NPR

In 'The Gifted School,' Ripped-From-The-Headlines Parental Scheming

Bruce Holsinger's new novel — about overprivileged parents cheating to get their kids into a magnet school — is very topical, but the characters are too flat to hook readers' attention for long.
Source: Riverhead Books

This March, an FBI sting code-named Operation Varsity Blues broke a massive and infuriating story: Rich, connected parents across the country were buying their kids into college. The scandal generated waves of attention, most of which combined humor, rage, and an absolute lack of surprise. Bruce Holsinger's new social comedy , which revolves around a seventh-grade variation on this drama, offers only the latter two. Its characters' desperate efforts to get their children into a new public magnet school is infuriating, but it's

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