10/11/2021
In this scintillating debut, former Shondaland editor James intertwines her own coming-of-age story with a searing indictment of elite academia. “To be Black in a New England boarding school,” she writes, “is to be touted for your statistical presence... and ignored everywhere else.” The first Black American legacy to graduate from Taft School in 2006, James recounts her rude awakening when the “freedom and independence” she was promised as a student turned out to be the opposite. Taft, she recalls, was a school both uniquely attuned to and openly hostile to her development and that of other “expert, if involuntary, pioneers” who were forced to navigate the constraints of an institution that catered to its “white majority.” Notably, she recalls an unfounded accusation of theft by a classmate, that—after being threatened with police intervention—James was pressured to confess to. Despite the challenges she faced, James reflects on the paradoxical sense of safety she felt as a “Talented-Tenth-respectability-obsessed-snob” and how, after graduating, she worked as an independent school admissions counselor peddling the “myths of American upward mobility” to low-income families, before finally confronting her trauma and speaking out about the pervasive racism in boarding schools. The result is an eye-opening examination of race, class, and privilege in America. Agent: Jane von Mehren, Aevitas Creative Management. (Jan.)
[C]harming and surprising. . . The work of Admissions is laying down, with wit and care, the burden James assumed at 15, that she — or any Black student, or all Black students — would manage the failures of a racially illiterate community. . . The best depiction of elite whiteness I’ve read, nailing the belonging derived from institutional affiliation, which is therefore impersonal and false, but manifests value in spite of this. James writes to illuminate her experience as a Black student at Taft. She throws just as much light on the school’s whiteness.”—New York Times
“The book is, not incidentally, an excellent memoir. James is unsparing and hilarious about her adolescent foibles, her outré fashion choices and insistence on telling everyone about her hobby of writing erotic fan fiction.” —Los Angeles Times
"With humor, insight, and a near-superhuman depth of grace, James straddles an ever-shifting line as the school’s first Black American legacy. . . The isolation that James captures, the uneasy and unspoken cease-fire she negotiates with whiteness at Taft, becomes an echo of the experiences of so many other students of color at the same schools that make up the world of the American elite. She takes up our repressed feelings and gives voice to the untold tales of neglect and disregard, of camaraderie and solidarity and survival, of those of us who were brought into spaces without anyone considering how we would fit."—The Cut
“[James] offers sharp-witted insight, incisive reflections and an intense indictment of the cutthroat world of elite prep schools."—Parade
“Thorough, necessary, and overdue. . . [Admissions] boldly nam[es] the confusion, fear, and trauma that can so often come with being the only person who looks like you in any given room.”—Vogue.com
“Frank and devastating in its candor, as well as incisive in its critique of elite academia, Admissions is a poignant coming-of-age memoir.”—Esquire.com
"James's memoir is a thoughtful story about coming-of-age and finding your place in the world; she's a funny, observant writer with a powerful, unforgettable story to tell."—Town & Country
"[A]n eye-opening examination of race, class, and privilege in America."—Publishers Weekly
"What an extraordinary, razor-sharp book! Kendra James offers a gimlet-eyed insider’s view of being an outsider, painting the complicated world of elite schooling with such vividness and dark humor. This is a crucial account for our moment—asking and answering the question of how power is held, shifted, and grasped after by even the youngest in our society. I raced through the pages of Admissions, hungry for James’s voice and brilliant insights. The schooling she writes about may have been exclusive, but this book will electrify every reader."—R. Eric Thomas, bestselling author Here For It
“Through frequent pop culture allusions and a dry sense of humor, Kendra James reveals a world largely unexamined—the life of an American Black girl at a prestigious boarding school. Readers will shake their heads at young Kendra’s nerdy naïveté and frown at her classmates’ bigotry and bullying. As Kendra discovers the fallout of her own parents’ respectability politics and intraracial biases, she also learns more about her own identity and how she wants to navigate her life. Kendra James’ honest reflections as she looks back on what it means to be Not Like the Others will leave readers thinking about their own experiences with privilege and marginalization. Admissions is a captivating memoir, highlighting the complicated notions of upward mobility, belonging, entitlement, and community. Kendra has written a true eye-opener.”—Nichole Perkins, author of Sometimes I Trip on How Happy We Could Be
"In Admissions, [James] deconstructs the chokehold that whiteness and wealth have on private education. You’ll laugh almost as much as you cringe."—Glamour
“James’ social commentary and sparkling wit shine throughout this absorbing and insightful coming-of-age memoir."—Booklist
"With wit and insight, Admissions explores the kind of upper-class education that most Americans have seen only in movies. James analyzes the racist attitudes she had to deal with, tells funny stories of her nerdy ways and fondly recalls the days of AIM chats. People of color who survived mostly white schools are sure to sympathize with James's experiences, but anyone will enjoy her perceptive storytelling."—Shelf Awareness
"Admissions is a memoir of the highest caliber."—Bitch Media
"James has crafted a book that is part Bildungsroman, part social indictment and part scorching criticism of elite boarding schools. She meticulously skewers the behavior of her white classmates as alternately clueless and cruel and vividly conveys the captious claustrophobia that thrives in such institutions."—Waterbury Republican American
“Admissions is an open and honest social critique of race in the US, as well as the coming-of-age story of a Black girl who is getting an education in a predominantly white boarding school.”—Book Reporter
12/03/2021
An admittedly privileged perspective of attending boarding school as a Black American student, this is James's coming-of-age story while enrolled at the elite Taft School in Connecticut. Readers won't find anecdotes of boarding school scandals, drugs, or partying in its pages, but they will become well acquainted with the cultural and societal growth of a young girl obsessed with role playing, instant messaging, Star Trek, and Dogma, who also happens to be the first Black American legacy student to graduate from Taft School. There is no rage or rebellion in these pages; only sincerity and self-awareness. James admits her own naivete and ignorance of code switching, microaggressions, and respectability politics at the beginning of her time at boarding school, but upon graduation realizes many aspects of the Taft School experience for Black students are questionable, problematic, and oftentimes traumatic. James's reflection on her time at Taft and career as an admissions counselor reveals both the subtle microaggressions and outright racism toward Black students in a predominantly white school. VERDICT This is a must-read for anyone who felt like their circle of friends was chosen for them or limited to one table in the cafeteria and for anyone who assumes the lives of privileged Black students are devoid of racism.—Alana Quarles, Fairfax Cty. P.L., Alexandria, VA
2021-10-07
A founding editor of Shondaland.com recounts her experiences as a student at an elite boarding school and, later, as an admissions officer specializing in diversity recruitment.
When James enrolled at the prestigious Taft School, she had no idea that, as Taft’s first “Black American legacy student to graduate since 1891,” she would become the school’s poster child for diversity. The beautiful campus seemed to promise madcap Harry Potter–style adventures, but James soon realized that the majority-White school was really a “swamp of microaggressions” that threatened to engulf her at every turn. During her first year, a White student not only accused an innocent James of stealing $20 from her room, but also threatened to call her uncle, who was a police officer. The author also observed unequal treatment of her peers. Where two students of color were expelled for copying from each other, a White male student who had plagiarized work was punished by being sent to the school’s Learning Center. Taft aggressively “preached diversity and inclusion and yet took money from [former Fox News CEO] Roger Ailes.” When a White student wrote an article in the school newspaper that students of color were the true racists for being “unfriendly, intimidating and granted too much special treatment,” the school did nothing. Committed to diversity, James became a private school recruiter. Within a short time, however, she realized that her efforts to help other students of color amounted to selling “a lie for a living.” The author has a unique and timely story to tell, but her recollections of her years at Taft are detailed to a fault. The result is an often rambling narrative that, in (over-)recounting the minutiae of her everyday experiences, often drifts away from the pertinent race issues that are at the heart of her story.
A well-intentioned but overdone memoir in need of streamlining.
