This one is good if you are in the mood for the family drama of some selfish rich suburbanites.

In Crystal, Colorado (very obviously meant to be Boulder) there’s going to be a new, free, super exclusive school for “exceptional learners” and the admission process turns the parents of all the potentially eligible kids into desperate people.

Focused primarily on four women who became friends when their babies took a swim class together. We learn about their kids, their troubled marriages, their careers and sometimes even the inner thoughts of an ex-husband who is riddled in debt, overly invested in U10 soccer and about to find himself with another ex-wife. There’s also one other family, a poor one, who happens to be the family who cleans the rich folks house (I wanted a lot more of that kid!) most of the women are REALLY unlikable, the men portrayed unflatteringly, but some (not all) of the kids are OK. A few of the kids do things that didn’t really add up for me but made for some good drama.

I don’t have kids but based on people I know in real life this really doesn’t seem all that far fetched to me. ( )

The magnet school game is taken to a new level, it's like all those getting into "private preschool" in NYC books elevated and better. ( )

I wavered a bit on this 5-star review, but in the end I couldn’t settle on any definitive factor to justify removing a whole star. This is the story of a tight little group of privileged friends whose lives begin to unravel when a gifted school is announced in their tidy, tony little city. It is told in several voices, alternating between children and adults. It is interesting because child and adult perspectives on events are necessarily different, and the author captures those perspectives with authenticity and genuineness. I guess there are a few quirks—the two Emmas, each known by their surnames’ initials—it is rare for two main characters in a novel to share a name, and I was probably a third of the way into the book before I got them straight. Each of the characters (or family groupings) have their own crises brewing, and the last half of the novel builds slowly to a big event that is the catalyst for those crises to blow up, though the fallout ends up working out somewhat unexpectedly. One character whose life is a wreck almost from the start of the narrative actually wins some redemption, while another, who seems capable of withstanding anything, melts down spectacularly. It feels like a commentary on the unpredictability of human nature, and an insightful one at that. I did take a few steps down the “gifted” path myself, with my daughter, and some of this definitely rings true. It is a smooth and believable read. ( )

An exploration of how the residents of a Colorado school district deal with the opening of a new, highly selective magnet school. Fascinating character study. The friendships of a group of women plays a major role, and upon completion of the book I was surprised to realize this was written by a man. ( )

It kind of felt like it was trying to be a mix of Big Little Lies and Beartown, but it just wasn't that good. I don't know why anyone thought it was necessary to include every boring email and random sets of instructions whenever they were brought up, and there was SO much potential to make fun of parents here but it all just turned into incredibly unlikable people doing bad things. Also why did everyone just act like the whole Beck Tessa incident was fine?? Like it doesn't matter if he touched her, that's disgusting and shouldn't have been tolerated? ( )