The Gifted School
A Novel
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- 7,49 €
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- 7,49 €
Publisher Description
INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER
"Wise and addictive... The Gifted School is the juiciest novel I've read in ages... a suspenseful, laugh-out-loud page-turner and an incisive inspection of privilege, race and class." –J. Courtney Sullivan, author of Friends and Strangers, in The New York Times
Smart and juicy, a compulsively readable novel about a previously happy group of friends and parents that is nearly destroyed by their own competitiveness when an exclusive school for gifted children opens in the community, from the author of The Displacements and the Oprah Book Club pick Culpability
This deliciously sharp novel captures the relentless ambitions and fears that animate parents and their children in modern America, exploring the conflicts between achievement and potential, talent and privilege.
Set in the fictional town of Crystal, Colorado, The Gifted School is a keenly entertaining novel that observes the drama within a community of friends and parents as good intentions and high ambitions collide in a pile-up with long-held secrets and lies. Seen through the lens of four families who've been a part of one another's lives since their kids were born over a decade ago, the story reveals not only the lengths that some adults are willing to go to get ahead, but the effect on the group's children, sibling relationships, marriages, and careers, as simmering resentments come to a boil and long-buried, explosive secrets surface and detonate. It's a humorous, keenly observed, timely take on ambitious parents, willful kids, and the pursuit of prestige, no matter the cost.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Part Big Little Lies, part Little Children, Bruce Holsinger’s third novel is a scathing-yet-sympathetic portrayal of hypercompetitive parenting. When a public magnet school is planned for a tony Colorado enclave, four mothers, friends since pregnancy, become obsessed with proving to their peers—and themselves—that their children are more special than the rest. In the process, friendships are ripped apart and long-held secrets are exposed. We loved this sly, smart take on how parents’ ambitions for their children can cause them to lose their grip on reality and morality.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this sharply entertaining novel from Holsinger (The Invention of Fire), Crystal, Colo., is an affluent community where a new gifted magnet school for grades six through 12 will soon open. With limited spaces available, the competition among parents to get their offspring into the school, called the "Stuyvesant of the Rockies," turns ruthless. Dr. Rose Holland, a pediatric neurologist, uses her position to gather inside information that could be vital for her daughter, Emma Q's, admission. Queen bee Samantha Zeller and her moneyman husband, Kevin, are not above lying about the IQ test results of their daughter, Emma Z. Divorced Azra and Beck are forced to deal with the emotional fallout when the admission process causes friction between their twin sons. And single mother Lauren's daughter, Tessa, recently out of rehab, keeps a video blog that sees through all the adult pretensions around her. As the application process spools out, it pits parent against parent, student against student, and spouse against spouse until relationships are frayed to the breaking point and betrayals build to a shattering climax during an open house at the new school. This depiction of the depths to which some parents will stoop to win social advantage for their offspring makes for a smart, piercing novel, and timely given recent headlines.
