Admission

"Admissions. Admission. Aren't there two sides to the word? And two opposing sides...It's what we let in, but it's also what we let out." For years, 38-year-old Portia Nathan has avoided the past, hiding behind her busy (and sometimes punishing) career as a Princeton University admissions officer and her dependable domestic life. Her reluctance to confront the truth is suddenly overwhelmed by the resurfacing of a life-altering decision, and Portia is faced with an extraordinary test. Just as t...

Жанры

Рейтинг LiveLib

4,0

5 оценок

5
40%
4
40%
3
20%
2
0%
1
0%

Ваша оценка

Прочитали 5Хотят прочитать 12

Рецензии

LittleGhost
18 июня 2016
Admission found its way to my to-read list through my discovering the movie version. Being the book-before-movie person, that — reading first — was exactly what I did. And now I'm not sure I want to watch anymore, even though the film has Nat Wolff and Tina Fey (for me, only in that order, but never mind) in it, who got me into wanting to see it in the first place. The kind of confusion happens as a result of either of two situations: the reading experience having been so awful I want to forget it as soon as possible, let alone reliving it, or — so intensely powerful I'm afraid to ruin it, to break something that is so entirely and ever unforgettably mine. This time it's the second category.
This is — was, but really, is — a truly overwhelming thing. I am as much at a loss of words as the author so obviously, wholly, mesmerizingly has her way with them. They, words, are the main character of the novel — haunting, dazzling, never a single one out of place and striking you with how precisely they’d been chosen right to the very core.
It took me a little over a month to finish the book. I absorbed it gradually, not daring to miss something; at times I was so overflowed with emotions I had to put it down for weeks until I’d feel I was ready to let myself back in. The pain in Portia's post-Mark state was vivid and all but palpable, her relationship with John a burning feeling of being alive and loved (which is saying a lot coming from me, whose usual response to heterosexual pairings is a sense of infinite boredom and an urgent need to hit something, or someone, doesn't really matter.) I can't even begin to describe how completely I fell in love with Jeremiah; his personality, the not fitting in with order and craving, craving for knowledge, claiming it on his own terms. And damn I want to see how amazing Nat is playing him. But you can’t create such a character and in the end leave him barely unfolded. I desperately wanted more of Jeremiah as the story-time he’s been given was nowhere close to being at least enough.
It’s a 9/10, and I don’t want to go into much detail about the one aspect of Admission that was appalling (which of course I will); the one both the story and I could do perfectly fine without:
the baby thing. Giving up your unwanted child, the child you were not prepared for, for adoption and spending the next seventeen years regretting that decision and drowning yourself in shame – that’s just wrong. I mean, come on. Just once show me a mother who would do the same and not in the slightest feel guilty about it afterwards. Because that’s the way it should be. If you had reasons and made that kind of choice – that’s fine, and right, and nothing to beat yourself up about. The best you can do is somehow check if kid’s got a normal family and be goddamn happy you got a peaceful life. Giving issues of this sort the dimensions of the end of the world is beyond my understanding.
Читать далее
5 понравилось
0
117
Ninga
27 июля 2024
Ну что я хочу сказать. Книга далась очень тяжело, и если бы не ее участие в локальной игре, я бы ее скорее всего бросила.
И при этом непонятно, что не так. Может, дело в некоей многосложности, которая еще чуть-чуть и хватит через край. Может, все дело в том, что в книге нет героев и злодеев, нет землетрясений, войн и вторжения инопланетян, а есть просто кусочки жизней неплохих людей интеллектуальных профессий. Или, может, просто не верится в то, что автор пытается показать, что в рутине остается какая-то романтика. А, возможно, все дело в размеренности и предсказуемости повествования... Не знаю.
Вкратце о чем: топовый университет в стране - свой особый мир, и нам позволяется заглянуть в один его закуток, где работают с потенциальными студентами. Нам расскажут о том, как устроен годовой цикл, на что обращают внимание при оценке кандидатов, какое взаимодействие происходит между школами и университетами, какая психологическая нагрузка ложится на каждого из участников процесса приема. И на фоне всего этого разворачивается частная история.
В книге есть нежность, оптимизм, юмор, искренность, они подкупают, конечно. И поэтому очень неловко после книги смотреть ее экранизацию, которая проигрывает по всем фронтам, кроме длительности.
Читать далее
3 понравилось
0
75