Small Admissions

September 12, 2016
The focus in Poeppel’s quick-witted debut novel is on elite private school admissions. Kate Pearson is a sharp yet aimless young woman a couple of years out of Wellesley, struggling to recover from a disastrous breakup. Her helicopter sister, Angela, gets her a job interview, which is a comical nightmare for Kate and her prospective boss. Surprisingly—to both of them—he hires her to be in charge of admissions at Manhattan’s prestigious Hudson Day School. Poeppel’s novel
follows Kate’s journey from hot mess to self-actualizing grown-up, while detailing the campaigns for admission of a small group of students and their families. Some rise to the challenge, but one fails miserably. The novel is also about friendship and family, and the author gently satirizes hippie academics through Kate’s parents, whose nontraditional take on child rearing contributed in no small part to Angela’s tightly wound demeanor. Rounding out the cast are Kate’s two best friends: Chloe, who goes to extreme, humorous lengths to find Kate a boyfriend, and Vicki, who tries to manipulate the situation to her advantage. With so many strong personalities and disparate threads, Kate and her story might easily have gotten lost, but the author, like a circus ringmaster, points attention here and there, always bringing it back to the center. An excellent debut.

Narrator Carly Robins creates Poeppel's believable and hilarious world of 20-something relationships, set in New York City. Kate has been rejected by her boyfriend and spends months on the couch, unable to be consoled. Her friends try to help, and her sister offers various opportunities to lift her out of her funk, but Kate is stuck in an emotional desert. A turning point occurs when she unwittingly lands a job in admissions at a private school, where students, staff, and parents cause her to engage and move forward, revealing "small admissions" of her own in the failed relationship. As narrator, Robins has a pleasant voice, but the listener will have to work to discern the changes in point of view and identify which character is speaking. L.M.A. � AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine