The Gifted School in Eclectic Readers

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The Gifted School

Bruce Holsinger

Start date: May 5, 2020

Finish date: June 2, 2020

Discussion: Past Books

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The Forest of Enchantments
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last updated Jul 08, 2020 11:01AM

The Gifted School
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last updated Jun 11, 2020 05:47PM

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What Members Thought

Sep 20, 2019 Erin rated it really liked it · review of another edition

This wasn鈥檛 what I expected, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. This book showcases how cutthroat and brutal parents can be when it comes to their 鈥済ifted鈥� children. Four best friends and their families vie to earn entrance for the youngest children into a new magnet public gifted school in Colorado, and they will stop at nothing in their pursuit. Holsinger鈥檚 characters are completely unlikeable and this reminded me a lot of the privileged lives from Lianne Moriarty鈥檚 Big Little Lies. I couldn鈥檛 put ...more

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May 26, 2020 Jeannette rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: eclectic-readers

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. The city of Crystal announces the establishment of a new school for the exceptionally gifted, and everyone is listening. Rose, Samantha, Lauren, and Azra, longtime friends and proud mothers, are especially interested. They know their kids are all gifted, and just because spaces are extremely limited doesn't mean the competition will interfere with their friendship, right?

Of course it does! Knowing the gifted school is only taking 1% of applicants brings out the worst in the parents, and at times The city of Crystal announces the establishment of a new school for the exceptionally gifted, and everyone is listening. Rose, Samantha, Lauren, and Azra, longtime friends and proud mothers, are especially interested. They know their kids are all gifted, and just because spaces are extremely limited doesn't mean the competition will interfere with their friendship, right?

Of course it does! Knowing the gifted school is only taking 1% of applicants brings out the worst in the parents, and at times their kids. It does so in different ways, however, which was interesting to watch. Instead of seeing four women sniping and sabotaging each other, each of them reacts differently:

Samantha, a classic "queen bee" type, smugly implies her daughter's superiority without ever actually saying anything unsupportive.
Azra pushes her ex-husband Beck and twin boys beyond their comfort zone but never fully confronts the signs that they can't handle the pressure.
Lauren focuses on giving her son every support and opportunity while ignoring any potential or needs in her daughter who is freshly returned from rehab.
And Rose, one of our main perspective characters, lies and manipulates in order to get more face time with the head of the school when Samantha's cocky attitude brings out her childhood insecurities.

Clearly, all these women are pushing too hard, but the similarities and differences were what made it engaging. They are trying to put their families and friendships first, and many times honestly believe that they're doing what's best for their kids. Yet their mistakes are perfectly obvious, as are Beck's, who is another of our perspective characters. Though he was far less engaging. I was much more inclined to want to slap him and wished we'd get a deeper insight into the mothers instead.

While we all know the kids are the ones who will really suffer from all this bad behavior, they're not quite as fleshed out. We know that Samantha's and Rose's daughters become school mean girls, bullying the "less gifted" kids and that Beck and Azra's twins turn on each other, but we never really see how the parents' ending decisions to make better choices are reflected in their children. We never even see how Xander copes with the fallout from his terrible science project. Tessa is the only one we see confront the consequences of her actions and attempt to do something about it, and even that is vague.

As interesting and compelling as I found the story, it was the lack of any sense of ending that kind of lost me. After being frustrating the whole book, Beck gets an ending practically wrapped with a bow. On the other hand, the women and children are all left with vague suggestions of "we'll make everything okay" without any real substance. After all they have put themselves through, we learn who makes the gifted school and who doesn't, and everyone just sort of smiles away all the rest of the pain. Ch'ay帽a and her family are the only characters in the book who get a solid, meaningful ending that also feels earned.

It was definitely a fun read and I liked it, but right now, I'm just not sure I can push it from a 3.5 stars to a 4. ...more

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May 29, 2020 Sue rated it really liked it

Shelves: er-book-club, fiction

I enjoyed this book. The writing was great and, overall, the pacing was consistent. Just a few places felt laggy. The whole premise and the characters' action may have been slightly over-the-top, but not by much. And it really spoke to me now that I have kids in school. I worry about being someone like Rose so I took this book as a warning as well. There was a lot to think about once you heard the community speaking out about having a school like Crystal Academy. The twist at the end was a littl ...more

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