The Academy

This is the newest from Elin Hilderbrand (written with her daughter!), and I must say, I am really enjoying this new direction for her. I wasn’t sure how to classify it, as it definitely had suspenseful parts, but it is not a thriller. There’s also some romance (but it’s not a romance!). So, contemporary fiction, it is! The book takes place over the course of a year at Tiffin Academy, a prestigious boarding school in New England. But when the school jumps 17 rankings (all the way up to the number two boarding school in the country), the headmaster fears that there’s been a typo (or that something fraudulent could be happening). Over the course of the year, the wheels begin to fall off the bus and mini crises emerge daily. A new app called ZipZap surfaces, releasing scandalous blind items every week. No one is safe, be it the young new history teacher, the queen bee influencer, the bookish new transfer student, the older staff members, or the charming son of a wealthy board member. This one has villains you want to see get taken down, and heroes you root for. I absolutely love it (and continually marvel over Hilderbrand’s ability to write from the perspective of so many different characters, with seamless transitions! There were a few things left unresolved; I hope we get a sequel!