Reading, Writing, and Me

  Admission  by Julie Buxbaum Overview:  Chloe has always lived an upscale life. Her mom is a B list actress who's found steady work in Hallmark movies and sitcoms for the last twenty years. Her dad is a venture capitalist. Even though they might not be as rich as private jet flying Aunt Candy, Chloe never thinks about money from her giant house in Beverly Hills. Life isn't perfect, but it's remained generally uncomplicated until college admissions season. Told in a dual perspective, we watch Chloe open the door to FBI agents ready to haul off her mom while zooming back in time to see where it all went wrong. It's a complex story full of moral gray and confusion over who the villain truly is. Overall: 4 Characters: 4 The biggest thing to know about this book going in is that it's basically fan fiction of the college admissions scandal. All of the details are exactly there or tweaked slightly. The school Chloe cheats to get into is called SSC and is still a Southern

  Last night, I had the most magical reading experience, probably because I haven't read for fun since maybe October or the first week of November. I've been carrying Admission  around the house since it arrived at my house on the first day of December, and I'd gotten to maybe 20 pages. Last night, I finished drafts on my last two papers and didn't have the brain power to keep doing stuff for college, so I picked up the book and started reading. Three hours and well over a hundred pages later, I just felt a thrill. Like I remembered why I liked reading and YA after all cause I was starting to wonder if I just didn't love it anymore. Turns out my brain has just been at max capacity and everything I've had to read has been awful lately. It's really annoying. But I'm glad I still love reading and YA, and it even made me want to start writing prose again, which I've done none of since the semester started. I tell this whole story to preface that I decide