Author: Meg Mitchell Moore            
Publisher:Doubleday
Genre: Fiction
Source: Booksparks

This is how Booksparks sent the book!

This the cover of the book!  What a beautiful way to start reading.

Goodreads:  One of People magazine’s  Great Beach Reads: “This novel about a striving, upscale California family is a bracing entertainment that zeroes in on the modern pressures put on teens–and their folks.”

The Admissions brilliantly captures the frazzled pressure cooker of modern life as a seemingly perfect family comes undone by a few desperate measures, long-buried secrets—and college applications!

The Hawthorne family has it all. Great jobs, a beautiful house in one of the most affluent areas of northern California, and three charming kids with perfectly straight teeth. And then comes their eldest daughter’s senior year of high school . . .
Firstborn Angela Hawthorne is a straight-A student and star athlete, with extracurricular activities coming out of her ears and a college application that’s not going to write itself. She’s set her sights on Harvard, her father’s alma mater, and like a dog with a chew toy, Angela won’t let up until she’s basking in crimson-colored glory. Except her class rank as valedictorian is under attack, she’s suddenly losing her edge at cross-country, and she can’t help but daydream about the cute baseball player in English class. Of course Angela knows the time put into her schoolgirl crush would be better spent coming up with a subject for her term paper—which, along with her college essay and community service hours has a rapidly approaching deadline.
Angela’s mother, Nora, is similarly stretched to the limit, juggling parent-teacher meetings, carpool, and a real-estate career where she caters to the mega rich and super-picky buyers and sellers of the Bay Area. The youngest daughter, Maya, still can’t read at the age of eight; the middle-child, Cecily, is no longer the happy-go-lucky kid she once was; and the dad, Gabe, seems oblivious to the mounting pressures at home because a devastating secret of his own might be exposed. A few ill-advised moves put the Hawthorne family on a heedless collision course that’s equal parts achingly real and delightfully screwball.
Sharp and topical, The Admissions shows that if you pull at a loose thread, even the sturdiest of lives start to unravel at the seams of high achievement.

Ope’s Opinion:  This story is like a vine on a trellis.  All the characters are intertwined and effect each other.  The stories twist and turn around each other.  It was great to hear this story from each perspective.

My perspective on this story is unique – I worked in a guidance office and I watched students going through the admissions process.  Each student handled it differently and the families always had their expectations, which influenced the whole process.

Meg Mitchell Moore really made the characters come off the page and feel like someone you might know and care about.  They each had flaws, secrets and agendas of their own, as well as for each other.  It felt very real to me.

Rating:  4 – I like this book so much I know several friends to share it with.