New Fiction

Atlantic, The, May, 2007 by Thomas Mallon

Susan Coll’s new novel about the top-tier college-admissions game tries hard and amiably, but it needs to be wait-listed behind worthier spring fiction. Acceptance follows the luck of some affluent suburban-D.C. high-school seniors, including “AP Harry,” a charmless version of Michael J. Fox’s old Family Ties character, a kid so obsessed with getting into Harvard that he perceives the world through a compulsive syno‑ n­ymizing brought on by too much SAT prep: “He looked up and saw an extremely tall, thin ( lanky, gangly, awkward ) man with a shock of white hair …”

Carried by the bright overwriting of higher-end chick lit—coffee gets “swilled” instead of drunk, and headaches tend toward migraines—this novel is just as caught up in the application process as AP Harry...

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