We Regret to Inform You: An Overachiever's Guide to College Rejection by Ariel Kaplan

Mischa Abramavicius is a walking, talking, top-scoring, perfectly well-rounded college application in human form. So when she's rejected not only by the Ivies, but her loathsome safety school, she is shocked and devastated. All the sacrifices her mother made to send her to prep school, the late nights cramming for tests, the blatantly résumé-padding extracurriculars (read: Students for Sober Driving) ... all that for nothing. As Mischa grapples with the prospect of an increasingly uncertain future, she questions how this could have happened in the first place. Is it possible that her transcript was hacked? With the help of her best friend and sometimes crush, Nate, and a group of eccentric techies known as "The Ophelia Syndicate," Mischa launches an investigation that will shake the quiet community of Blanchard Prep to its stately brick foundations

I thought that this book would be a satirical look at the pressure of college apps on high schoolers. Because it exists and its annoying. Mischa is rejected from every college, but she doesn’t rebuild her life and recuperate and decide that her college doesn’t define her. No, she digs deep and investigates, and I’m proud of her. She doesn’t take this lying down. She’s a top-notch student and she gets rejected form her safety school? Not buying it. It’s a solid book, and it delivered enough punches to keep me turning pages. The resolution was unexpected, and felt plausible enough that it kind of stressed me out for senior year. But the book fell short in almost every other way. The characters were haphazard, and there were long uneventful stretches where nothing really happened. There was a lot of filler of Mischa getting panicked, anxious, stressed, giving up, and feeling guilty, all on loop. The first half of the book goes by without anything major happening, and it wasn’t as relatable as I was expecting. I’d recommend this book for the creative storyline, but you’re going to need some patience to get through the drier patches.