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  • The Gifted School

  • A Novel
  • Written by: Bruce Holsinger
  • Narrated by: January LaVoy
  • Length: 13 hrs and 53 mins
  • 4.0 out of 5 stars (25 ratings)

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The Gifted School cover art

The Gifted School

Written by: Bruce Holsinger
Narrated by: January LaVoy
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Publisher's Summary

Instant national best seller

"Wise and addictive...The Gifted School is the juiciest novel I've read in ages...a suspenseful, laugh-out-loud page-turner and an incisive inspection of privilege, race and class." (J. Courtney Sullivan, author of Friends and Strangers, in The New York Times)

Smart and juicy, an addictive novel about a previously happy group of friends and parents that is nearly destroyed by their own competitiveness when an exclusive school for gifted children opens in the community

This deliciously sharp novel captures the relentless ambitions and fears that animate parents and their children in modern America, exploring the conflicts between achievement and potential, talent and privilege.

Set in the fictional town of Crystal, Colorado, The Gifted School is a keenly entertaining novel that observes the drama within a community of friends and parents as good intentions and high ambitions collide in a pile-up with long-held secrets and lies. Seen through the lens of four families who've been a part of one another's lives since their kids were born over a decade ago, the story reveals not only the lengths that some adults are willing to go to get ahead, but the effect on the group's children, sibling relationships, marriages, and careers, as simmering resentments come to a boil and long-buried, explosive secrets surface and detonate. It's a humorous, keenly observed, timely take on ambitious parents, willful kids, and the pursuit of prestige, no matter the cost.

©2019 Bruce Holsinger (P)2019 Penguin Audio

What the critics say

"A page-turning meditation on what it means to be gifted - and how far parents will go to prove it." (NPR)

"[A] timely and relevant read for the summer." (Oprahmag.com)

"Holsinger’s sharp observation, knack for dialogue, acerbic social commentary and droll descriptive gifts all add up to a heady brew. As the adults scheme intently and their beleaguered children act out their frustrations, The Gifted School becomes a sharp, skeptical primer on how things stand in 2010s America where everyone is desperate to get their slice of an ever-shrinking economic pie." (The Boston Globe)

What listeners say about The Gifted School

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    1 out of 5 stars

Borrrrrring

Unless you have a gifted child, who is applying to a gifted school, this book is painfully Dull. There is simply nothing to grab onto.

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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  • Jen
  • 2020-05-14

Skip it

I gained nothing by reading this story. There was nothing wrong with it, just not the addictive page turners others described

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