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Girls with Bright Futures by Tracy Dobmeier and Wendy Katzman Book Review


Reasons for Reading This Book:

As an active member of The Readheads book club I read Girls with Bright Futures by Tracy Dobmeier and Wendy Katzman for the month of July 2022. I was excited to read this book as I followed and watched during the college admissions scandal. I was intrigued to see if there were any similarities. 

Content of the Book: 

Three mothers and three daughter all vying for the one open spot at Standard. Its that time of the year, college admissions season for Seattle's Elliott Bay Academy. Due to the acceptance of student athletes Standard is only allotting one spot to an EBA student. Three mothers in a cutthroat competition to get their daughter that single spot. Alicia a tech giant will do all that she can with her fortune and high status to get her uninterested daughter that spot. A Stanford alum, Kelly, uses her PTA influence and detective skills to forge a path for her anxious daughter. Maren, a single and broke mother with no experience in the elite college world will battle it out with the other women and community to get her superstar daughter that spot. Days before early admissions applications are due one of the daughters has a near-fatal accident. Is it an accident or does it have to do with the single Stanford spot? These women battle morality in deciding how far they are willing to go to secure their daughters' future at Stanford. 

What I Liked About This Book:

What I liked the most about this book was the questions of morality. This book is littered with morality questions. I not only find this topic interesting to read about, but I think it shows a person's true colors when they are faced with morality questions. I think this is one of the things that kept me reading this book. Something that I liked about this book was the use of the parent FaceBook page for the epilogue. This tied into the use of social media throughout the book and concisely summarized and updated on the lives of the parents and students of EBA following graduation. As someone who had a completely different route and mindset of getting into college, it was interesting to read about just how desperate students and parents can be to get into a specific school. As I have mentioned in some of my past book reviews I enjoy reading about different social and economic classes. I believe the authors accurately depicted the economic classes of the three mothers. I will say I appreciate that most, not all, of the plot is very realistic and could actually happen. As someone how is not a parent and has not had a parent involved in PTA, it was interesting to read about the workings of school events. I personally rooted for a specific student to get the Standard spot and found that doing so kept me wanting to read. The Readheads compared this book to Big Little Lies. I have not read that book, but I would say this book is similar to Little Fires Everywhere. 

What I Disliked About This Book:

Going into this book I was already disgusted by the topic due to the real college admissions scandal. I personally found the topic to be draining and hyper focused. After listening to The Readheads podcast episode on this book I came to realize that due to how I feel about the college admission scandal and my experience of getting into college the topic of this book was just not for me. Because my mindset of going to college was so different to most of the people in this book I found it extremely hard to relate to them and found it exhausting just how much they cared and would do. There were too many story lines at all times. Personally I think the authors should have not added all that they did relating to the Winnie and Maren situation. I think the issues I had with this book is because this book was written by two authors and each author wrote a different character's story. I also disliked the length. I would read and read and see no progress in the percentage on Kindle. There were times where the authors became focused on all the small details of a scene which dragged it out. In contrast there were also scenes where there was limited detail. Very inconsistent, again this could be related to there being two authors. The authors' casually and quickly introduced new characters which led to confusion and disinterest in their story as it was so quick to come and go. Another portion of the book that I found confusing and hard to follow was the FaceBook chat. Because the side characters were so quickly introduced it was hard to follow the FaceBook page posts. As you read in what I liked about this book, I did like the use of FaceBook for the epilogue. I felt as thorough I came to know Maren and could expect how she would act and what she would say. When it came to the situation with Winnie's father I was completely taken aback by what she would say and do relating to the situation. In this sense I believe Maren became an unreliable narrator for that situation. There was so much mystery behind Maren's past. It was dragged out throughout the book with very little detail added until a quick sentence almost at the very end revealed what was hidden the whole time. With so much focus on her past at least give more detail. Again the authors were inconsistent with what did and did not have lots of details for that story line. 

Would I Recommend This Book:

I finished the book two weeks before The Readheads podcast episode was released. From the minute I finished this book I knew I didn't like it. I could not wait to hear that the other women didn't like it either. To my surprise they all liked it way more than me. Listening to the episode made me like it a little bit more and appreciate some parts that I had previously not liked. With that being said I would only recommend this book to certain people. Personally I would not recommend this book to anyone in my life who asks me for recommendations. I would recommend this book to someone who liked Big Little Lies and Little Fires Everywhere because I think they have similarities. Personally I rated this book a 3 out of 5 stars. It is one of the books I have liked the least so far this year. 


Check out my book reviews for 2022!!

Run, Rose, Run by James Patterson and Dolly Parton
The Summer Series by Jenny Han
A Stolen Life: A Memoir by Jaycee Dugard
The Housewives: The Real Story Behind the Real Housewives by Brian Moylan
Verity by Colleen Hoover

Check out my book reviews for 2020!!

Check out my book reviews for 2019!!

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