Showing posts with label prep schools/boarding schools. Show all posts
Showing posts with label prep schools/boarding schools. Show all posts
Apr 8, 2019
Apr 1, 2018
May 1, 2015
Reconstructing Amelia - Kimberly McCreight
Summary: Kate is in the middle of the biggest meeting of her career when she gets the telephone call from Grace Hall, her daughter's exclusive private school in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Amelia has been suspended, effective immediately, and Kate must come get her daughter now. But Kate's stress over leaving work quickly turns to panic when she arrives at the school and finds it surrounded by police officers, fire trucks, and an ambulance. By then it's already too late for Amelia. And for Kate. An academic overachiever despondent over getting caught cheating has jumped to her death. At least that is the story Grace Hall tells Kate. And clouded as she is by her guilt and grief, it is the one she forces herself to believe. Until she gets an anonymous text: She didn't jump. The novel is about secret first loves, old friendships, and an all-girls club steeped in tradition. But, most of all, it's the story of how far a mother will go to vindicate the memory of a daughter whose life she couldn't save.
Booklist Reviews
Kate believes her daughter, 15-year-old Amelia, has committed suicide, jumping from the roof of her private school—until she receives an anonymous text saying simply, "Amelia didn't jump." Could she have been murdered? Kate, a successful attorney, is determined to find out even as she is haunted by the fear she has failed her daughter, too often putting her career ahead of her responsibilities as a mother. McCreight has written an elaborately plotted mystery that not only tells Kate's story but also includes Amelia's own first-person narrative along with her e-mails, texts, and Facebook posts, all of which tell a harrowing story while keeping the reader one step ahead of Kate and the police. This first novel occasionally requires a willing suspension of disbelief and comes dangerously close to melodrama near the end, but McCreight does a fine job of building suspense and creating characters, notably Kate and Amelia, whom the target audience—both adults and older teens—will care about and empathize with. Copyright 2012 Booklist Reviews.
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May 1, 2014
The Tragedy Paper - Elizabeth LaBan
Summary: While preparing for the most dreaded assignment at the prestigious Irving School, the Tragedy Paper, Duncan gets wrapped up in the tragic tale of Tim Macbeth, a former student who had a clandestine relationship with the wrong girl, and his own ill-fated romance with Daisy.
Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* It's an Irving School tradition: each graduating senior chooses the incoming senior who will inherit his dorm room and leaves a treasure for the new occupant. Duncan hardly expects his treasure to be life changing. After all, it's just a stack of CDs narrated by Tim, the strange albino student who came to Irving for the first time last year. Yet as Duncan becomes more obsessed with each successive CD, he also becomes more determined to make the most of his senior year opportunities with fellow student Daisy and as the organizer of this year's senior game. Debut novelist LaBan takes us into private-school culture as well as the heads of two charming yet very different teenage boys and their parallel love stories. Eventually, LaBan's ever-building suspense reaches a harrowing climax. The private school aura heightens the book's fascination. Nonexistent parents; well-intentioned, likable faculty on the periphery; elaborate dorm rooms with overstuffed closets; and even the romantic, snow-covered campus all contribute to a setting that adds heft and intrigue. Finally, LaBan weaves a single underlying thread through both boys' narratives—the tragedy paper. A senior-year requirement possessing its own myths and legends and assigned by the very exacting, personable Mr. Simon, the paper must answer for both the Irving graduate and the reader the ultimate question: how do you define tragedy? Copyright 2012 Booklist Reviews.
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Jan 1, 2014
Winger - Andrew Smith
Summary: Two years younger than his classmates at a prestigious boarding school, fourteen-year-old Ryan Dean West grapples with living in the dorm for troublemakers, falling for his female best friend who thinks of him as just a kid, and playing wing on the Varsity rugby team with some of his frightening new dorm-mates.
Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* After he opened a vein in YA lit with The Marbury Lens (2010) and then went completely nutso in Passenger (2012), about the only thing that Smith could do to surprise would be a hornball boarding-school romantic romp. Surprise! Well, sort of. At 14, Ryan Dean West is a couple years younger (and scrawnier) than the rest of the juniors at Pine Mountain. He is a plucky kid—despite a tendency to punctuate his every thought with "I am such a loser"—who stars in the rugby team due to his speed and tenacity. The rail ties of his single-track mind, though, are his exploits (or lack thereof) with the opposite sex, particularly his best friend Annie, who thinks he is "adorable." In short, Ryan Dean is a slightly pervy but likable teen. He rates the hotness of every female in sight but also drops surprising bombs of personal depth on a friend's homosexuality, the poisonous rivalries that can ruin friendships, and his own highly unstable mix of insecurity and evolving self-confidence. Much of the story seems preoccupied with the base-level joys and torments of being a teenager, content to float along with occasional bursts of levity from some nonessential but fun minicomics by Bosma. But at its heart, it is more in line with Dead Poets Society, and by the end this deceptively lightweight novel packs an unexpectedly ferocious punch. Copyright 2012 Booklist Reviews.
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Dec 2, 2013
Etiquette and espionage - Gail Carriger
Etiquette and espionage - Carriger, Gail
Summary: In an alternate England of 1851, spirited fourteen-year-old Sophronia is enrolled in a finishing school where, she is suprised to learn, lessons include not only the fine arts of dance, dress, and etiquette, but also diversion, deceit, and espionage.
Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* Set 25 years before her Parasol Protectorate series, Carriger's YA debut brings her mix of Victorian paranormal steampunk and winning heroines to a whole new audience. After an incident involving a plummeting dumbwaiter and an airborne trifle, Sophronia is sent to Mademoiselle Geraldine's Finishing Academy to learn how to be a proper lady. Their carriage is immediately waylaid by flywaymen looking for a mysterious prototype—the first of many clues that this academy will not be the dreadful bore Sophronia expected. Once established at Mademoiselle Geraldine's (set on a chain of dirigibles!), Sophronia learns that she is a covert recruit into a school that trains girls to be part assassins, part spies, and also always fashionable ladies of quality. It's this last bit she has trouble with; in her self-assigned search for the prototype, she acquires an illegal mechanimal pet, befriends the boiler room sooties, and avoids both teachers and mechanicals to explore restricted areas, yet she can't master curtsying or eyelash fluttering. While the prototype plot isn't fully developed, Carriger's series starter more than makes up for it with cleverly Victorian methods of espionage, witty banter, lighthearted silliness, and a ship full of intriguingly quirky people. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Carriger has made major waves as a best-selling steampunker, and the promotion and outreach planned for this YA offshoot should continue that streak. Copyright 2012 Booklist Reviews.
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Aug 1, 2013
Openly straight - Bill Konigsberg
Summary: Tired of being known as "the gay kid", Rafe Goldberg decides to assume a new persona when he comes east and enters an elite Massachusetts prep school--but trying to deny his identity has both complications and unexpected consequences.
Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* Now a junior in high school, Rafe, who has been out since he was 14, is thoroughly sick of being labeled "the gay kid." So he does something bold: he leaves his Colorado school to enroll in a private boys' academy in New England, where no one knows he's gay and he can be a label-free, "openly straight" part of a group of guys. Does this mean he goes back into the closet? No, he tells himself, not exactly: "It was more like I was in the doorway." But is he fooling himself? Can you put a major part of yourself on hold, and what happens when you then find yourself falling in love with your new (straight) best friend? Lambda Literary Award winner Konigsberg (Out of the Pocket, 2008) has written an exceptionally intelligent, thought-provoking coming-of-age novel about the labels people apply to us and that we, perversely, apply to ourselves. A sometimes painful story of self-discovery, it is also a beautifully written, absolutely captivating romance between two boys, Rafe and Ben, who are both wonderfully sympathetic characters. With its capacity to invite both thought and deeply felt emotion, Openly Straight is altogether one of the best gay-themed novels of the last 10 years. Copyright 2013 Booklist Reviews.
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Jul 1, 2013
How to lead a life of crime - Kirsten Miller
Summary: A Meth Dealer. A Prostitute. A Serial Killer.
Anywhere else, they’d be vermin. At the Mandel Academy, they’re called
prodigies. The most exclusive school in New York City has been training young
criminals for over a century. Only the most ruthless students are allowed to
graduate. The rest disappear.
Flick, a teenage pickpocket, has risen to the top of his class. But then Mandel
recruits a fierce new competitor who also happens to be Flick’s old flame.
They’ve been told only one of them will make it out of the Mandel Academy. Will
they find a way to save each other—or will the school destroy them both?
- (Penguin Putnam)
Kirkus Reviews
A teen pickpocket attends a school for the criminally minded. Tough, 17-year-old loner Flick lives on the streets of Manhattan's Lower East Side and makes ends meet by relieving the upper class of their wallets. His only ally is a teen girl named Joi, who operates an underground rescue camp for homeless teens and wields surgical tools like a pro. Enter well-dressed, smooth-talking Lucian Mandel, the headmaster of the infamous Mandel Academy, who makes him an offer he can't refuse: If Flick agrees to enroll in Mandel Academy, Lucian will hand over the evidence that connects Flick's wealthy father to the murder of his brother. Flick agrees, and he soon finds himself immersed in a student body of teen sociopathic murderers, liars, thieves and embezzlers--all embroiled in a violent race to the top of the class. Miller pens an enjoyable, fast-paced action novel that's full of danger, mystery, humor and violence, with lots of gross-out scenes and plenty of hairpin-turn plot twists that will keep readers guessing. Her only misstep in this exciting read is an overdose of references to Barrie's Peter Pan, but readers will still make the right connections to the characters and probably devour the novel in one setting. An enigmatic page turner full of intrigue. (Adventure. 14 & up) Copyright Kirkus 2012 Kirkus/BPI Communications.All rights reserved.
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Mar 1, 2013
Navigating early - Clare Vanderpool
Navigating early - Vanderpool, Clare
Summary: "Odyssey-like adventure of two boys' incredible quest on the Appalachian Trail where they deal with pirates, buried secrets, and extraordinary encounters"-- Provided by publisher.
Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* When Jack Baker's mother dies, his father deposits him in the Morton Hill Academy for Boys in Maine, far from the only home he has ever known—Kansas. Alone and lonely, Jack befriends Early Auden, a strange, legendary boy who understands all manner of unknowable things, from the necessity of listening to Billie Holiday on rainy days to the secrets embedded in patterns of jelly beans. Most important, Early believes the unwinding digits in the calculation of pi hold a connection to his revered older brother, lost in the war. Jack and Early set out on a mysterious journey, following Pi's story, tracking a great black bear along the Appalachian Trail, and searching for reconciliation neither knows he seeks. Along the way, they encounter a collection of characters, all of them wound up in Early's eerily prescient Pi yarn. Newbery Medal–winning author Vanderpool's sharp, honest narrative, sparkling with the stars of the night sky, pieces together an elaborate, layered plot with precision, weaving multiple threads into a careful, tidy conclusion perfectly suited for those, like Jack and Early, who want to believe. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Vanderpool took home the big Newbery prize for Moon Over Manifest (2010), making this publication—which includes a national author tour—a publishing event. Copyright 2012 Booklist Reviews.
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Apr 1, 2012
Old school - Tobias Wolff
Summary: During his senior year at an elite New England prep school, a young man who had struggled to find it with his contemporaries finds his life unraveling thanks to the school's obsession with literary figures and their work during a visit from an author for whose blessing a young writer would do almost anything. By the author of This Boy's Life. A first novel. 40,000 first printing. - (Baker & Taylor)
Booklist Reviews
/*Starred Review*/ There are ways to lie without saying a word. It is 1960, and the narrator is beginning his final year at a private school of strong literary traditions. Aspiring writers edit the literary journal and compete to win private audiences with visiting luminaries of letters. This year, the guests are to be Robert Frost, Ayn Rand, and Ernest Hemingway. The narrator is a scholarship student, and though his school prides itself on class blindness, his classmates are well versed in spotting the subtle indicators of economic background. Longing to fit in, he dissembles, cultivating an "easy disregard" by which he hopes to imply his own privilege. But this doubleness leads him toward an unexpected decision with far-reaching consequences for his future. While a main theme here is a writer's growth, the work's essential component, the forming of character, gives it a universal appeal. As our storyteller grows through his identification with and understanding of important books, and learns the importance of writing honestly, he also learns that to insist too adamantly on the truth may require the individual to stand apart from even the group he loves. Wolff, acclaimed for his short stories and memoirs, has written a marvelous novel with resonance for old and young alike. His storytelling is economical, his prose is elegant, and his meditations are utterly timeless. Some readers may wish to turn from the last page to the first and begin again. ((Reviewed September 1, 2003)) Copyright 2003 Booklist Reviews
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Mar 2, 2011
Anna and the French kiss - Stephanie Perkins
Summary: When Anna's romance-novelist father sends her to an elite American boarding school in Paris for her senior year of high school, she reluctantly goes, and meets an amazing boy who becomes her best friend, in spite of the fact that they both want something more.
Booklist Reviews
Anna is not happy about spending senior year at a Paris boarding school, away from her Atlanta home, best friend Bridgette, and crush Toph. Adapting isn't easy, but she soon finds friends and starts enjoying French life, especially its many cinemas; she is an aspiring film critic. Complications arise, though, when she develops feelings for cute—and taken—classmate Etienne, even though she remains interested in Toph. Her return home for the holidays brings both surprises, betrayals, unexpected support, and a new perspective on what matters in life—and love. Featuring vivid descriptions of Parisian culture and places, and a cast of diverse, multifaceted characters, including adults, this lively title incorporates plenty of issues that will resonate with teens, from mean girls to the quest for confidence and the complexities of relationships in all their forms. Despite its length and predictable crossed-signal plot twists, Perkins' debut, narrated in Anna's likable, introspective voice, is an absorbing and enjoyable read that highlights how home can refer to someone, not just somewhere. Copyright 2010 Booklist Reviews.
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Jun 1, 2010
Prep: a novel - Curtis Sittenfeld
Prep: a novel - Sittenfeld, Curtis
Summary: During the late 1980s, fourteen-year-old Lee Fiora leaves behind her close-knit, middle-class Indiana family to enroll in an elite co-ed boarding school in Massachusetts, becoming a shrewd observer of, and eventually a participant in, their rituals and customs. - (Baker & Taylor)
BookPage Reviews
Lee Fiora is a teen from South Bend, Indiana, attending the high-status Ault School on scholarship. Ault's well-heeled student body includes some familiar figures—a Barbie-ish blonde (named, affluently enough, Aspeth Montgomery), a hunky basketball star and a lonely gay student—but Sittenfeld's novel is more than a collection of stereotypes. With this unique and powerful coming-of-age novel, she tells the tale of an outsider who learns as she goes along how to cope in an unfamiliar world. Lee's decidedly middle-class upbringing is revealed when her mother and father arrive at the school for Parents' Weekend in their shabby old Datsun. The weekend proves a catastrophic one for the humiliated Lee, providing her with a new perspective on the way families work. When she becomes involved with basketball hero Cross Sugarman, the experience is not quite as grand as Lee imagined. The growing pains set in as—through various friendships and romances—Lee comes into her own. As a narrator, she is endearing and awkward, with her own idiosyncrasies and obsessions, and the reader is drawn to her—a loner in a world of wealth and social status. Sittenfeld's portrayal of this sensitive, tormented youth has won her comparisons to J.D. Salinger. Prep is a witty and wise debut novel that perfectly captures the essence of adolescence, but goes beyond the teen experience to encompass larger themes like identity and family. A reading group guide is available online at www.randomhouse.com. Copyright 2005 BookPage Reviews.
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