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I'm your protagonist-Reshma Kapoor-and if you have the free time to read this book, then you're probably nothing like me.

Reshma is a college counselor's dream. She's the top-ranked senior at her ultra-competitive Silicon Valley high school, with a spotless academic record and a long roster of extracurriculars. But there are plenty of perfect students in the country, and if Reshma wants to get into Stanford, and into med school after that, she needs the hook to beat them all.

What's a habitual over-achiever to do? Land herself a literary agent, of course. Which is exactly what Reshma does after agent Linda Montrose spots an article she wrote for Huffington Post. Linda wants to represent Reshma, and, with her new agent's help scoring a book deal, Reshma knows she'll finally have the key to Stanford.

But she's convinced no one would want to read a novel about a study machine like her. To make herself a more relatable protagonist, she must start doing all the regular American girl stuff she normally ignores. For starters, she has to make a friend, then get a boyfriend. And she's already planned the perfect ending: after struggling for three hundred pages with her own perfectionism, Reshma will learn that meaningful relationships can be more important than success-a character arc librarians and critics alike will enjoy.

Of course, even with a mastermind like Reshma in charge, things can't always go as planned. And when the valedictorian spot begins to slip from her grasp, she'll have to decide just how far she'll go for that satisfying ending. (Note: It's pretty far.)

In this wholly unique, wickedly funny debut novel, Naomi Kanakia consciously uses the rules of storytelling-and then breaks them to pieces.

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Published Aug 1, 2017

352 pages

Average rating: 7

1 RATING

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Community Reviews

bastibathan
Jan 08, 2022
7/10 stars
All in all, I would say that this novel is pretty solid. I think this book is very realistic and accurately shows how competitive school has become. Reshma, the main character of the story, was totally relatable in some ways. She is an overachiever, someone who will do everything in her power to get what she wants. However, I was not too fond of her character. She was a brat, throwing petty fits when things do not go her way. I can understand why she wants to be on top of her class, but I do not respect the approach she takes to try and get there. I could relate to a lot of the topics covered within the novel, like trying to get into a good college/university, trying to maintain a high average, and just the typical school struggles most students face. A critique I have for this book is how they dealt with Reshma's addiction. Reshma had an Adderrall addiction, and in the novel, she sort of just got over it, which I think was poor writing on the author's behalf. For such a serious issue, I would have expected to see a more detailed storyline. With all that being said, it is a pretty solid read. It is certainly a good novel for teenagers like us to read, as it covers some issues that I think a lot of us can relate to.

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