Early Decision

by Lacy Crawford 

Fiction

Book Description

In Early Decision, debut novelist Lacy Crawford draws on 15 years of experience traveling the world as a highly sought-after private college counselor to illuminate the madness of college admissions.

Working one-on-one with Tiger-mothered, burned-out kids, Anne “the application whisperer” can make Harvard a reality. Early Decisionfollows five students over one autumn as Anne helps them craft their college essays, cram for the SATs, and perfect the Common Application. It seems their entire future is on the line—and it is. Though not because of Princeton and Yale. It’s because the process, warped as it is by money, connections, competition, and parental mania, threatens to crush their independence just as adulthood begins.

MY THOUGHTS: 3 OUT OF 5 FLEURS DE LIS

Early Decision: Based on a True Frenzy by Lacy Crawford
While I appreciate that this story was written from personal experience in a rather unique job, it didn’t excite me too much. The main character, Anne, is in her late twenties and has a lucrative, yet unstable, job helping students get into the colleges of their choice.

Though I found some of the students themselves to be compelling, I thought Anne was rather dull as a person. She’s unhappy with her life, and seems to know the reasons why, but can’t get up the nerve to change things. She is the same age as I am, but we didn’t have a thing in common and I couldn’t see us being friends.

The book had some funny moments, and some definitely cringe-worthy. It was hard for me to see Anne struggle with her boyfriend. But then again, she let it happen. She let herself get to the point of not caring, but she didn’t let him know that. This is no way to live your life.

The best moments were when Anne was working with her students. She seemed to have a real knack for bringing out the best in them, and making them realize things about themselves that they didn’t even know.

I think this book would better be enjoyed by an older audience…maybe mothers who are about to have kids going into college. It gave an inside look at something I haven’t seen written about, and that is cool.

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About the Author

For fifteen years Lacy Crawford served as a highly discreet independent college admissions counselor to the children of powerful clients in cities such as New York, Chicago, Denver, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and London. Her “day jobs” included serving as senior editor at Narrative Magazine and director of the Burberry Foundation. Educated at Princeton and the University of Chicago, Lacy lives in California with her husband and two children.

Follow Lacy on Twitter.