brooks teaches at Rutgers).

In short, her account is candid and self-aware, critical but also humble, and her critique of the institution is cogent. This is not an axe-to-grind diatribe but a perceptive examination of the bewildering privilege and hidden racism that operates in elite schools. Her criticism of the administration and its limp attempts to redress racism is trenchant and, at times, brutal. But where she is blunt, she is not bitter. I don't say this to give approval of "respectability politics" but to appreciate the objectivity of the book. Her story is a clarion call for schools to think of diversity work as more than just a statistical quotient or a brochure opportunity.

[Piper · Rating 4 out of 5]

“I think it would have been nice to feel as though we were part of the community while we were there.”

I call this book free therapy for POC boarding school survivors!

It's a very accessible memoir from Taft's first African-American legacy student. Kendra James's looks back at the three years she spent in Connecticut with a "combination of incisive social critique and uproarious depictions of elite nonsense." It's a fun, quick read.

Now, a personal note:

"How many relationships had I missed out on because Taft had created an environment where it wasn’t until the last day of school, in a basement in the middle of the woods, that someone I’d known for three years could tell me they thought I was an interesting person?”

I sometimes think that the worst part of my boarding school experience was that it was a very lonely and cold place. Reading James's book gave me an opportunity to reflect on my own journey, while also coming to terms with the fact that, as she highlights in the book's final chapters, that it didn't need to be that way.

I went to a ten school like James's. However, it was far more conservative than Taft. And, I mean conservative in the dictionary sense: averse to change or innovation and holding traditional values."

It was 60% boys. Seated meals. Blazers. Class six days of week. The school got rid of its gaslights in the 1980s. If I wrote a memoir of my own, it wouldn't have nearly as much humor as James's book. I didn't feel even a little bit grateful for the school until I flew across the Atlantic and saw how dismal British boarding schools could be.

So I really appreciated how James's book pushes back against this weird sort of saccharine, "tumblr-fication" of that "hashtag dark-academia" fixation with boarding schools that I've noticed some younger kids have with their Tiktok edits and Pinterest boards. She doesn't romanticize the exclusivity or elitism of having an experience only 1% of American students get to have.

[Brittany · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am truly fascinated by boarding schools, and I love memoirs so I thought this would be right up my alley. I was really curious to see what the author experienced and what she has to say about these so called “elite” institutions.

Overall this memoir unfortunately fell flat for me. It wasn’t bad at all, it was just ok. There was just something about it that wasn’t compelling enough for me. It wasn’t until the last half of the book when she did a did a deeper dive of the implications of racism at the institution she attended. The most interesting part surrounds what she experienced when a girl named Emma Hunt wrote an incredibly racist article in their school newspaper that basically discounted the experience of minorities at her school. But even the way she wrote about this lacked serious depth in my opinion.

I appreciated the nostalgia of this memoir. I think the author and I are around the same age (I’m 31) and I had a good time reminiscing about the fashion trends, the emergence of chat rooms, Nokia brick cell phones and live journal. I think Kendra is a talented writer and I enjoyed her humor and candor throughout the book. She told many stories of her times at boarding school as a weird emo/gothic girl.

I think what may have made this book just ok is it’s lack of focus and how surface level it sometimes felt. Some parts of the book are just about mundane things she dealt with at boarding school as a young weird girl, and then other parts were more intense with criticism of how these institutions can foster racism. The first half felt almost like a YA novel and the last half felt like a nonfiction book on race. I’m just really not sure what to make of this memoir.

[Justin Nelson · Rating 3 out of 5]

James pens a witty, raw, and slice-of-life memoir here. It reads very easily, like a YA novel almost. She tackles heavy concepts of race, diversity, and being "the Only One in the room" in honest ways while always maintaining her humor. I have heard James as a guest on a comics podcast that I listen to, so it was nice to dive deeper into her sarcasm. In the end, though, this is really a memoir about fitting in and growing up in the unique setting of boarding school.
A few lines stood out for me, such as: "Like many Black people, the life I dreamed of was paid for with the American currency of a minor trauma." (111) This was a very powerful line that summarizes so much of the racial discourse books and articles that I've been reading the past few years.
I resonated with her description of choosing friends and found families: "...I value choice in my friendships....I want to look at my friends and think to myself, 'I choose you.'" (256) Again, simple statements that pack a big punch, something that James excels at here.
And, finally, a description that made me laugh out loud, just because if you know you know, as she calls Cracker Barrel "the sundown town of chain restaurants." (262)😂
All in all, a solid read. Maybe not as "deep" as other memoirs out there, but an enjoyable voyage through one individual's experience.
Our book club recently read Ace of Spades, and I found this nonfictional account to be more in the line of what I wanted from that fictional thriller, honestly.