Little Brown and Company
The Academy
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From #1 bestselling author of The Perfect Couple Elin Hilderbrand, and her daughter, Shelby Cunningham: the irresistible, deliciously scandalous story of one drama-filled year at a New England boarding school.
It's move-in day at Tiffin Academy and amidst the happy chaos of friends reuniting, selfies uploading, and cars unloading, shocking news arrives: America Today just ranked Tiffin the number two boarding school in the country. It's a seventeen-spot jump - was there a typo? The dorms need to be renovated, their sports teams always come in last place, and let's just say Tiffin students are known for being more social than academic. On the other hand, the campus is exquisite, class sizes are small, and the dining hall is run by an acclaimed New York chef. And they do have fun--lots of parties and school dances, and a piano man plays in the student lounge every Monday night.
But just as the rarefied air of Tiffin is suffused with self-congratulation, the wheels begin to turn - and then they fall off the bus. One by one, scandalous blind items begin to appear on phones across Tiffin's campus, thanks to a new app called ZipZap, and nobody is safe. From Davi Banerjee, international influencer and resident queen bee, to Simone Bergeron, the new and surprisingly young history teacher, to Charley Hicks, a transfer student who seems determined not to fit in, to Cordelia Spooner, Admissions Director with a somewhat idiosyncratic methodology - everyone has something to hide.
As if high school wasn't dramatic enough...As the year unfolds, bonds are forged and broken, secrets are shared and exposed, and the lives of Tiffin's students and staff are changed forever. The Academy is Elin Hilderbrand's fresh, buzzy take on boarding school life, and a thrilling new direction from one of America's most satisfying and popular storytellers.
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Book Details
ISBN:
9780316567855
EAN:
9780316567855
Binding:
Hardcover
Pages:
432
Authors:
Elin Hilderbrand , Shelby Cunningham
Publisher:
Little Brown and Company
Published Date: 2025-16-09
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You’ll have to read the book to understand the title of this review. Explaining it would give away an important plot element.This is an abnormal book for me, a senior citizen with interests in ancient history/archaeology and naval action/adventure. It’s a coming of age story set in an elite private school (fictional) in western Massachusetts. I’m not even a preppie, I’m a public school boy from New Jersey but growing up near New York I had some idea of the allusions to people and places sprinkled freely throughout the story.Setting a novel in a school is nothing new. Two novels I had to read in English classes, A Separate Piece and Catcher in the Rye, owe a lot to that environment. I didn’t like either of them. Little Men and Little Women, which I mostly enjoyed, have a similar background but from the 19th century.A school, like a ship, is enclosed so characters can interact without interference. And this one is a complex web of relationships fueled by ambition, sexuality, and greed where something seems to be happening on every page. Unlike A Separate Peace, this book has something positive to say. Even though some of the students have been sent by parents who couldn’t be bothered to care for them, others chose a private boarding school to escape problems in their home lives. Heck, half the world’s navies were manned by teenagers who ran away from home! There’s teenage angst here but also romance. It’s fast moving even though it’s not short. It’s organized by the action taking place in one academic year, in a sort of Aristotelian dramatic unity.For mature readers there’s millennial slang to contend with but it’s a worthwhile read.
I always look forward to summer and reading another Elin Hildebrand book. Please don't ever stop writing!!!!!! Love your books!!!!
As always I love anything that Elin writes, BUT I thought it too sexually explicit, but overall enjoyable read. And as always narrative was exemplary.
Well written with some great characters and exploits. Really loved the book. Different from her usual stuff. I really recommend it.
Great writing!
