Operation Varsity Blues lurks behind this bracingly vicious portrait of entitlement.
When Stanford announces it will take only one additional student from the prestigious Elliott Bay Academy, applying to college suddenly becomes very dangerous. Is someone willing to kill for that spot?
Winnie Pressley is at the top of her senior class, so when her college counselor tells her she can't apply to Stanford, she’s devastated—but her mother, Maren, is suspicious. Are the two other top contenders also being advised to drop out of the race? Or does Winnie’s lower socio-economic status mean she’s no longer eligible for the school’s support? When Winnie lands in the hospital after a hit-and-run, the answers to those questions may imperil Maren, too. As a teenage single mother, Maren had to drop out of college herself, and she's worked hard to support her daughter. Currently, she’s the indispensable yet health insurance–free assistant to Alicia Stone, another Elliott Bay mom and the fabulously wealthy CEO of Aspyre, a posh lifestyle technology company. Alicia’s daughter, Brooke, has all the financial perks but she’s lacking the grades and ambition to be a Cardinal. Not quite as wealthy as Alicia but definitely more privileged than Maren, Kelly Vernon, the third mother in this tale, traffics in information. She knows everyone’s secrets (academic, philanthropic, and very personal). Her own daughter, Krissie, is a strong candidate for Stanford—plus she’s a double legacy—but her anxiety may get in her way. Toggling among the three mother-daughter pairs, Dobmeier and Katzman deftly capture the madness of college admissions season, from the expert-level parental manipulation of school administrators and the viper dens of parent cocktail parties to the women's tense home lives, riddled with unhealthy coping mechanisms. As secrets unfold, we witness the worst familial behavior; stolen DNA profiles and plagiarized essays are only the tip of the iceberg.
Operation Varsity Blues lurks behind this bracingly vicious portrait of entitlement.Pub Date: Feb. 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-7282-1646-1
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark
Review Posted Online: Dec. 24, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2021
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.
A lifetime’s worth of letters combine to portray a singular character.
Sybil Van Antwerp, a cantankerous but exceedingly well-mannered septuagenarian, is the titular correspondent in Evans’ debut novel. Sybil has retired from a beloved job as chief clerk to a judge with whom she had previously been in private legal practice. She is the divorced mother of two living adult children and one who died when he was 8. She is a reader of novels, a gardener, and a keen observer of human nature. But the most distinguishing thing about Sybil is her lifelong practice of letter writing. As advancing vision problems threaten Sybil’s carefully constructed way of life—in which letters take the place of personal contact and engagement—she must reckon with unaddressed issues from her past that threaten the house of cards (letters, really) she has built around herself. Sybil’s relationships are gradually revealed in the series of letters sent to and received from, among others, her brother, sister-in-law, children, former work associates, and, intriguingly, literary icons including Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry. Perhaps most affecting is the series of missives Sybil writes but never mails to a shadowy figure from her past. Thoughtful musings on the value and immortal quality of letters and the written word populate one of Sybil’s notes to a young correspondent while other messages are laugh-out-loud funny, tinged with her characteristic blunt tartness. Evans has created a brusque and quirky yet endearing main character with no shortage of opinions and advice for others but who fails to excavate the knotty difficulties of her own life. As Sybil grows into a delayed self-awareness, her letters serve as a chronicle of fitful growth.
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9780593798430
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
Gleefully sadistic, gloriously gratifying revenge fiction.
A frustrated advice columnist takes matters into her own hands.
Before dropping out of MIT during the second semester of her sophomore year, Debbie Mullen had designs on becoming the next Bill Gates. Now, almost 30 years later, the stay-at-home wife and mother of two uses her considerable genius to keep the Mullens’ Hingham, Massachusetts, household functioning “like a well-oiled machine.” In her spare time, Debbie also gardens and shares “the fruits of [her] wisdom” with neighbors via the weekly advice column she writes for Hingham Household, a local “family-oriented” newspaper. Though Debbie is proud of her husband and teen daughters’ accomplishments, her own life sometimes feels a bit empty. As such, she’s both honored and excited when Home Gardening magazine selects her backyard to feature in their next issue. Then, at the last minute, the publication decides to go in a different direction and instead spotlights the roses of her arch rival. Later that day, the editor-in-chief of Hingham Household axes her column because she’d counseled a reader to get a divorce. That evening, Debbie learns that her hard-working husband’s miserly boss refused his promotion request, her brilliant older daughter’s sketchy boyfriend broke her heart, and her athletically gifted younger daughter’s chauvinistic coach cut her from the soccer team for being “chubby.” Enough is enough. Debbie has always given great advice—everybody says so. If certain individuals don’t know what’s best for themselves, maybe it’s her obligation to help them see the light. Increasingly unhinged entries from a “Dear Debbie” drafts folder pepper the briskly paced, meticulously crafted tale, which unfolds courtesy of a pinwheeling first-person narrative. Some of the plot’s myriad twists are more impressive than others, but plucky, puckish Debbie is a nontraditional antihero for the ages.
Gleefully sadistic, gloriously gratifying revenge fiction.Pub Date: Jan. 27, 2026
ISBN: 9781464249624
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Dec. 10, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2026
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