Nicholle LaPorte_21

I did skip through a couple of chapters in this one; but in my defense, it was dull. Which was surprising, because journalist Nicolle LaPorte's account of the recent Varsity Blues college admissions scandal, 'Guilty Admissions: The Bribes, Favors and Phonies Behind the College Cheating Scandal', should have been fascinating. A story about uber-rich Californians paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes to get their privileged kids into tier one colleges should have been an entertaining train wreck, or at least a nuanced reflection on entitlement. But it fell flat; there was no drama to the nonchalance with which parents paid up and later pretended not to know their 'donations' were illegal bribes, or that presenting their unexceptional kids as sporting superstars to gain 'side door' entry into Yale was a bit dodgy. I was struck by one parent who said she had no idea the payments were bribes because she'd been signing whalloping great big donation cheques for her kids' schools since kindergarten—that's just what rich parents in LA do—and who was to know this time it was illegal? That had the ring of truth to it. But throughout the book I just wanted to hear from the kids—those hyper-privileged college kids now revealed as unworthy of their places at Yale and Stanford and USC, whose parents lied and cheated and, ultimately, humiliated themselves and those kids. I wanted to hear from the kids, but LaPorte never goes there, and without those voices this is an over-long article which should never have grown into a book.