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Admission
From the New York Times bestselling author of You Should Have Known (adapted as "The Undoing" on HBO) comes another page-turning masterpiece, this time on college admissions — now a major motion picture starring Tina Fey and Paul Rudd.
"Admissions. Admission . Aren't there two sides to the word? And two opposing sides...It's what we let in, but it's also what we let out."
For years, 38-year-old Portia Nathan has avoided the past, hiding behind her busy (and sometimes punishing) career as a Princeton University admissions officer and her dependable domestic life. Her reluctance to confront the truth is suddenly overwhelmed by the resurfacing of a life-altering decision, and Portia is faced with an extraordinary test. Just as thousands of the nation's brightest students await her decision regarding their academic admission, so too must Portia decide whether to make her own ultimate admission.
Admission is at once a fascinating look at the complex college admissions process and an emotional examination of what happens when the secrets of the past return and shake a woman's life to its core.
"Admissions. Admission . Aren't there two sides to the word? And two opposing sides...It's what we let in, but it's also what we let out."
For years, 38-year-old Portia Nathan has avoided the past, hiding behind her busy (and sometimes punishing) career as a Princeton University admissions officer and her dependable domestic life. Her reluctance to confront the truth is suddenly overwhelmed by the resurfacing of a life-altering decision, and Portia is faced with an extraordinary test. Just as thousands of the nation's brightest students await her decision regarding their academic admission, so too must Portia decide whether to make her own ultimate admission.
Admission is at once a fascinating look at the complex college admissions process and an emotional examination of what happens when the secrets of the past return and shake a woman's life to its core.
464 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2009
900 people are currently reading
7409 people want to read
About the author
Jean Hanff Korelitz
17 books3,014 followersAuthor of nine novels: THE SEQUEL (2024), THE LATECOMER (2022), THE PLOT (The Tonight Show's "Summer Reads" pick for 2021), THE UNDOING, originally published as YOU SHOULD HAVE KNOWN (adapted by David E. Kelley for HBO and starring Nicole Kidman, Hugh Grant and Donald Sutherland), ADMISSION (adapted as the 2013 film of the same name, starring Tina Fey, Lily Tomlin and Paul Rudd), THE DEVIL AND WEBSTER, THE WHITE ROSE, THE SABBATHDAY RIVER and A JURY OF HER PEERS, as well as a middle-grade reader, INTERFERENCE POWDER, and a collection of poetry, THE PROPERTIES OF BREATH.
Watch for television adaptations of THE PLOT and THE LATECOMER!
I'm the founder of BOOKTHEWRITER, a New York City based service that offers "Pop-Up Book Groups" where readers can discuss books with their authors in person and online. Please join our mailing list at www.bookthewriter.com to hear about our events.
If you've become aware of my work via THE UNDOING, you should know that my novel differs significantly from the adaptation -- and that's fine with me! Just know that the twists you might be expecting will likely not be there on the page. Other twists, yes, but you'll have to read the book to find them.
If you're trying to reach me, please know that I don't do any communicating through Goodreads, and that includes FRIEND REQUESTS AND FOLLOWING. (You may also infer that I've read more than the few books listed here, all of which are -- coincidence? -- written by me. I have another GOODREADS account, under another name, with which I keep track of my reading, but it's private.) I'm particularly inept on Facebook, as well, so trying to reach me that way will be spectacularly ineffective. If you want to get in touch, please use the contact form on my website, jeanhanffkorelitz.com
Thanks so much for your interest in my work!
Jean Hanff Korelitz
Watch for television adaptations of THE PLOT and THE LATECOMER!
I'm the founder of BOOKTHEWRITER, a New York City based service that offers "Pop-Up Book Groups" where readers can discuss books with their authors in person and online. Please join our mailing list at www.bookthewriter.com to hear about our events.
If you've become aware of my work via THE UNDOING, you should know that my novel differs significantly from the adaptation -- and that's fine with me! Just know that the twists you might be expecting will likely not be there on the page. Other twists, yes, but you'll have to read the book to find them.
If you're trying to reach me, please know that I don't do any communicating through Goodreads, and that includes FRIEND REQUESTS AND FOLLOWING. (You may also infer that I've read more than the few books listed here, all of which are -- coincidence? -- written by me. I have another GOODREADS account, under another name, with which I keep track of my reading, but it's private.) I'm particularly inept on Facebook, as well, so trying to reach me that way will be spectacularly ineffective. If you want to get in touch, please use the contact form on my website, jeanhanffkorelitz.com
Thanks so much for your interest in my work!
Jean Hanff Korelitz
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,281 reviews
September 2, 2021
The Neverland Cult
Korelitz never disappoints. She writes what she knows about. And she writes about it well. In this case she writes about the insanely competitive process of getting admission to Princeton University, where she did work at one time in the Admission (no 's', thus creating an interesting sub-plot) Office.
Korelitz's raw material is the young people who want to become undergraduate members of the institution, and their parents who are prepared to mortgage their own lives to allow it, and the professionals who pretend to some sort of objectivity in sorting out the intellectual wheat from the merely ambitious chaff. But her far more interesting subject is the mores and obsessions of the American middle class. Not the entire middle class population to be sure, but certainly an identifiable segment large enough to supply the applications to fill available Ivy League university placements ten times over.
Admission can be read as a commentary on the material culture of this part of bourgeois America. And indeed there is a lot of conspicuous consumption of educational commodities apparently going on. But I don’t think Korelitz is that trite. Among other things such a slant wouldn’t fit with her signature denouement. There’s something far subtler she has in mind, the burden of which she places on her heroine who progressively discovers how the process she is a key part of has consumed her.
What is being produced, distributed, consumed and digested isn’t material at all. It isn’t even something as ephemeral as ‘education’ which still has some degree of concreteness in terms of human welfare. In fact, what is being pursued by the cast of characters in Admission is clearly and entirely immaterial: expectations. Expectations not of anything meaningful to those students, teachers and administrators involved except… for yet further expectations. A fragment of the life-long process of increasing abstraction from any possible personal need, including purely selfish or material betterment.
The situation, oddly in a proudly secular society, is not unlike that of adherence to church doctrine in the Middle Ages: the creedal dogmas of the Trinity, the Virgin Birth and the Atonement, among others, may not have meant the slightest thing to the daily lives of even the most educated or pious citizen, yet they were considered essential beliefs for some deferred reward. Rubric was, in a sense, its own reward. That is, strict adherence to the ritual was enough to ensure grace, the ultimate expectation of salvation, at least for the elect. The metaphor is more than casual: submission to the common entrance examination (Baptism), studious preparation of the application (Confirmation), the self-revelatory interview (Confession), are essential preludes for that all important receipt of the acceptance letter (Communion) in the ritual of university admission.
This de-materialisation begins even before the prep school stage that is the focus of Korelitz’s fiction. There is of course the pre-prep school which functions to allow entry to the best private and selective schools. In England it is these schools which are essential for entrance into Eton, and Wellington, Marlborough and the other ‘public’ schools which the Americans classify as ‘prep’. And the process continues with increasing intensity at university and beyond.
Think about it. At what point do the children’s’ lives described by Korelitz become in any meaningful way better? Getting into Princeton does not mean beer and skittles or an American version of Brideshead Revisited for the next four years. It means gruelling, relentless graft, sixteen hour days, and pervasive anxiety about the next set of expectations - graduate school or employment. These latter expectations, once met, will demand even greater commitment to the next set, namely career advancement. The pursuit of greater and greater expectations leads not to relative comfort and security, regardless of one's bank balance or net worth, but to white-collar drudgery and a kind of well-paid insecurity
The process is documented by many accomplished authors, but two in particular seem most apt to frame with Admission. The American prep school experience, for example, is the subject of Louis Auchincloss’s 1965 novel The Rector of Justin. The eponymous rector founds a school to produce an end product of comprehensible human import: young men of character who understand certain values like responsibility, discernment, and integrity. He fails utterly because, well, times were changing. The emerging corporate world did not need character, it needed high expectations which can be ’sold’ as valuable in themselves to others in order to both motivate and enrich.
Karen Ho’s cultural-anthropological study of 2008, Liquidated: An Ethnography of Wall Street, shows how the level of expectations after university becomes more brutal and more removed from any sort of well-being. She, as it happens, is a Princeton graduate who knows first-hand as well as professionally the experience of competing for the honour of ‘top’ positions in investment banking and consulting firms.
I scare-quote ’top’ only because the positions offered are explicitly described and experienced as demanding an even higher level of commitment than that required at university, notably by permitting no interference in a candidate’s professional life by private concerns. “If you are the best, you will of course want to stay in the company of the best, which is why you will want to join us,” advertise Goldman Sachs or McKinsey & Company or Bankers Trust at their Princeton recruitment soirees. The likelihood is that successful candidates will be exploited as relatively cheap labour for two to three years and then discarded (associate billing rates are typically three times or more of their salaries; it is no coincidence that the duration of a young persons career coincides roughly with the period it takes for the billing rate to approach his or her compensation).
The expectations only get harder to bear and more physically and emotionally exhausting as they are met. ‘Expectations for’ slowly morph into ‘expectations of’, and these latter are infinitely expandable and burdensome. When they are ultimately (and inevitably) not met, one’s market-value plummets and one becomes subject to quite rational (and even expected) downsizing, restructuring, or is simply fired. Ho's case studies and vignettes are remarkably familiar to anyone who has experienced this realm of expectations.
This is the unavoidable consequence of value as expectation, as continuously deferred improvement in one’s life circumstances. One’s home, occupation, social relations, even family are abstract investments, assets, acquired or entered into on the basis of expectations…about future expectations. It is from these expectations they derive their value, not from anything intrinsic. Consumption really is only of oneself; everything else is prospective investment. If this is materialism it is of a decidedly monastic caste. So discovers Korelitz’s Portia Nathan.
In short, what Korelitz chronicles is an untitled eschatological cult whose members are the obsessively aspirational, the achievers devoted not to what might be worthwhile, that is, authentically valuable to themselves or society, but to the techniques of achievement itself. There are two cardinal virtues promoted by the cult: Passion and Excellence. Portia Nathan promotes both vigorously (until she doesn’t, in the way of these things).
Passion is the willingness of individuals to sacrifice their lives to the immateriality of expectations. Those who want to ‘change the world’ or ‘make a difference’ are particularly drawn to the somewhat flexible ethics this virtue implies (its extreme form, of course being terrorism). Excellence is the willingness to submit to the conventional rules as prescribed by those in charge. It means being good at technique - initially those of exam-taking and interviewing; eventually those dictated in professional life, particularly those techniques involved in creating expectations.
The devotions this cult engages in appear nonsensical, superstitious, even morbidly self-destructive to those not part of it. But, and in this the populists in North America and Europe have a point, it is this cult which rules, governs and manages our society. Perhaps the recent political upheavals will provoke a recognition of this cult, a social admission of its existence and influence.
Then again perhaps not. Cults tend to persist in times of confusion that they themselves create.
Korelitz never disappoints. She writes what she knows about. And she writes about it well. In this case she writes about the insanely competitive process of getting admission to Princeton University, where she did work at one time in the Admission (no 's', thus creating an interesting sub-plot) Office.
Korelitz's raw material is the young people who want to become undergraduate members of the institution, and their parents who are prepared to mortgage their own lives to allow it, and the professionals who pretend to some sort of objectivity in sorting out the intellectual wheat from the merely ambitious chaff. But her far more interesting subject is the mores and obsessions of the American middle class. Not the entire middle class population to be sure, but certainly an identifiable segment large enough to supply the applications to fill available Ivy League university placements ten times over.
Admission can be read as a commentary on the material culture of this part of bourgeois America. And indeed there is a lot of conspicuous consumption of educational commodities apparently going on. But I don’t think Korelitz is that trite. Among other things such a slant wouldn’t fit with her signature denouement. There’s something far subtler she has in mind, the burden of which she places on her heroine who progressively discovers how the process she is a key part of has consumed her.
What is being produced, distributed, consumed and digested isn’t material at all. It isn’t even something as ephemeral as ‘education’ which still has some degree of concreteness in terms of human welfare. In fact, what is being pursued by the cast of characters in Admission is clearly and entirely immaterial: expectations. Expectations not of anything meaningful to those students, teachers and administrators involved except… for yet further expectations. A fragment of the life-long process of increasing abstraction from any possible personal need, including purely selfish or material betterment.
The situation, oddly in a proudly secular society, is not unlike that of adherence to church doctrine in the Middle Ages: the creedal dogmas of the Trinity, the Virgin Birth and the Atonement, among others, may not have meant the slightest thing to the daily lives of even the most educated or pious citizen, yet they were considered essential beliefs for some deferred reward. Rubric was, in a sense, its own reward. That is, strict adherence to the ritual was enough to ensure grace, the ultimate expectation of salvation, at least for the elect. The metaphor is more than casual: submission to the common entrance examination (Baptism), studious preparation of the application (Confirmation), the self-revelatory interview (Confession), are essential preludes for that all important receipt of the acceptance letter (Communion) in the ritual of university admission.
This de-materialisation begins even before the prep school stage that is the focus of Korelitz’s fiction. There is of course the pre-prep school which functions to allow entry to the best private and selective schools. In England it is these schools which are essential for entrance into Eton, and Wellington, Marlborough and the other ‘public’ schools which the Americans classify as ‘prep’. And the process continues with increasing intensity at university and beyond.
Think about it. At what point do the children’s’ lives described by Korelitz become in any meaningful way better? Getting into Princeton does not mean beer and skittles or an American version of Brideshead Revisited for the next four years. It means gruelling, relentless graft, sixteen hour days, and pervasive anxiety about the next set of expectations - graduate school or employment. These latter expectations, once met, will demand even greater commitment to the next set, namely career advancement. The pursuit of greater and greater expectations leads not to relative comfort and security, regardless of one's bank balance or net worth, but to white-collar drudgery and a kind of well-paid insecurity
The process is documented by many accomplished authors, but two in particular seem most apt to frame with Admission. The American prep school experience, for example, is the subject of Louis Auchincloss’s 1965 novel The Rector of Justin. The eponymous rector founds a school to produce an end product of comprehensible human import: young men of character who understand certain values like responsibility, discernment, and integrity. He fails utterly because, well, times were changing. The emerging corporate world did not need character, it needed high expectations which can be ’sold’ as valuable in themselves to others in order to both motivate and enrich.
Karen Ho’s cultural-anthropological study of 2008, Liquidated: An Ethnography of Wall Street, shows how the level of expectations after university becomes more brutal and more removed from any sort of well-being. She, as it happens, is a Princeton graduate who knows first-hand as well as professionally the experience of competing for the honour of ‘top’ positions in investment banking and consulting firms.
I scare-quote ’top’ only because the positions offered are explicitly described and experienced as demanding an even higher level of commitment than that required at university, notably by permitting no interference in a candidate’s professional life by private concerns. “If you are the best, you will of course want to stay in the company of the best, which is why you will want to join us,” advertise Goldman Sachs or McKinsey & Company or Bankers Trust at their Princeton recruitment soirees. The likelihood is that successful candidates will be exploited as relatively cheap labour for two to three years and then discarded (associate billing rates are typically three times or more of their salaries; it is no coincidence that the duration of a young persons career coincides roughly with the period it takes for the billing rate to approach his or her compensation).
The expectations only get harder to bear and more physically and emotionally exhausting as they are met. ‘Expectations for’ slowly morph into ‘expectations of’, and these latter are infinitely expandable and burdensome. When they are ultimately (and inevitably) not met, one’s market-value plummets and one becomes subject to quite rational (and even expected) downsizing, restructuring, or is simply fired. Ho's case studies and vignettes are remarkably familiar to anyone who has experienced this realm of expectations.
This is the unavoidable consequence of value as expectation, as continuously deferred improvement in one’s life circumstances. One’s home, occupation, social relations, even family are abstract investments, assets, acquired or entered into on the basis of expectations…about future expectations. It is from these expectations they derive their value, not from anything intrinsic. Consumption really is only of oneself; everything else is prospective investment. If this is materialism it is of a decidedly monastic caste. So discovers Korelitz’s Portia Nathan.
In short, what Korelitz chronicles is an untitled eschatological cult whose members are the obsessively aspirational, the achievers devoted not to what might be worthwhile, that is, authentically valuable to themselves or society, but to the techniques of achievement itself. There are two cardinal virtues promoted by the cult: Passion and Excellence. Portia Nathan promotes both vigorously (until she doesn’t, in the way of these things).
Passion is the willingness of individuals to sacrifice their lives to the immateriality of expectations. Those who want to ‘change the world’ or ‘make a difference’ are particularly drawn to the somewhat flexible ethics this virtue implies (its extreme form, of course being terrorism). Excellence is the willingness to submit to the conventional rules as prescribed by those in charge. It means being good at technique - initially those of exam-taking and interviewing; eventually those dictated in professional life, particularly those techniques involved in creating expectations.
The devotions this cult engages in appear nonsensical, superstitious, even morbidly self-destructive to those not part of it. But, and in this the populists in North America and Europe have a point, it is this cult which rules, governs and manages our society. Perhaps the recent political upheavals will provoke a recognition of this cult, a social admission of its existence and influence.
Then again perhaps not. Cults tend to persist in times of confusion that they themselves create.
June 17, 2009
Loved/Terrified by this passage:
"She knew that they were soft-centered, emotional beings wrapped in a terrified carapace, that even though they might appear rational and collected on paper, so focused that you wanted to marvel at their promise and maturity, they were lurching, turbulent muddles of conflict in their three-dimensional lives [...:] She knew that the creative ones were desperately afraid they were talentless, and the intellectuals deeply suspected they weren't brilliant, and that every single one of them felt ugly and stupid and utterly fake."
Wow. She has it so right.
Really enjoyed this book - just finished it and am going back for more soon. Korelitz is a very strong writer with an excellent sense of plot and more importantly, plot movement. Pace can always be something that's either done very well or very badly and Korelitz does it very well. This book is hard to put down - on so many levels. As a Princeton student, it was fascinating to read about how I was selected (or at least a fictionalized representation of it). As a human, it was so easy to relate to the characters (perhaps not the mother so much). An excellent book, regardless of where you've come from (or where you're going).
"She knew that they were soft-centered, emotional beings wrapped in a terrified carapace, that even though they might appear rational and collected on paper, so focused that you wanted to marvel at their promise and maturity, they were lurching, turbulent muddles of conflict in their three-dimensional lives [...:] She knew that the creative ones were desperately afraid they were talentless, and the intellectuals deeply suspected they weren't brilliant, and that every single one of them felt ugly and stupid and utterly fake."
Wow. She has it so right.
Really enjoyed this book - just finished it and am going back for more soon. Korelitz is a very strong writer with an excellent sense of plot and more importantly, plot movement. Pace can always be something that's either done very well or very badly and Korelitz does it very well. This book is hard to put down - on so many levels. As a Princeton student, it was fascinating to read about how I was selected (or at least a fictionalized representation of it). As a human, it was so easy to relate to the characters (perhaps not the mother so much). An excellent book, regardless of where you've come from (or where you're going).
November 28, 2010
I had heard good things about Admission before setting out to read it. Having completed it now, I just can't understand why it has received any good press whatsoever! The author spent a few years reading applications at Princeton University, and her novel circles around the admissions process at Princeton and in the Ivy League generally. It has not been so many years since I was an Ivy applicant, so I can certainly appreciate the "inside" look into the admissions process and the tremendous chore facing universities as they have to distinguish among thousands of 4.0/1600 students. This book gives plenty of that, but if that's what interests you, there are better books - non-fiction books written by people with greater experience - for that. This is ostensibly a novel, with a plot and character development.
The plot was appallingly thin. The great *gasp!* moments barely illicited a response from me because they came out of nowhere, with no build up and no reason why they should happen. In fact, as I read, I found myself constantly thinking "I could have written this," not because I consider myself such a great writer, but because the intricacies and development that characterize great writing were completely absent. The characters were uniformly unidimensional, except for the main character, who I found very difficult to identify with or even feel much of anything about. She does something at the very end of the book (don't want to give it away!) that is absolutely terrible, and I was never given enough reason to pardon her for it. But not only was that action terrible, most of her action throughout the book (pursuing a romantic relationship with an administrator at a high school whose applications she will be reviewing) is entirely unacceptable. If the author meant for you to feel that way, that may have been an interesting book - I'm fine with a main character who is something of a "villain". But it seems the author wanted you to just accept it as though it was perfectly fine.
I would never recommend this book. Several times I actually rolled my eyes and had to set it aside because some new plot "twist" was just too ridiculous to accept. As I said, it is certainly interesting to get inside and reflect on the college admissions process. But find a book that will allow you to do that without subjecting you to inept story-telling.
The plot was appallingly thin. The great *gasp!* moments barely illicited a response from me because they came out of nowhere, with no build up and no reason why they should happen. In fact, as I read, I found myself constantly thinking "I could have written this," not because I consider myself such a great writer, but because the intricacies and development that characterize great writing were completely absent. The characters were uniformly unidimensional, except for the main character, who I found very difficult to identify with or even feel much of anything about. She does something at the very end of the book (don't want to give it away!) that is absolutely terrible, and I was never given enough reason to pardon her for it. But not only was that action terrible, most of her action throughout the book (pursuing a romantic relationship with an administrator at a high school whose applications she will be reviewing) is entirely unacceptable. If the author meant for you to feel that way, that may have been an interesting book - I'm fine with a main character who is something of a "villain". But it seems the author wanted you to just accept it as though it was perfectly fine.
I would never recommend this book. Several times I actually rolled my eyes and had to set it aside because some new plot "twist" was just too ridiculous to accept. As I said, it is certainly interesting to get inside and reflect on the college admissions process. But find a book that will allow you to do that without subjecting you to inept story-telling.
June 28, 2010
I had to click "contains spoilers" because there is so little information one can get about this book before reading it (the cover blurb elided enough to get past me), and the structure of the book is so firmly predicated on not-knowing, that any information whatsoever is probably too much.
I read this based on a vague recommendation from the New York Times book review, the sense that my general interest in college admissions would serve me well here, and my complicated relationship to fiction written for adults. Basically, I would describe it as much like my relationship to vegetables. Lots of "but it's good for you!" and "just try it, maybe you'll like it."
Here's the thing. I hated vegetables when I was a kid, and now that I'm nearly thirty, I basically still do. I just understand that in many social situations (not to mention for my health), I need to eat vegetables. While there are some that I have managed to learn to tolerate or even mildly like (asparagus, spinach, peas, green beans), vegetables just aren't happening for me.
I sometimes fear it's the same with books written for adults, but then, sometimes, I'll find one that is truly a pleasure(like with that Meg Wolitzer book I recently read). And similarly, sometimes I'll find a recipe -- like squash soup, say -- that is so delicious, I gladly eat my veg.
Most of the time though, I have to choke it down. This book, for me, was the equivalent of my childhood experience of broccoli. Compelled to finish, yet so hard to get down -- slicing it into smaller portions doesn't work, mixing it with other things just makes the other things less pleasurable, trying for it in gulps while holding your nose is even worse. Several reasons:
I understand, having finished it now, that much of the point of the book's structure has to do with the plot. There's a reason so many details are withheld or elided. That said, if an author wants readers to get through a nearly 500-page novel, we need to want it. This protagonist does not make you want it, nor do the uniformly unappealing supporting characters. For nearly three-quarters of the novel, you're basically just fumbling along with this literally absurdly unfocused and unsympathetic woman, wondering "why?" the whole time.
Part of what makes this difficult is the dialogue, which comes off as deeply unrealistic. The main character can seemingly only speak in multi-paragraph-length utterances about the difficulties and yet the inherent fairness of college admissions at Princeton. As I mentioned above, college admissions, particularly at elite schools, fascinates me, and yet this book made me never, ever want to hear about it again (if you on the other hand, still do, let me recommend to you Mitchell Stevens' fantastic Creating a Class instead).
The protagonist gives lengthy disquisitions on this topic to other characters at the slightest provocation -- it literally appears to be all she's capable of talking about -- and, oh joy! as readers we are privy to her internal monologue on the topic as well. Having now finished it I get it -- she's hiding behind her work -- but to get through it as a reader was really difficult. I think at least some omniscient narration might have suited this book better, so we could see behind the curtain a bit even if the protagonist was unwilling to reveal herself.
All of this leads up to the book's third act, which feels incredibly hasty after the several hundred pages of build-up that lead to it. Long-term issues that appeared hugely important and received pages upon pages of text get resolved in literally several sentences. It feels like all of these conflicts were exhaustively set up, and then either the author or editor or somebody was like "wait, this isn't The Stand, we need to wrap it up or Barnes & Noble won't be able to fit more than two at a time on their 'New Releases' shelf." Much as I was willing it to end, the resolutions felt rushed and unearned.
So much so that I think even the editor (or copy editor?) was rushing by the end -- I know this is nit-picking, but this kind of thing drives me berserk. On page 400 of the hardcover edition, a minor character who on page 399 was female and out of town dealing with a family emergency is now male and physically present. I hate to resort to this, but WTF is that. You can't make me read 400 pages of godforesaken novel just for that. (Spoiler alert: That character is indeed female and just back from dealing with said family emergency within ten pages.)
And that's not the only continuity error on that page. A few more occur before the book ends a mere 50 or so pages later (name changes mostly). It just made me feel, along with the off-camera and hasty resolutions, like all concerned had abandoned the project by that point. And yet I had not! It pains me to give a book this lengthy and obviously laboriously researched such an awful review, but I just can't come up with anything I enjoyed about it.
No, wait! Nobody's dog died. (I know it sounds like I'm joking, but seriously, it is a blessing to read any "serious" fiction book with pets that miraculously make it through alive.)
I read this based on a vague recommendation from the New York Times book review, the sense that my general interest in college admissions would serve me well here, and my complicated relationship to fiction written for adults. Basically, I would describe it as much like my relationship to vegetables. Lots of "but it's good for you!" and "just try it, maybe you'll like it."
Here's the thing. I hated vegetables when I was a kid, and now that I'm nearly thirty, I basically still do. I just understand that in many social situations (not to mention for my health), I need to eat vegetables. While there are some that I have managed to learn to tolerate or even mildly like (asparagus, spinach, peas, green beans), vegetables just aren't happening for me.
I sometimes fear it's the same with books written for adults, but then, sometimes, I'll find one that is truly a pleasure(like with that Meg Wolitzer book I recently read). And similarly, sometimes I'll find a recipe -- like squash soup, say -- that is so delicious, I gladly eat my veg.
Most of the time though, I have to choke it down. This book, for me, was the equivalent of my childhood experience of broccoli. Compelled to finish, yet so hard to get down -- slicing it into smaller portions doesn't work, mixing it with other things just makes the other things less pleasurable, trying for it in gulps while holding your nose is even worse. Several reasons:
I understand, having finished it now, that much of the point of the book's structure has to do with the plot. There's a reason so many details are withheld or elided. That said, if an author wants readers to get through a nearly 500-page novel, we need to want it. This protagonist does not make you want it, nor do the uniformly unappealing supporting characters. For nearly three-quarters of the novel, you're basically just fumbling along with this literally absurdly unfocused and unsympathetic woman, wondering "why?" the whole time.
Part of what makes this difficult is the dialogue, which comes off as deeply unrealistic. The main character can seemingly only speak in multi-paragraph-length utterances about the difficulties and yet the inherent fairness of college admissions at Princeton. As I mentioned above, college admissions, particularly at elite schools, fascinates me, and yet this book made me never, ever want to hear about it again (if you on the other hand, still do, let me recommend to you Mitchell Stevens' fantastic Creating a Class instead).
The protagonist gives lengthy disquisitions on this topic to other characters at the slightest provocation -- it literally appears to be all she's capable of talking about -- and, oh joy! as readers we are privy to her internal monologue on the topic as well. Having now finished it I get it -- she's hiding behind her work -- but to get through it as a reader was really difficult. I think at least some omniscient narration might have suited this book better, so we could see behind the curtain a bit even if the protagonist was unwilling to reveal herself.
All of this leads up to the book's third act, which feels incredibly hasty after the several hundred pages of build-up that lead to it. Long-term issues that appeared hugely important and received pages upon pages of text get resolved in literally several sentences. It feels like all of these conflicts were exhaustively set up, and then either the author or editor or somebody was like "wait, this isn't The Stand, we need to wrap it up or Barnes & Noble won't be able to fit more than two at a time on their 'New Releases' shelf." Much as I was willing it to end, the resolutions felt rushed and unearned.
So much so that I think even the editor (or copy editor?) was rushing by the end -- I know this is nit-picking, but this kind of thing drives me berserk. On page 400 of the hardcover edition, a minor character who on page 399 was female and out of town dealing with a family emergency is now male and physically present. I hate to resort to this, but WTF is that. You can't make me read 400 pages of godforesaken novel just for that. (Spoiler alert: That character is indeed female and just back from dealing with said family emergency within ten pages.)
And that's not the only continuity error on that page. A few more occur before the book ends a mere 50 or so pages later (name changes mostly). It just made me feel, along with the off-camera and hasty resolutions, like all concerned had abandoned the project by that point. And yet I had not! It pains me to give a book this lengthy and obviously laboriously researched such an awful review, but I just can't come up with anything I enjoyed about it.
No, wait! Nobody's dog died. (I know it sounds like I'm joking, but seriously, it is a blessing to read any "serious" fiction book with pets that miraculously make it through alive.)
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 1, 2022
DNF 50%
Please do yourself a favor and avoid this book.
The author rambles on and changes directions too often.
Please do yourself a favor and avoid this book.
The author rambles on and changes directions too often.
July 26, 2016
For people who like: Ivy League stuff, snobby stuff, to debate about the haves and have nots, vaguely smutty chick lit with some high mindedness, good story-telling
Okay now I know. I have to put down something about the book immediately after I read it or else malaise sets in. I've felt really lazy these days, also super busy, and, recently, super sick. So today I took a sick day and read Admission, which is tangentially related to work so it didn't feel like I took the day off. I also remembered how much I love sleeping.
My opinion of Admission constantly changed as I read it. I kind of did that thing that I hate where I was imagining what kind of book it was as I was reading it. This sounds super douche-y, but I am usually right in my predictions, and I was right on with the plot point predictions (not that it is honestly that hard to predict), but as a whole, Korelitz kind of surprised me. I was anticipating a cautionary tale type of thing, but I didn't get it. I mean there's a bit of that, and the character trajectory is in many ways the same as that type of story, but the impetus feels quite different, which I liked. I think that difference, that why, does a good job of tying up some structural issues I had.
When John was first introduced, I got quite annoyed because it seemed like Korelitz was simply using the admissions processing and Portia's career as an admissions counselor as a metaphor for some interpersonal gobble-gook chick lit cliche bullshit. Yes there's a bit of thwarted romance-y stuff going on, but when Portia it feel like I understand what Korelitz was going for. I respect the careful way she constructed the narrative, to lead us from John to Jeremiah to New Hampshire and Jeremiah's story to Tom in the past and then all the way back to Jeremiah in committee. You see a little of the strain in the inelegant flashback and I was frustrated by how Korelitz confused tension with vagueness in both the New Hampshire scenes and the flashbacks. When the reader has to blindly follow the author on nothing but the faint glimmer that he/she has got this, it can be super frustrating. Aside from that, the mechanics of the story work, but most of all I loved that anti-climax. I loved that constant buildup (this time with real tension) to committee, where all the applicants get their five to ten minutes of consideration. Then with all of Portia's overthinking, it's done and over in a flash. Just perfectly in line with the theme. All that handwringing over how this will affect the child ends up with a definite, almost always unsatisfying answer.
Note on the flashback. I didn't like them structurally, but Korelitz did a fabulous job in the writing. As I was reading them, I felt a palpable ping of sadness and regret in my cold robot heart for my college days.
That thematic stuff was a bit of a slog. Korelitz obviously feels passionate about the admissions process, but the long conversations about admissions often seemed carted in from somewhere else. I'm not sure Korelitz figured out how to clearly bridge the interpersonal with the career, but these long conversations about admissions were not the way to do it. Don't get me wrong, I liked reading them, but they didn't seem to fit. Oh, and don't tell me that the breathless declaration that "Admissions. Admission. Aren't there two sides to the word? And two opposing sides...It's what we let in, but it's also what we let out" is an adequate way to tie things together because it's tenuous at best.
Portia's an interesting character. A total nutbar neurotic, which I loved, who is totally self-obsessed and can't relate to many people, which I totally relate to. Her oh-so-secret shame was pretty damn obvious to me and Mark's oh-so-secret indiscretion was also pretty damn obvious. That obviousness doesn't bother me. At this point in our culture, with everyone spoiling things left and right, knowing what comes next is really a moot point. If you do a good job at tension and leading me from one place to another, then I can enjoy the ride even though I know the destination. What bothered me was the need for vagueness. It's charades. I'm meant to act like I don't know what Helen's big big secret is and I'm meant to act like I don't know why Mark was angry at Portia for fighting with Helen. It's all just going through the motions, on both ends. I don't think that's how we get tension.
Oof! Always with the negativity. Final takeaway: Slightly wishy-washy, but well-written dissection the admissions process and one woman's journey to self-actualization. Or something like that.
Also, final takeaway: It's not just me! Admissions counselors don't reply to anyone's e-mails, not only to those who work in university departments of which they don't see the point.
Okay now I know. I have to put down something about the book immediately after I read it or else malaise sets in. I've felt really lazy these days, also super busy, and, recently, super sick. So today I took a sick day and read Admission, which is tangentially related to work so it didn't feel like I took the day off. I also remembered how much I love sleeping.
My opinion of Admission constantly changed as I read it. I kind of did that thing that I hate where I was imagining what kind of book it was as I was reading it. This sounds super douche-y, but I am usually right in my predictions, and I was right on with the plot point predictions (not that it is honestly that hard to predict), but as a whole, Korelitz kind of surprised me. I was anticipating a cautionary tale type of thing, but I didn't get it. I mean there's a bit of that, and the character trajectory is in many ways the same as that type of story, but the impetus feels quite different, which I liked. I think that difference, that why, does a good job of tying up some structural issues I had.
When John was first introduced, I got quite annoyed because it seemed like Korelitz was simply using the admissions processing and Portia's career as an admissions counselor as a metaphor for some interpersonal gobble-gook chick lit cliche bullshit. Yes there's a bit of thwarted romance-y stuff going on, but when Portia it feel like I understand what Korelitz was going for. I respect the careful way she constructed the narrative, to lead us from John to Jeremiah to New Hampshire and Jeremiah's story to Tom in the past and then all the way back to Jeremiah in committee. You see a little of the strain in the inelegant flashback and I was frustrated by how Korelitz confused tension with vagueness in both the New Hampshire scenes and the flashbacks. When the reader has to blindly follow the author on nothing but the faint glimmer that he/she has got this, it can be super frustrating. Aside from that, the mechanics of the story work, but most of all I loved that anti-climax. I loved that constant buildup (this time with real tension) to committee, where all the applicants get their five to ten minutes of consideration. Then with all of Portia's overthinking, it's done and over in a flash. Just perfectly in line with the theme. All that handwringing over how this will affect the child ends up with a definite, almost always unsatisfying answer.
Note on the flashback. I didn't like them structurally, but Korelitz did a fabulous job in the writing. As I was reading them, I felt a palpable ping of sadness and regret in my cold robot heart for my college days.
That thematic stuff was a bit of a slog. Korelitz obviously feels passionate about the admissions process, but the long conversations about admissions often seemed carted in from somewhere else. I'm not sure Korelitz figured out how to clearly bridge the interpersonal with the career, but these long conversations about admissions were not the way to do it. Don't get me wrong, I liked reading them, but they didn't seem to fit. Oh, and don't tell me that the breathless declaration that "Admissions. Admission. Aren't there two sides to the word? And two opposing sides...It's what we let in, but it's also what we let out" is an adequate way to tie things together because it's tenuous at best.
Portia's an interesting character. A total nutbar neurotic, which I loved, who is totally self-obsessed and can't relate to many people, which I totally relate to. Her oh-so-secret shame was pretty damn obvious to me and Mark's oh-so-secret indiscretion was also pretty damn obvious. That obviousness doesn't bother me. At this point in our culture, with everyone spoiling things left and right, knowing what comes next is really a moot point. If you do a good job at tension and leading me from one place to another, then I can enjoy the ride even though I know the destination. What bothered me was the need for vagueness. It's charades. I'm meant to act like I don't know what Helen's big big secret is and I'm meant to act like I don't know why Mark was angry at Portia for fighting with Helen. It's all just going through the motions, on both ends. I don't think that's how we get tension.
Oof! Always with the negativity. Final takeaway: Slightly wishy-washy, but well-written dissection the admissions process and one woman's journey to self-actualization. Or something like that.
Also, final takeaway: It's not just me! Admissions counselors don't reply to anyone's e-mails, not only to those who work in university departments of which they don't see the point.
May 16, 2009
This book had an interesting premise, and I was looking for it as soon as I heard about it. But, it took way too long to get into the main plot, and at times it slogged through.... I found myself really having to push myself to finish; liked it well enough to want to see how it ended, but not enough to really be interested. Does that make sense?
As someone really interested in higher education -- and as someone with advanced degrees who thought they would be working in the university system -- I loved the peek into the admission process. However, I grew weary of Portia's (the main character) self-involvement. I get that the admission process is fraught with anxiety, etc. That many kids feel their self-worth is defined by where they go to college. That people hold her responsible if their kid didn't get into the college of their choice. Got it. Portia is not curing cancer here.... she is one of many people involved in the admission process. I found myself disliking her -- and understanding that she was carrying around this heavy weight of her importance to the world because she had nothing, and no one, else.
As someone really interested in higher education -- and as someone with advanced degrees who thought they would be working in the university system -- I loved the peek into the admission process. However, I grew weary of Portia's (the main character) self-involvement. I get that the admission process is fraught with anxiety, etc. That many kids feel their self-worth is defined by where they go to college. That people hold her responsible if their kid didn't get into the college of their choice. Got it. Portia is not curing cancer here.... she is one of many people involved in the admission process. I found myself disliking her -- and understanding that she was carrying around this heavy weight of her importance to the world because she had nothing, and no one, else.
July 19, 2013
I probably enjoyed this book disproportionately. Yes, I picked it up because I knew it had been made into a movie with Tina Fey and because the author is married to Paul Muldoon who I met once and was nice.
But I love a good academic novel, and it was especially refreshing to read one that didn't revolve around the tired professor-student romance trope. The plot moved in ways I didn't expect, and I liked how the story was interwoven with the pleading Greek chorus of applicants, their distinct and indistinct voices.
This novel also inspired me to revisit my own college application essays. Without further ado, here are some direct quotes from them:
"In late elementary school, I was very insecure and depressed. I strove to gain approval from my peers, expecting to find fulfillment in their acceptance."
"Political and cultural issues swarm around us constantly."
"Listing all of the books I have read and projects I have done in the past two years is an impossible task, for I read voraciously and write ferociously."
"Even though I participate in social dancing at home, I have no problem abstaining from it; all the other rules concur with standards I have already set for myself."
"I live my life like a dancer because dance is an art form which incorporates the whole person, body, mind, and emotions, to express truth."
But I love a good academic novel, and it was especially refreshing to read one that didn't revolve around the tired professor-student romance trope. The plot moved in ways I didn't expect, and I liked how the story was interwoven with the pleading Greek chorus of applicants, their distinct and indistinct voices.
This novel also inspired me to revisit my own college application essays. Without further ado, here are some direct quotes from them:
"In late elementary school, I was very insecure and depressed. I strove to gain approval from my peers, expecting to find fulfillment in their acceptance."
"Political and cultural issues swarm around us constantly."
"Listing all of the books I have read and projects I have done in the past two years is an impossible task, for I read voraciously and write ferociously."
"Even though I participate in social dancing at home, I have no problem abstaining from it; all the other rules concur with standards I have already set for myself."
"I live my life like a dancer because dance is an art form which incorporates the whole person, body, mind, and emotions, to express truth."
July 27, 2010
I really, really hated this book. I picked it up because I too worked in admissions. However, though I took my job seriously, I was never as pretentious, obsessed,or as tedious as the main character in this book, who works for Princeton Admissions. The main character is simultaneously stupid (she doesn't understand a fairly simple philosophical essay one of the applicants "writes"), self-absorbed (really, does everybody at parties truly DESPERATELY want to know the teeny minute details of your job),and boring (she has NO personality, the whole character is a) works in Admissions and b) sleeps with some dudes). A job is not a shorthand for actually developing a character. I don't know if she's funny or not (thinking not). I don't know what she likes to do. What she eats. If you could get her to SHUT UP ABOUT HER JOB if she'd have anything else to talk about. I do NOT BLAME (spoiler) her live in boyfriend for dumping her. At the top of each chapter is an excerpt, presumably from an applicant. No comment is given on these, but it seemed as though one snippet was given for us to snicker at the kid who thought it was a good idea to write about her recent IBS diagnosis and how she was dealing with it. I get it, bowels are gross and we don't talk about them. But IBS can be a debilitating disease, with excruciating pain, radically revising one's diet, and um, social stigma, and it is NOT FUNNY. The end of the book reveals a "secret" of the character (also tedious and lame) and then the main character loses her job. Of course the book ends, because THERE IS NOTHING TO THE CHARACTER but her job. Thank goodness the people I worked with at Admissions were actually nothing like this woman. If the people who work at Princeton Admissions are? Go to Yale. Harvard. Hell, go to community college. Just don't deal with them.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 20, 2010
Jean Hanff Korelitz is quickly becoming my favorite author, and this is the second of her books that I have devoured at a break-neck pace. It hasn't been long since I applied to a selective (albeit second tier) institution and anxiously awaited word from the committee. Even less time has passed since my experience of coup de foudre and the resulting fallout. Needless to say, there is much for me to relate to in this novel.This book gave me much to think about: the duel definitions of "admission," what influences us to accept or reject opportunities, and at what point we become content with the way our lives are, to name a few. All of those points aside, the grace and humanity of the language used by Korelitz is astounding and relentlously compells the reader to turn to the next and the next chapter. I also have to appreciate what a fine tuned piece of work this is; every little detail along the way tying together at end, the expertise with which the chapters were titled, and the way that the voices of each of the applicants speaks directly to the reader (rather than Portia) demonstrates the literary brilliance of the writer's style. I am sure to read anything she publishes.
June 27, 2016
This is the story of Portia, an admission officer at Princeton University. That pretty much sums up the plot. She reads admission applications, visits high schools, reads more applications, reads more applications, reads more applications, rinse and repeat. Such is the first 200 pages of this book. Occasionally she argues with her mother, ponders her moderately satisfying relationship of 16 years and reads more applications. She meets someone she went to school with, has a one night stand and reads more applications.
Are you bored yet?
Jean Hanff Korelitz has written some wonderful books. Unfortunately this is not one of them. It is at least 100 pages too long, with mind numbing details about the college admissions process told over and over again. There is a plot in there if you read to the very end, and an alleged plot twist that frankly defies believability. (I didn't . It's just too pat and no proof is offered i.e. a birth date that matches.)
Sadly, don't waste your time on this one.
Are you bored yet?
Jean Hanff Korelitz has written some wonderful books. Unfortunately this is not one of them. It is at least 100 pages too long, with mind numbing details about the college admissions process told over and over again. There is a plot in there if you read to the very end, and an alleged plot twist that frankly defies believability. (I didn't . It's just too pat and no proof is offered i.e. a birth date that matches.)
Sadly, don't waste your time on this one.
July 5, 2010
This book was a nice find. Portia is partnered, childless, 40ish, long-time admissions officer at Princeton. She's satisfied with her life, that is, when she is not holding it up against her mother's values and standards. Many will relate to the tension between Portia and her mother Susannah (an old-school burn-the-bra feminist) and how mom's influence and expectations drive Portia's life choices. Ultimately, this is a book about the pursuit of an authentic life and how we learn to be true and free. The ending may strike some as unrealistic, but Korelitz makes it work. It also has a nice range of solid, intelligent, unapologetic, women characters who are accomplished in varied and unique ways.
February 22, 2014
2 and a 1/2 stars, but since that's not an option, I don't feel like bumping it to 3.
My opinion probably suffered because I went into this book expecting something completely different. I read it because my daughter loves the movie, which stars Tina Fey and Paul Rudd. Because of them I expected it to be lighter than it was, and if not actually funny, at least amusing. It was neither. It was very, very heavy and dense. The entire book is an internal journey for Portia, the main character. There was very little that actually happened.
I don't want to spoil anything, although the "big reveal" which doesn't occur until about page 350, is so nonchalantly slipped in that I didn't feel surprised, or even have that "ah ha!" moment, where NOW things make sense. It was all too internal and personal for me to care very much.
The ending was also a let down. When Portia's life changing event is revealed, and she realizes how it has colored and made her hold eveyone at arms length since, I expected her to DO something! To be fair, she does something, but it's just not that big of a deal, and she never even goes so far as to find actual proof of her suspicions.
A definite whimper as opposed to a bang.
I also had to rate the novel low for it's shear length. There was no reason it took over 500 pages to tell this story. There were pages and pages of droning where I would read and read and realize my eyes had glazed over because what I was reading meant nothing to me or the story and wasn't even interesting besides.
Maybe if I had approached the novel with no expectations I would have enjoyed it more, but, unfortunately we can't go back. I just didn't enjoy it.
My opinion probably suffered because I went into this book expecting something completely different. I read it because my daughter loves the movie, which stars Tina Fey and Paul Rudd. Because of them I expected it to be lighter than it was, and if not actually funny, at least amusing. It was neither. It was very, very heavy and dense. The entire book is an internal journey for Portia, the main character. There was very little that actually happened.
I don't want to spoil anything, although the "big reveal" which doesn't occur until about page 350, is so nonchalantly slipped in that I didn't feel surprised, or even have that "ah ha!" moment, where NOW things make sense. It was all too internal and personal for me to care very much.
The ending was also a let down. When Portia's life changing event is revealed, and she realizes how it has colored and made her hold eveyone at arms length since, I expected her to DO something! To be fair, she does something, but it's just not that big of a deal, and she never even goes so far as to find actual proof of her suspicions.
A definite whimper as opposed to a bang.
I also had to rate the novel low for it's shear length. There was no reason it took over 500 pages to tell this story. There were pages and pages of droning where I would read and read and realize my eyes had glazed over because what I was reading meant nothing to me or the story and wasn't even interesting besides.
Maybe if I had approached the novel with no expectations I would have enjoyed it more, but, unfortunately we can't go back. I just didn't enjoy it.
May 17, 2009
Interesting read, with lots of detail, about life as an ivy league college (Princeton) addmissions "reader". In the book, the main character mentions how former readers write memoirs about their experiences. This is a fiction take on the subject and the entire time, I kept thinking "this would have been better as a memoir or non-fiction". The author obviously wants to make certain points about the college admissions process, which means her character often breaks out into speeches that go on for pages, usually in conversation with other characters. This makes the main character someone I probably would not want to hang out with. The twist in the story is over the top and not believeable. In fact, I thought the twist was a dream, and had to go back and reread to be sure. Bottom line: interesting material that would have been better presented in a different genre.
January 17, 2016
The plainish cover didn't draw me in, but by the end of the first page, I was right there with Portia, and I didn't want to close the book for one second. It's an understatement to say that I was impressed by the writing, as it flowed so well and kept a constant feeling of anticipation. Even when Portia can't see through the fog that has become her life, I wanted to read as quickly as I could to stay right by her side. It's more than a simple story of redemption or a life taking on a new direction-- this was an endearing character study in which the protagonists' true character is revealed to us, the readers, at the same time that it's being made apparent to her.
*Re-read 03/14/13
*Re-read 03/14/13
April 9, 2013
Insightful, moving & funny. A smart book about a fascinating subject (the inner workings of an ivy league admissions office) & about one woman whose seemingly comfortable life is haunted by admissions of a very different kind --admissions as in revealed secrets. Have not seen the film based on this book but the trailer makes it look like a stupid rom-com. This book is not that at all. Recommended to readers who appreciate a good story told with a high level of literary skill.
June 7, 2009
The overwhelming sense I had when reading this book, a discourse on the trials of a woman who serves as gatekeeper at Princeton through her work in the admissions office, is that it had the quality of a televeision series - a lot of panoramic views without any real depth.
This work traces the emotional turmoil that Portia, reader of applications faces, inside and outside of her office as she deals with her various emotional distractions. While it is a smartly written novel in that the language is tight and the words well chosen (hence a somewhat begrudging three star score) it simply did not work as a proper novel.
For one thing, Korelitz's balance of prose and dialogue is horribly off. Portia's somewhat snooty and pretentious sounding mind (ironically as she ranks on the snooty and the pretensious, thereby aligning herself with them in the worst way) goes on for pages - then we are treated to far too many word for word exchanges of what I am sure are actual conversations Korelitz had while working at Princeton, but none of which are actually interesting to a reader. It seems the lines between memoir, novel and essay for the New Yorker constantly blurred in her mind.
The structure of a novel, formulaic though it will sound, has been instituted for a reason. For me to reach page 238 and still not know what the actual plot of the novel is indicates a problem. A premise is one thing (ie, inside the world of those who decide who will be let in, which is interesting but doesn't have quite the voyeuristic quality that Korelit wishes it did - give me pageant moms or abused nannies over SAT scores versus lacrosse teams any day) but if it;s all you have, then, no, I'm sorry, you are not being the new Jane Austen with your biting accuracy on commentary - youa re actually just boring me.
IN addition to build up to a conflict/climax that took way too long to happen, Korelitz's characters, as stated previously, lack depth in a way that is striking for a work that takes on such emotional issues and pretty prose. Portia meets someone within the first twnety pages and has a wild one night stand with him that doesn't seem to be in any way grounded in reality (ie, what exactly is drawing these two people together? Nothing, ostensibly). We then find out, for the first time, that she has been living with someone for sixteen years. Oh! That would have been nice to know to develop some sort of, dare I say, conflict? But no. Which is fine because Portia doesn't seem to be all that conflicted, or affected by this betrayal at all. She kicks said affair to the curb rather neatly and just resumes her regularly scheduled program wtih then velatedly introduced Mark, who, similar to John, is extremely flat and falls into personality development that is just convenient for the author. John needs to be that nice and funny disarming guy, and so he is. Mark needs to be, well, nothing much, and so he is.
IN what I hope was supposed to be a super predictable turn of events, Mark himself has been seeing someone, someone he actually invites for dinner (????) and then chides Portia for not being nicer to when said mistress (though this is not yet revealed to the rather emotionally stupid Portia) is quite nasty to Portia. Well we all move on rather neatly from this as well until Mark confesses, abruptly, in a car ride, that mistress exists, is having his baby, gets out of the car, and voila, sixteen year relationship ends in an exchange that I found to be wholly unrealistic and therefore devoid of any emotion as far as the reader is concerned (as prompted by the unemotional characters who have been, what, in a COMA the last decade and a half??).
Well isn't this convenient! So now she is free to resume relatinship with what's his name, who Portia hasn't so much has mentioned for approx 100 pages or so, and sure enough he reappears and their relationship (so called) picks up right where it left off, just as baffling and just as undeveloped.
Does anyone see a conflict here? Well, in truth, JOhn is a college guidance guy so I see how that will be one, but those details really could have been utilized sooner in the story - ie, skip a lot of the admissions propaganda that means nothing to anyone except Korelitz who seems a frustrated blogger more so than a novelist, and give us an actual story! Don't crowd your novel with characters who seem rather irrelevant and dialogue that sounds like a sitcom rather than real people having real conversation.
The application reading process, I admit, is interesting to read about (to a degree) and it is reassuring to think that the process is gone about as fairly as it is, but it needed to be a background and not a driving force. IN truth Korelitz either needed to write a memoir or an article and skip the steamy love scenes she plunks in for good measure among characters who are so plain its sad. This work reminded me of the Bronte Project, another dishrag heroine who lets life happen to her and reads too much and leaves the reader completely cold.
The so called twist at the end was not only totally unrealistic but also extremely predictable. It was another attempt to transcend this piece yet all it did was further the trite quality. The narrative, long winded and existent to serve the authors transparent purposes, went on and on, and instead of creating likeable characters they merely felt like puppets til the end.
ETA - I will say, though, that the excerpts of student essays are hillarious - I would have liked to have seen some that actually were as smart sounding as one would think a Princeton applicant would be, but the bulk of them were laugh out loud funny and, to an English teacher, wildly appreciated.
This work traces the emotional turmoil that Portia, reader of applications faces, inside and outside of her office as she deals with her various emotional distractions. While it is a smartly written novel in that the language is tight and the words well chosen (hence a somewhat begrudging three star score) it simply did not work as a proper novel.
For one thing, Korelitz's balance of prose and dialogue is horribly off. Portia's somewhat snooty and pretentious sounding mind (ironically as she ranks on the snooty and the pretensious, thereby aligning herself with them in the worst way) goes on for pages - then we are treated to far too many word for word exchanges of what I am sure are actual conversations Korelitz had while working at Princeton, but none of which are actually interesting to a reader. It seems the lines between memoir, novel and essay for the New Yorker constantly blurred in her mind.
The structure of a novel, formulaic though it will sound, has been instituted for a reason. For me to reach page 238 and still not know what the actual plot of the novel is indicates a problem. A premise is one thing (ie, inside the world of those who decide who will be let in, which is interesting but doesn't have quite the voyeuristic quality that Korelit wishes it did - give me pageant moms or abused nannies over SAT scores versus lacrosse teams any day) but if it;s all you have, then, no, I'm sorry, you are not being the new Jane Austen with your biting accuracy on commentary - youa re actually just boring me.
IN addition to build up to a conflict/climax that took way too long to happen, Korelitz's characters, as stated previously, lack depth in a way that is striking for a work that takes on such emotional issues and pretty prose. Portia meets someone within the first twnety pages and has a wild one night stand with him that doesn't seem to be in any way grounded in reality (ie, what exactly is drawing these two people together? Nothing, ostensibly). We then find out, for the first time, that she has been living with someone for sixteen years. Oh! That would have been nice to know to develop some sort of, dare I say, conflict? But no. Which is fine because Portia doesn't seem to be all that conflicted, or affected by this betrayal at all. She kicks said affair to the curb rather neatly and just resumes her regularly scheduled program wtih then velatedly introduced Mark, who, similar to John, is extremely flat and falls into personality development that is just convenient for the author. John needs to be that nice and funny disarming guy, and so he is. Mark needs to be, well, nothing much, and so he is.
IN what I hope was supposed to be a super predictable turn of events, Mark himself has been seeing someone, someone he actually invites for dinner (????) and then chides Portia for not being nicer to when said mistress (though this is not yet revealed to the rather emotionally stupid Portia) is quite nasty to Portia. Well we all move on rather neatly from this as well until Mark confesses, abruptly, in a car ride, that mistress exists, is having his baby, gets out of the car, and voila, sixteen year relationship ends in an exchange that I found to be wholly unrealistic and therefore devoid of any emotion as far as the reader is concerned (as prompted by the unemotional characters who have been, what, in a COMA the last decade and a half??).
Well isn't this convenient! So now she is free to resume relatinship with what's his name, who Portia hasn't so much has mentioned for approx 100 pages or so, and sure enough he reappears and their relationship (so called) picks up right where it left off, just as baffling and just as undeveloped.
Does anyone see a conflict here? Well, in truth, JOhn is a college guidance guy so I see how that will be one, but those details really could have been utilized sooner in the story - ie, skip a lot of the admissions propaganda that means nothing to anyone except Korelitz who seems a frustrated blogger more so than a novelist, and give us an actual story! Don't crowd your novel with characters who seem rather irrelevant and dialogue that sounds like a sitcom rather than real people having real conversation.
The application reading process, I admit, is interesting to read about (to a degree) and it is reassuring to think that the process is gone about as fairly as it is, but it needed to be a background and not a driving force. IN truth Korelitz either needed to write a memoir or an article and skip the steamy love scenes she plunks in for good measure among characters who are so plain its sad. This work reminded me of the Bronte Project, another dishrag heroine who lets life happen to her and reads too much and leaves the reader completely cold.
The so called twist at the end was not only totally unrealistic but also extremely predictable. It was another attempt to transcend this piece yet all it did was further the trite quality. The narrative, long winded and existent to serve the authors transparent purposes, went on and on, and instead of creating likeable characters they merely felt like puppets til the end.
ETA - I will say, though, that the excerpts of student essays are hillarious - I would have liked to have seen some that actually were as smart sounding as one would think a Princeton applicant would be, but the bulk of them were laugh out loud funny and, to an English teacher, wildly appreciated.
June 8, 2009
This was a thoroughly enjoyable book to read. The author has a very engaging writing style and tells a story that I found riveting. (I now want to check her other books. The other plots don’t look as interesting to me, but she’s such a good writer I might try another of her books.)
The characters are likeable and understandable and authentic seeming people. One third the way through the book I could see a million miles away what was coming, but that did not at all diminish the pleasure I got while reading it. I thought that I wouldn’t be as interested in the latter (flashback) parts as much as the first and last parts of the book, but I was surprised to find that I liked each part equally well.
I loved how each chapter started with an excerpt from a Princeton University application essay, and even the chapter names are delightful.
This story is very topical and modern now; I’m not sure if it will be a classic because of this, but I don’t think it’s precluded from having a lasting attraction for readers. I really felt for those young people who are now in high school and attempting to get accepted at universities or colleges.
This book is about a Princeton admissions officer who’d attended Dartmouth and first worked at the Dartmouth admissions office. This author appears to know about what she writes: She attended Dartmouth, her husband is a professor at Princeton, and she was a part time admissions reader at Princeton during the 2006 and 2007 seasons.
I had so much fun reading this and I’d love to know what happens next, which is both frustrating and a testament to this well told story and its interesting characters. What’s peculiar is that the style and story were so engaging, and I found it amusing in a way a comedy would be, but it’s not a comedy, but there’s enough humor in it that I found a lot of it funny; I probably found humor in places where it didn’t actually exist, but I certainly also recognized the parts that were more serious too.
I couldn’t give it five stars in part because the ending wasn’t quite as satisfying as the rest of the book, although perhaps it went about as well as it could have been written. I do admit I can’t come up with an alternative ending that would be both more valid and fulfilling.
I also have to aknowledge that I was slightly bothered at mentions made throughout the book of vegan foods and of vegan people that in all but one instance are not flattering. The food and off page characters that are vegan are portrayed with some disdain. I can’t decide whether or not to be happy that anything vegan is mentioned at all given that it’s unusual to have the word vegan appear in novels.
Addendum: I just realized: I really want a sequel! I see some really interesting possibilities!
The characters are likeable and understandable and authentic seeming people. One third the way through the book I could see a million miles away what was coming, but that did not at all diminish the pleasure I got while reading it. I thought that I wouldn’t be as interested in the latter (flashback) parts as much as the first and last parts of the book, but I was surprised to find that I liked each part equally well.
I loved how each chapter started with an excerpt from a Princeton University application essay, and even the chapter names are delightful.
This story is very topical and modern now; I’m not sure if it will be a classic because of this, but I don’t think it’s precluded from having a lasting attraction for readers. I really felt for those young people who are now in high school and attempting to get accepted at universities or colleges.
This book is about a Princeton admissions officer who’d attended Dartmouth and first worked at the Dartmouth admissions office. This author appears to know about what she writes: She attended Dartmouth, her husband is a professor at Princeton, and she was a part time admissions reader at Princeton during the 2006 and 2007 seasons.
I had so much fun reading this and I’d love to know what happens next, which is both frustrating and a testament to this well told story and its interesting characters. What’s peculiar is that the style and story were so engaging, and I found it amusing in a way a comedy would be, but it’s not a comedy, but there’s enough humor in it that I found a lot of it funny; I probably found humor in places where it didn’t actually exist, but I certainly also recognized the parts that were more serious too.
I couldn’t give it five stars in part because the ending wasn’t quite as satisfying as the rest of the book, although perhaps it went about as well as it could have been written. I do admit I can’t come up with an alternative ending that would be both more valid and fulfilling.
I also have to aknowledge that I was slightly bothered at mentions made throughout the book of vegan foods and of vegan people that in all but one instance are not flattering. The food and off page characters that are vegan are portrayed with some disdain. I can’t decide whether or not to be happy that anything vegan is mentioned at all given that it’s unusual to have the word vegan appear in novels.
Addendum: I just realized: I really want a sequel! I see some really interesting possibilities!
March 21, 2016
This was better than average. Korelitz does a good job with language and her plot was interesting enough. I was surprised with Portia's reveal. I knew that she had been pregnant (that's pretty easy to figure out early enough) and that things had ended badly with Tom, but I was not prepared for the adoption. However, the suspicion that Jeremiah is her long lost little boy was just too over the top convenient. And, as much as Korelitz tries to present the East Coast Ivy world as less than snobbish, ultimately all of her protagonists (including Susannah) are extremely wealthy.
I was also a bit annoyed with the extend of the details about Princeton admits. Not only did we have to cover (in detail) about 30 admit files through the course of the novel, but Koreliz reminds the reader of a few of them multiple times. I get that Portia's work is her sole accomplishment and the only thing in which she immerses herself. But I didn't think we needed quite so many details to come through to the reader. This is a fairly long book; about 50-100 pages of work related stuff could have probably been cut.
All of that said, it was still an entertaining and compelling read. And, Korelitz does manage to make some great comments about interpersonal relationships and insecurities. Although, ultimately I guess I felt like Korelitz was quite a snob and rather condemning of the feminist perspective (Susannah is a token character who is given no respect); further while Portia ignores the advice that women who gave up their babies never got over it" and tried to be independent and self-sufficient ultimately what we get is a main character who is falling apart. She needs John and Jeremiah to save her and Tom was her undoing. Hmmm...rather misogynistic, yes?
I was also a bit annoyed with the extend of the details about Princeton admits. Not only did we have to cover (in detail) about 30 admit files through the course of the novel, but Koreliz reminds the reader of a few of them multiple times. I get that Portia's work is her sole accomplishment and the only thing in which she immerses herself. But I didn't think we needed quite so many details to come through to the reader. This is a fairly long book; about 50-100 pages of work related stuff could have probably been cut.
All of that said, it was still an entertaining and compelling read. And, Korelitz does manage to make some great comments about interpersonal relationships and insecurities. Although, ultimately I guess I felt like Korelitz was quite a snob and rather condemning of the feminist perspective (Susannah is a token character who is given no respect); further while Portia ignores the advice that women who gave up their babies never got over it" and tried to be independent and self-sufficient ultimately what we get is a main character who is falling apart. She needs John and Jeremiah to save her and Tom was her undoing. Hmmm...rather misogynistic, yes?
March 16, 2013
I loved this book! I had no idea what it was when I picked it up at the library and found myself absorbed by the world of admissions to Ivy League universities (in this case, Princeton) as well as the personal story which ran parallel to the admissions season. It was a bit scary to read about how tough it is to get into one of the top schools these days (especially as a parent of a 12 year-old) but I found it fascinating. And the snippets of applications which accompanied each chapter added to the emotional impact of the book. I was so sorry when it ended (and it's a 400+ page book!).
February 23, 2016
I wasn't super into the movie adaptation, but I really enjoyed this book. I never thought about the admissions process; it didn't really cross my mind that a human person read my application and deemed me worthy of Smith. Really liked the long descriptions of different kids applying, and the little blurbs from pretend application essays that were before each chapter. While the book was pretty dramatic, it was also incredibly thoughtful and heartfelt in the way it dealt with that drama.
April 14, 2013
Just finished reading Admission, all 634 pages, about Portia, a 38 year old admission officer, at Princeton in a 16 year relationship with Mark, a professor at the same University.
This is an extremely well written, intelligent, at times fascinating and elegant novel. I could not put it down. I can easily recommend it to anyone wishing to pass a couple of pleasant days reading about an entrancing heroine whose life goes through a traumatic upheaval, both personally and work based. Her insights and explanations of the inner workings of the college admission process is erudite and compelling. Anyone planning to get their kids into an ivy league college will find this an eye opener.
That said, it's far too long--say 200 pages too long. The author has an agenda and repeats it again and again: kids today, even bright ones, have to go through an appalling admission process to get into the university of their choice. On top of her agenda, what our heroine undergoes during the period of this book--a few months at most--would cause any normal person to go crazy. It's just too much...she's Jewish, she's got issues with her mother who is planning on adopting a baby and apparently it's 17 year old unwed mother, with her own upbringing (her mother is wealthy yet lives "naturally"), she undergoes a totally unexpected shattering breakup of a long relationship (this is no spoiler--it's obvious from page one), the start of a new one, a staggering work load and finally--nearly 400 or more pages in--an event of mind blowing proportions. Way too much. I kept thinking and hoping: oh no, not that...not that. Life can be stranger than fiction. True. But it seems an easy way out and the author did not even need it. In spite of these drawbacks, a great read. I recommend it.
This is an extremely well written, intelligent, at times fascinating and elegant novel. I could not put it down. I can easily recommend it to anyone wishing to pass a couple of pleasant days reading about an entrancing heroine whose life goes through a traumatic upheaval, both personally and work based. Her insights and explanations of the inner workings of the college admission process is erudite and compelling. Anyone planning to get their kids into an ivy league college will find this an eye opener.
That said, it's far too long--say 200 pages too long. The author has an agenda and repeats it again and again: kids today, even bright ones, have to go through an appalling admission process to get into the university of their choice. On top of her agenda, what our heroine undergoes during the period of this book--a few months at most--would cause any normal person to go crazy. It's just too much...she's Jewish, she's got issues with her mother who is planning on adopting a baby and apparently it's 17 year old unwed mother, with her own upbringing (her mother is wealthy yet lives "naturally"), she undergoes a totally unexpected shattering breakup of a long relationship (this is no spoiler--it's obvious from page one), the start of a new one, a staggering work load and finally--nearly 400 or more pages in--an event of mind blowing proportions. Way too much. I kept thinking and hoping: oh no, not that...not that. Life can be stranger than fiction. True. But it seems an easy way out and the author did not even need it. In spite of these drawbacks, a great read. I recommend it.
February 3, 2013
Right place/right time. I picked this novel about an admissions officer at Princeton off the "Library Staff Favorites" shelf, and read it in a day because I've been trying to stay in the ZONE with writing college recommendations for high school juniors. So I considered it research, not procrastination. Ha.
I loved the intimate glimpse into the office of admissions and the struggle that application readers go through as they reject incredible kids. Who knew that the climax of a novel could revolve around a discussion of whether or not to admit a student? Overall, the novel is artfully written, with lots and lots of introspection by the main character, who has a whole relationship/family story on the side that could be a book in itself.
Update on Feb 3: I recently saw the trailer for this movie, starring Tina Fey and Paul Rudd....strange, because it did not strike me as a comedy when I read it, so I think a lot is going to be lost/over-the-topped in the film. Also, the preview blows one of the real surprises in the book, so that is sort of weird and sad.
I loved the intimate glimpse into the office of admissions and the struggle that application readers go through as they reject incredible kids. Who knew that the climax of a novel could revolve around a discussion of whether or not to admit a student? Overall, the novel is artfully written, with lots and lots of introspection by the main character, who has a whole relationship/family story on the side that could be a book in itself.
Update on Feb 3: I recently saw the trailer for this movie, starring Tina Fey and Paul Rudd....strange, because it did not strike me as a comedy when I read it, so I think a lot is going to be lost/over-the-topped in the film. Also, the preview blows one of the real surprises in the book, so that is sort of weird and sad.
June 23, 2009
This will be next year's beach book when it arrives in paperback. The subject matter of what goes on during the evaluation process at a first tier university is fascinating, as well as some of the "essays" that precede each chapter. However, the novel itself is padded out with a predictable storyline, one dimensional characters, and improbable plotting. It would have been better at half the length, dispensing with so many soap suds.
July 10, 2010
Fabulous novel. The layers are wonderful, the writing crisp, only a few typographical errors toward the end. She's a good story-teller and has a way of weaving complex bits of information into short paragraphs. Also, I had no idea admissions officers worked so hard to make decisions; in the end though, it's all still a crapshoot.
March 18, 2022
5 stars for the inside information on how college admissions work. As a parent going through this process with my son, this was eye-opening, anxiety-producing, and also comforting to know.
- 2 stars for verboseness. It could have been edited down at least 100 pages, if not more.
- 2 stars for verboseness. It could have been edited down at least 100 pages, if not more.
March 3, 2013
Also great, except for the fact that I now know my children will never get into college and will attend what we in New Jersey fondly refer to as Harvard on the Highway - Bergen Community College.
March 11, 2018
The characters and themes seem borrowed or recycled from other books of hers. Still a brilliant author and a brilliant book.
November 9, 2022
Terrible, couldn’t even finish it. Wouldn’t recommend.
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