What do you think?
Rate this book
Initiation
Mauricio Londoño's goal for his freshman year at St. Stephen's is basic surviva l. "I had no idea what could come of packing all those boys into one school building, how the competition would play out in relentless insults, the constant sorting-out that went on every day, all day, to determine who was okay and who was worthless." Terrified and feeling like an uninvited guest at the all-boys St. Stephen's School, Mauricio Londoño sets his main goal for freshman basic survival. But despite his efforts to tiptoe through the school year, Mauricio can't resist the allure of the world inhabited by his precocious classmates and the drama that plays out on FaceSpace. When a cruel digital scheme sweeps through the school, Mauricio not only becomes one of its victims but also starts to think that maybe it's not so bad to be honest about who he really is.
279 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 2009
4 people are currently reading
67 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
November 10, 2012
Reviewed by coollibrarianchick for TeensReadToo.com
INITIATION, the debut offering by Susan Fine, follows Mauricio Londono through his first year at St. Stephens School for Boys. Mauricio, newly graduated, looks back and tells how he survived his first year. The cover of the book has a tie made into a noose on it. I know a lot of people who have gone to prep schools and from what I hear, the prep school arena is, in many aspects, survival of the fittest. Just as the GOSSIP GIRL series has drawn in the female reader, this book will draw in the male reader.
High school can be tough. You've got academic pressure and, of course, you have to deal with social issues as well. It can be the best time of your life or it can be the worst.
For Mauricio, the new boy at St. Stephens, it is a little bit of both. There is definite awkwardness as he navigates the hallways, classrooms, and social hierarchy of the school. He, as both the new kid and a freshman, is basically on the bottom rung. Mauricio learns very quickly that St. Stephens School for Boys is a very affluent school and rules that apply to most of the free world don't always apply to the boys here. Drugs, drinking, and casual hookups is nothing unusual.
These boys, most of whom have known each other from the time they were in cribs, have their own set of rules and their own agendas. They have no problem setting people up and watching them fall. If scheming was offered as a course, I am sure that most of the boys at St. Stephens would pass with flying colors. They have the means and the intelligence. Technology allows these kids to take schemes to higher levels.
For most of the book, Mauricio is in awe of the people who fall into the "haves" category. The huge apartments, summers in the Hamptons, jet-setting to this country or that country has a certain allure - especially when your upbringing is not even remotely on the same plane. Even though Mauricio doesn't want to get sucked into all the drama that unfolds around him, he can't help it since his raging hormones and heart's desire - Elizabeth - is smack dab in the middle of it.
The question is, will he walk away unscathed and getting what he wants, or will he fall victim to the cruel games many teens at times play?
After reading this book, all of sudden public school is a lot more desirable.
INITIATION, the debut offering by Susan Fine, follows Mauricio Londono through his first year at St. Stephens School for Boys. Mauricio, newly graduated, looks back and tells how he survived his first year. The cover of the book has a tie made into a noose on it. I know a lot of people who have gone to prep schools and from what I hear, the prep school arena is, in many aspects, survival of the fittest. Just as the GOSSIP GIRL series has drawn in the female reader, this book will draw in the male reader.
High school can be tough. You've got academic pressure and, of course, you have to deal with social issues as well. It can be the best time of your life or it can be the worst.
For Mauricio, the new boy at St. Stephens, it is a little bit of both. There is definite awkwardness as he navigates the hallways, classrooms, and social hierarchy of the school. He, as both the new kid and a freshman, is basically on the bottom rung. Mauricio learns very quickly that St. Stephens School for Boys is a very affluent school and rules that apply to most of the free world don't always apply to the boys here. Drugs, drinking, and casual hookups is nothing unusual.
These boys, most of whom have known each other from the time they were in cribs, have their own set of rules and their own agendas. They have no problem setting people up and watching them fall. If scheming was offered as a course, I am sure that most of the boys at St. Stephens would pass with flying colors. They have the means and the intelligence. Technology allows these kids to take schemes to higher levels.
For most of the book, Mauricio is in awe of the people who fall into the "haves" category. The huge apartments, summers in the Hamptons, jet-setting to this country or that country has a certain allure - especially when your upbringing is not even remotely on the same plane. Even though Mauricio doesn't want to get sucked into all the drama that unfolds around him, he can't help it since his raging hormones and heart's desire - Elizabeth - is smack dab in the middle of it.
The question is, will he walk away unscathed and getting what he wants, or will he fall victim to the cruel games many teens at times play?
After reading this book, all of sudden public school is a lot more desirable.
May 5, 2009
Initiation was a boring take to an outsider's view of the rich teen's lifestyle. Since many books have been written over the topic, nothing new was added to this one. The only thing original was that the main character, Mauricio, is half-Cuban and half-French.
Mauricio was a bland, cliched character. One who wants to be accepted by the rich kids but in the end comes to realize that they're so different from him and that it's not worth it trying to earn their approval. His creepy fascination with Elizabeth was, to me, odd and pointless. The narration was good since Mauricio, who at the beginning of the novel is ending his Senior year, tells the story of how he survived his Freshman year, letting the readers know what happened afterwards.
The plot moved at a slow pace, was boring and too overdone in some places. It was also predictable and...I don't want to say pointless, but I didn't see the whole point of the story. Sure, Susan Fine is a good writer but this book just didn't keep my attention. It's not a book that I would have finished, had I not been in a testing room with nothing else to read.
Overall: A bland and trite novel on an outsider's view of the wealthy student's lifestyle, Initiation is not a recommend read nor it is an enjoyable one
Mauricio was a bland, cliched character. One who wants to be accepted by the rich kids but in the end comes to realize that they're so different from him and that it's not worth it trying to earn their approval. His creepy fascination with Elizabeth was, to me, odd and pointless. The narration was good since Mauricio, who at the beginning of the novel is ending his Senior year, tells the story of how he survived his Freshman year, letting the readers know what happened afterwards.
The plot moved at a slow pace, was boring and too overdone in some places. It was also predictable and...I don't want to say pointless, but I didn't see the whole point of the story. Sure, Susan Fine is a good writer but this book just didn't keep my attention. It's not a book that I would have finished, had I not been in a testing room with nothing else to read.
Overall: A bland and trite novel on an outsider's view of the wealthy student's lifestyle, Initiation is not a recommend read nor it is an enjoyable one
August 13, 2015
I found this book a disappointing read. Mauricio Londono's goal for his freshman year at St. Stephen's is simple: basic survival. "I had no idea what could come of packing all those boys into one school building, how the competition would play out in relentless insults, the constant sorting-out that went on every day, all day, to determine who was okay and who was worthless." Terrified and feeling like an uninvited guest at the all-boys St. Stephen's School, Mauricio Londono sets his main goal for freshman year: basic survival. But despite his efforts to tiptoe through the school year, Mauricio can't resist the opportunity to forget his own interests and try to be someone that he isn't to join the world inhabited by his precocious classmates. The book is up-to-date with a technological gimmick that, in the form of a digital scheme, catches Mauricio as one of its victims. Not surprisingly this leads to some changes in his behavior, but nothing that makes the book rise above the average school story fare. In the end it does not add to the subject and, in spite of fine writing, it did not maintain my interest.
July 11, 2010
Eh, this wasn't any great shakes. Taking place at an exclusive private boys' academy in Manhattan, I had seen this compared to Gossip Girl, but believe me, NO.
It didn't even start off so badly. Mauricio is a freshman who has to learn the navigate the social systems of his new high school, including (as these things seem to have to go in books about Manhattan private schools) classmates from crazy wealthy families.
But after the set-up, it doesn't go anywhere. It's trying to be a "kids are mean" story, but the kids in this book aren't that mean (in a literary sense, that is, their meanness is boring and not helpful to the plot or to character development). There's a weird, and already outdated, finger-wagging "message" about the dangers of posting photos online (presented via a cringy amalgam of Facebook and MySpace).
Grade: Yawn.
Recommended: No.
It didn't even start off so badly. Mauricio is a freshman who has to learn the navigate the social systems of his new high school, including (as these things seem to have to go in books about Manhattan private schools) classmates from crazy wealthy families.
But after the set-up, it doesn't go anywhere. It's trying to be a "kids are mean" story, but the kids in this book aren't that mean (in a literary sense, that is, their meanness is boring and not helpful to the plot or to character development). There's a weird, and already outdated, finger-wagging "message" about the dangers of posting photos online (presented via a cringy amalgam of Facebook and MySpace).
Grade: Yawn.
Recommended: No.
September 24, 2012
The cover art and title are more tantalizing than the actual story itself. Mauricio is now attending a prestigious all-boys prep school that makes anyone cringe at the thought of rich kids doing what they want because of money. There's all the typical stuff of course, the drugs, the sexual relationships, and the unfriendly friendly competition among boys, but social networking creates a whole other level of demented pleasure for these kids. It does give kids some food for thought about how easily manipulated images can create problems and how keeping passwords secret is the best bet.
Worth looking in to, especially for the male protagonist and alluring story that boys can connect to, while the rest of readers will just be angry at these kinds of kids running wild!
Worth looking in to, especially for the male protagonist and alluring story that boys can connect to, while the rest of readers will just be angry at these kinds of kids running wild!
December 19, 2009
Lame. I think it wanted to be a book like Catcher in the Rye but I didn't like catcher in the rye. Maurico starts a new prep school and is troubled by the way the rich act. His parents are well off, but not billionaires like his classmates. This novel follows his years at the school, where he learns he is not close to his "friends" and leaves school knowing that he's just mediocre.
October 6, 2011
This was a weird book. It started off really boring. Then, it became really good in the middle and end. The end of the book was really sudden. It just... ended. There didn't seem to be any conclusion, or lesson learned. It just was. I'm glad I read the book, but I'm not sure what to think about it. I'm pretty sure I liked it... maybe.
June 13, 2012
I think Fine tried something very interesting with Mauricio as the narrator, and it's a choice that won't work for some. For me, it was perfect. Most books, of course, but their protagonist firmly in the action. But Mauricio is an outsider to St. Stephen's. Not only that, he's naive. Drugs, sex, and manipulation weave around him, but he doesn't have the knowledge to decode the implications of what he sees and hears. In high school, I too was blissfully naive. (Probably still am. Just less, in some ways.) Finding out who had sex or did drugs always shocked me. So I liked reading about a boy with the same issue - especially since I do know enough now to pick up on the insinuations Fine left for the reader to pick up on, even if Mauricio didn't.
I expected INITIATION to be more sinister, from the cover to the foreshadowing in the frame story: "Yet I had managed to survive ninth grade, and all the rest of it, when five of my classmates hadn't. There were a bunch of casualties from that whole mess freshman year." But things fell out in an unexpected way. The major action revolves around Mauricio's fellow nerdy friend Henry, cooler Alex, despised Zimmer, the wrestling team, and Henry's sister Biz. These kids live in affluence, and need to keep up appearances.
It's very sweet how Mauricio falls for the extremely hot Biz, his hormones blinding him to the fact she's a bit easy. Though I found it odd that despite his desire to protect her, he didn't understand Henry's actions to keep Biz out of trouble. But anger does make people ignore logic. And I liked Mauricio's foil, Alex, who was clever and scheming and managed to distance himself from the whole thing. I suspect he was more deeply involved in the events of the novel than he let on to Mauricio, knowing no one else would enlighten him. Of course, we're limited to Mauricio's point of view so we'll never know.
I also liked how the online aspects were presented. I was a little afraid that it would be an adult's paranoid imagining of what social networking is like. But most of it was pretty realistic and the warnings useful. Don't give away your password. Don't let people take photos of you doing something stupid. Definitely don't let anyone post those photos on the net. Pretty much, control how you're presented in a public and ineraseable form. (Me? I'm hard to Google. I like it. Pretty much, all you can find out is about my most prestigious academic accomplishments when you do find me. Not exactly incriminating.) There were some l33t h4xor skills employed, but nothing too implausible for an intelligent computer geek.
INITIATION was a strong debut, so I'm happy Fine is already working on her next YA novel. I've certainly never been to an all-male prep school, but she did evoke my high school days. (She has an unfair advantage, being an English teacher.) I think many outsiders will enjoy this tale of bullies and more clever bullies told by an outsider.
I expected INITIATION to be more sinister, from the cover to the foreshadowing in the frame story: "Yet I had managed to survive ninth grade, and all the rest of it, when five of my classmates hadn't. There were a bunch of casualties from that whole mess freshman year." But things fell out in an unexpected way. The major action revolves around Mauricio's fellow nerdy friend Henry, cooler Alex, despised Zimmer, the wrestling team, and Henry's sister Biz. These kids live in affluence, and need to keep up appearances.
It's very sweet how Mauricio falls for the extremely hot Biz, his hormones blinding him to the fact she's a bit easy. Though I found it odd that despite his desire to protect her, he didn't understand Henry's actions to keep Biz out of trouble. But anger does make people ignore logic. And I liked Mauricio's foil, Alex, who was clever and scheming and managed to distance himself from the whole thing. I suspect he was more deeply involved in the events of the novel than he let on to Mauricio, knowing no one else would enlighten him. Of course, we're limited to Mauricio's point of view so we'll never know.
I also liked how the online aspects were presented. I was a little afraid that it would be an adult's paranoid imagining of what social networking is like. But most of it was pretty realistic and the warnings useful. Don't give away your password. Don't let people take photos of you doing something stupid. Definitely don't let anyone post those photos on the net. Pretty much, control how you're presented in a public and ineraseable form. (Me? I'm hard to Google. I like it. Pretty much, all you can find out is about my most prestigious academic accomplishments when you do find me. Not exactly incriminating.) There were some l33t h4xor skills employed, but nothing too implausible for an intelligent computer geek.
INITIATION was a strong debut, so I'm happy Fine is already working on her next YA novel. I've certainly never been to an all-male prep school, but she did evoke my high school days. (She has an unfair advantage, being an English teacher.) I think many outsiders will enjoy this tale of bullies and more clever bullies told by an outsider.
July 26, 2009
INITIATION reminds me very much of Curtis Sittenfeld’s PREP: middle-class outsider attends a prestigious high school, witnesses with shock the lawless doings of the rich, and emerges from his/her school years relatively unchanged. Even with this proliferation of inaction and non-growth, however, I still definitely enjoyed INITIATION for its convincing portrayal of privileged teen apathy.
Since Mauricio is mostly a non-participating narrator, it’s all the other characters that are fascinating and draw my attention. Mauricio talks about the classmates he comes in contact with—all their ups and downs, convoluted morals, and shocking actions. It is often difficult for us to imagine that students at good high schools will actually act this way, and Mauricio’s narration adds to the prevailing shock and horrifying truth in a way that sticks with you.
INTIATION is not at all plot-based, and even the little plot it contains is overshadowed by the supporting characters. This turns out to be not a bad thing at all: I really think that this book should be read as a look into the lives of students at a private high school rather than one in which the plot was underdeveloped and unexciting.
Overall, I was very impressed with INITIATION and Susan Fine’s writing. She was able to fully convince me that schools such as St. Stephen’s do exist, much as we are loathe to admit it. I look forward to seeing how she continues to write telling studies of adolescent behavior in the future!
Since Mauricio is mostly a non-participating narrator, it’s all the other characters that are fascinating and draw my attention. Mauricio talks about the classmates he comes in contact with—all their ups and downs, convoluted morals, and shocking actions. It is often difficult for us to imagine that students at good high schools will actually act this way, and Mauricio’s narration adds to the prevailing shock and horrifying truth in a way that sticks with you.
INTIATION is not at all plot-based, and even the little plot it contains is overshadowed by the supporting characters. This turns out to be not a bad thing at all: I really think that this book should be read as a look into the lives of students at a private high school rather than one in which the plot was underdeveloped and unexciting.
Overall, I was very impressed with INITIATION and Susan Fine’s writing. She was able to fully convince me that schools such as St. Stephen’s do exist, much as we are loathe to admit it. I look forward to seeing how she continues to write telling studies of adolescent behavior in the future!
July 22, 2011
I hate when there is a good base-story, but the author just drowns it out. In this book, the author was trying too hard to be clever, to not be obvious, but she wound up with boring, not intruiging. I feel like I got all this information about everything, but the main plot. She wrote around it, instead of directly giving it to me, which sometimes works, but this time... not-so-much.
I ended up bored and not caring. I had to force myself to finish.
I don't even know how to explain the plot... here goes...
spoilers probably.
Basically Mauricio is the new kid at St. Stephen's, he is a freshmen. He is clueless how this world of money and politics operates. He is middle-class and making average grades. He feels out of place and like a loner. He makes a handful of friends. Some enemies. But, for the most part he is a background man. He becomes infatuated with his friend Henry's sister, Elizabeth, but keeps it to himself. Things start to blow up with the school, when it it discovered that someone has hacked into their computer system. Someone is sending out threating emails from the students' accounts. There is an insane amount of cheating and drug usage discovered. The big "A-ha" moment is pretty obvious at the end of who supplied the money for the hackers.
blah. boring. no more time wasted on this.
2 stars.
I ended up bored and not caring. I had to force myself to finish.
I don't even know how to explain the plot... here goes...
spoilers probably.
Basically Mauricio is the new kid at St. Stephen's, he is a freshmen. He is clueless how this world of money and politics operates. He is middle-class and making average grades. He feels out of place and like a loner. He makes a handful of friends. Some enemies. But, for the most part he is a background man. He becomes infatuated with his friend Henry's sister, Elizabeth, but keeps it to himself. Things start to blow up with the school, when it it discovered that someone has hacked into their computer system. Someone is sending out threating emails from the students' accounts. There is an insane amount of cheating and drug usage discovered. The big "A-ha" moment is pretty obvious at the end of who supplied the money for the hackers.
blah. boring. no more time wasted on this.
2 stars.
April 30, 2012
Mauricio Lodono is not one of the elite wealthy, but he manages to get accepted into the elite St. Stehen’s school for boys. His goal: survive freshman year. Cyberbullying shakes the school’s foundations and Mauricio must figure out who he can trust and who he wants to become. A good read for girls as well as for boys.
Currently reading
June 29, 2009click ... without question one of the best books I have ever read ... it has made me rethink my own approach to teaching and working with kids ... Steve Bergen
July 20, 2012
Interesting read about a teen surviving an all boys school in NYC among uber rich kids. The writer was a women so I found it difficult to think that she could convey the thoughts and feelings of a teen boy.
Want to read
January 9, 2009First time author
March 27, 2009
Seminary Coop Bookstore member, Susan Fine's debut YA novel. This virtually all-male cast of high school boys navigating a New York prep school made me glad to have been a public school girl.
May 16, 2009
Great read by neighbor and generally fabulous person, Susan Fine!
June 30, 2009
Please find my review at
http://www.myshelf.com/reviews.htm
Thank you
http://www.myshelf.com/reviews.htm
Thank you
Read
July 17, 2009Loved the authentic guy voice in this novel full of intrigue.
Read
September 17, 2009It's a Class of 2K9 book!
Read
June 17, 2010This book actually reminded me of the school I go to, so in a way, I could connect to what the character was going through.
December 6, 2011
one of the greatest books i have ever read, totally reccommend it.
Read
January 2, 2014okay
March 8, 2011
this book wasnt that good :(
Read
August 14, 2017Not bad. Very intriguing.
Read
March 2, 2018The books ending was good, everyone ended up good in the end...sort of, but it was fun to read the book and it was really funny.
Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews