The Nine

August 1, 2019
Hannah Webber has always wanted the best for her son, and Dunning Academy is the best. Sam quickly falls in with a wealthy, prestigious crowd, and in the midst of his teenage growing pains, he is invited to join The Nine, a secret society known for its innocent campus pranks. As Sam is immersed further into the privileged world of The Nine, he discovers troubling truths about key faculty at the school. A new teacher, Shawn Willis, is making discoveries of his own, and by Sam's senior year, a horrifying secret is revealed, putting Sam's future in jeopardy. Blasberg moves seamlessly between Hannah, Sam, and Shawn's points of view. Hannah is a classic helicopter mom, whose desire to see her son succeed puts her own well-being at risk and makes coping with Sam's growing independence especially difficult. Dunning is a well-drawn setting where even the smallest dramas are magnified tenfold, and by the end, everyone has grown up more than a little bit. A good choice for fans of thoughtful coming-of-age dramas.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)