Admission by Jean Hanff Korelitz

When I was in high school, it never once occurred to me to even try to apply to a place like Princeton University. I had o.k., but not outstanding grades, was not good in sports and didn't participate in any extra-curricular activities. Therefore, no one from Princeton told me that "Princeton could use a chick like Elizabeth."

Even with my lack of Ivy League experience, however, I've always been fascinated by the process in which one gets admitted to the most prestigious schools in the world. Admission, a novel by Jean Hanff Korelitz, gave me some good insight.

Portia Nathan is a Princeton University Admissions Officer. Her story starts out on a recruiting trip and ends 400+ pages with the committee meetings in which the final decisions on applicants are made.

Each chapter in the book starts off with an excerpt of a prospective student's admissions essay. I was fascinated by every page Korelitz devoted to the process. What didn't fascinate me were the many, many subplots in the book summarized here:

Portia's long-time lover leaves her for another Princeton colleague; Portia gets romantically involved with one of her former Dartmouth classmates (who she doesn't recall) who is a teacher/administrator at an experimental school; Portia's mother is a radical feminist who wants to adopt a baby; Portia had a baby while at Dartmouth that she gave up for adoption.

It was really too much to pack into one novel. This wasn't a page-turner of a book, but a thoughtful book. Portia was both likable enough and flawed enough to be a good, interesting main character. I'd recommend this novel if you're at all interested in how universities weed through thousands of applications from brilliant students.

The Crowning Glory of Calla Lilly Ponder by Rebecca Wells

Rebecca Wells is famous for her novel "Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood," which I dearly loved. I wish I could say the same about her new novel, "The Crowning Glory of Calla Lilly Ponder," but I can't. It was a fairly good book, but not a great one.

The book is about Calla Lilly Ponder who is enjoying an idyllic childhood in La Luna, Louisiana. Calla has two loving parents who own a wonderful dance studio/dance hall. Her mother also operates a beauty salon on the porch of her house. Calla Lilly has two loving, nondescript brothers and a host of loving friends and family around. She also has the love of a troubled new boy in town, Tuck. Calla Lilly's world comes crashing down when her beloved mother, whom she calls M'Dear dies of breast cancer.

The second part of the book revolves around Calla Lilly's departure from La Luna to make her way in the world. She shares her mother's gift for therapeutic hair styling and goes to a beauty school in New Orleans. There she meets more loving friends and Sweet, a man she later marries.

So, that's what this book is about - loving friends, loving husbands, loving parents, loving boyfriends etc. It's almost sickeningly sweet. I expect Southern novels to have wildly dsyfunctional families, eccentric characters and closets virtually stuffed with skeletons.

The book does have a nice plot twist at the end and Calla Lilly is a very likeable character. I just was expecting more from the author of Divine Secrets...