Sunday, April 29, 2012

The Year of the Gadfly

I just finished reading The Year of the Gadfly by Jennifer Miller. This was one of those books where I had to stay up late to finish it even though I was exhausted and had to get up early the next morning.  It was actually a really great Friday night. I was in a hotel, traveling for work. I laid in a huge comfy bed, ate a vending machine snack or two (Cheddar and Sour Cream Potato Chips), and read a great mystery novel.

The Year of the Gadfly is about Iris Dupont, a new student at Mariana Academy, a posh prep school not far from Boston.  Iris is recovering from recent terrible events involving her best friend Dalia, and her family has moved into the house of the former Mariana headmaster. Iris soon finds out that Mariana Academy is full of secrets, like the existence of a long-hidden group within the school called Prisom's Party. These secrets turn out to involve the new biology teacher, Jonah Kaplan, as well as Lily, the former headmaster's daughter, whose bedroom Iris is currently staying in.

I liked this a lot.  Besides the central mystery, there are a lot of thematically interesting things about moral ambiguity, fitting in, and fallibility.  It also, as books about teenagers often do, made me so glad I'm no longer in high school!

It goes on sale in a couple weeks, on May 8th.  (Yes, I got to review it ahead of time! Yay!)  Order it here: The Year of the Gadfly

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