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Archive for the ‘Jean Hanff Korelitz’ Category

Jean Hanff Korelitz–Admission (2009)

Posted in Abortion, Adoption, Babies, Books about writers, College, Jean Hanff Korelitz, Parenting, Pregnancy, Princeton, NJ on March 23, 2022| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: hiatus

[READ: March 20, 2022] Admission

I had vaguely heard of this book when it came out.  My understanding of it was that a woman who worked in the Princeton Admissions office tried to get her kid into the school.

That is not what the story is about exactly.  I feel like I’ve conflated this story with the real-life admission scandal that happened in 2019 (because I didn’t really care about it and don’t really know any details thee either).

Rather, what we get is a story of a woman who works at Princeton University’s Admissions and who has a pretty hard time of things in her personal life.

When the book opens we see her on a road trip.  She is canvassing the New England area to drop in at schools who are likely to have Princeton applicants.  We see some of these visits and get a pretty good idea of how her job works–get the kids excited to go there, but don’t raise their hopes too much since acceptance levels are so low.

One of the schools she goes to is a new school–a kind of alternative program.  This year is the first year that someone will be graduating from the school.  She stops in and the school is very different from what she is used to.  The kids aren’t grist for the college mill.  Indeed one of them argues with her about the very point of going to college.

And then there’s the boy, Jeremiah. He is a school nightmare–clearly a genius, and yet nearly failed out of every class he was in because he’d rather read books than do class.  And yet, once he got to this new school, he was able to focus a bit.  He took AP tests without having taken any AP classes and aced them all.  He was a diamond in a very rough package.  And the narrator, Portia, believes that Princeton would be a great environment for him. (more…)

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Jean Hanff Korelitz–The Plot (2021)

Posted in Books about writers, Death, Elizabeth Gilbert, Jean Hanff Korelitz, Parenting, Thieves, Threats, Violence on February 8, 2022| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: hiatus

[READ: February 8, 2022] The Plot

I tend not to read books where spoilers are a big deal. I try not to spoil things when I write these posts, but at the same time, usually I can write a lot and not give away anything major.  In fact, I didn’t even know about this book until my supervisor mentioned it and made it sound really interesting.

But holy cow, this story is all about the Plot.  I though the title of the book was pretty lame.  And yet it is not.  It works on the main level but also on a secondary level.  It’s a really great title.

So here’s what I can say as set up without giving too much away.

The story is about Jacob Finch Bonner.  A few years ago he had a debut novel that was quite well received.  He was a new and notable author and although his book didn’t sell a ton, he was seen as a guy with promise.  But he couldn’t think of anything good for a second book.  So his publisher (not the big publisher from the first book, a smaller one) gathered a bunch of short stories together and tried to say that the book was a series of related short stories (even that stretched the truth).  He wrote a third story that was even worse–nobody wanted that one.  (more…)

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