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Summary
Summary
At thirty-nine, Josie's modelling career is far behind her. Now director of admissions at a San Francisco private school, she's determined to keep her seventeen-year-old daughter Etta out of trouble. But Etta's passion for ballet has her envisioning a different future than the one her mother has planned. Meanwhile, Josie's best friend thinks Josie needs to start dating... but the only eye candy around is a gay dad. As the admissions season winds down, those closest to Josie turn out to be full of surprises, and Etta's future might have more to do with Josie's past than she thought.
Author Notes
Alli Frank and Asha Youmans have eached worked in education for more than twenty years. They live in Seattle, Washington, with their families, and Tiny Imperfections is their debut novel.
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Frank and Youmans pack their debut with drama and exposition, sidelining romance in favor of a prolonged glimpse into the glamorous, ultra-competitive world of San Francisco private schools. Josie Bordelon, director of admissions for Fairchild Country Day School, has an extremely stressful personal life: her beloved Aunt Viv is ill, her daughter is graduating from high school, and her best friend is on her case to start dating again following a two-year dry spell. Enter Ty Golden, who Josie believes to be a gay prospective Fairchild parent and with whom she strikes up a very flirtatious friendship. Josie's family connections, especially her angst-ridden relationship with her daughter (which is sorely affected by Josie's lingering issues with her own mother), are far stronger and more believable than the romance, which is not given enough time to develop. The glitzy, high stakes world and gossipy narrative voice will put readers in mind of Crazy Rich Asians, but the story gets bogged down in overexplaining the ins and outs of the admissions process, and none of the many subplots vying for readers' attention is given sufficient room to breathe. Readers will enjoy the atmosphere, but wish for more cohesion. Agent: Liza Fleissig, Liza Royce Agency. (May)
Kirkus Review
The director of admissions at a prestigious private school attempts to balance her job, her family, and her love life in Frank and Youmans' debut. Once upon a time, Josie Bordelon was walking the catwalk as a sought-after fashion model. Now that she's almost 40, she's the director of admissions at Fairchild Country Day School, an ultraprestigious private school in San Francisco. Josie's used to being the only black woman in a largely white male--dominated field, and after all these years, she knows what to expect from her job--overscheduled children, pushy parents, and a boss who wants to undermine her. While she may be killing it at work, her personal life is another story. She hasn't had a serious boyfriend in years, much to the chagrin of her Aunt Viv and her best friend, Lola. It's too bad that the only man who's caught Josie's eye lately is a married and gay dad of a prospective student. And even though Josie just wants her daughter, Etta, to attend an Ivy League college and major in something practical, Etta insists she wants to follow her ballet dreams and study dance at Julliard. But it turns out that Etta's career goals aren't the only shock Josie's about to face--her job, her romantic life, and her own Aunt Viv have plenty of surprises up their sleeves. While Josie's budding relationship is certainly interesting, it takes a back seat to the rest of the plot, and it never quite gets the chance to blossom. The book shines, however, when it comes to the Bordelon women, especially Josie's hardworking and hilariously meddling Aunt Viv, who clearly loves Josie and Etta more than anything. The family's bond comes across vividly on the page, manifesting in sometimes-gentle and occasionally not-so-gentle banter among the three women. Frank and Youmans create strong voices even for the side characters, like Josie's no-nonsense teacher BFF, her quick-witted assistant, her clueless boss, and Etta's snooty ballet teacher. A fun, snappy read about the over-the-top world of private school admissions and the unbreakable bonds of family. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Former model Josie Bordelon likes to look as though she has it all together, but this year may be what finally breaks her. Her position as the thoroughly middle-class head of admissions at an expensive, prestigious San Francisco private school suddenly feels like a balancing act as she navigates pushy parents and appeases an increasingly hostile principal who is making her job that much more difficult. Josie's personal life is equally challenging; she hasn't dated since having her heart broken several years ago, and the most attractive man in her life is the gay, married father of one of this year's applicants. Josie's greatest desire is to see Etta, her 17-year-old daughter who is a gifted student academically and a talented ballerina, attend an Ivy League institution. Unfortunately, Etta and Aunt Viv, who raised Josie, do not share Josie's vision for Etta's future, leading to family tension. Frank and Youmans' humorous and touching debut novel explores how being a Black woman affects their protagonist's personal and professional experiences in a tale that will resonate with readers of all demographic backgrounds.
Excerpts
Excerpts
One From: Meredith Lawton Date: September 24, 2018 Subject: Introduction to our son, Harrison Rutherford Lawton To: Josephine Bordelon Dear Josephine, I'm Meredith Lawton, close friend of Beatrice Pembrook, who I'm sure you know is a past board chair of Fairchild Country Day School and fourth generation Fairchild alum. It was so good of Beatrice to honor her parents, Ginger and Alfred, after their untimely death by building the school a state-of-the-art black box theatre and a rooftop Olympic swimming pool. Beatrice is such a gem and she should be reaching out to you shortly on behalf of our son, Harrison. I know admissions season just opened, but last spring we worked on our essays with a Stanford writing coach and have spent the summer perfecting them with our editor from Golden Gate Books so we may be the first to submit our application on the WeeScholars website. I would particularly like to draw your attention to paragraph #4 of essay question #5. I believe it to be a wonderful representation of how worldly and culturally competent Harrison already is at four years, ten months: "At almost five years of age Harrison has glamped in huts in the Indian Himalayas, cruised down the Mekong in Laos, ridden on a Sherpa's shoulders to Paro Taktsang (the Tiger's Nest Monastery) in Bhutan, been recognized as a reincarnated lama in Nepal, and fed exotic fish all over the world from Mexico to the Great Barrier Reef (thank goodness Harrison got to experience THE REEF before it died completely from environmental hazard-terrible tragedy)." We will be seeing a lot of each other this year and I look forward to meeting you on our school tour in the beginning of October. If there is anything you would like to learn about Harrison and our family beforehand please do not hesitate to e-mail or call (just not before 10:30 a.m. as I am most likely in yoga, Barry's Boot Camp, or at my weekly cryotherapy appointment). With much gratitude, Meredith Lawton P.S. I couldn't resist sending this adorable picture of Harrison celebrating Chinese New Year in Shanghai. Christopher had to be there for work so OF COURSE we brought Harrison along; one is never too young to be exposed to Mandarin! I finish reading globe-trotting-mom's e-mail, shift my weight onto one leg at my standing desk-an ergonomic no-no-and look up to a God I'm not 100 percent sure exists because if She did, She certainly wouldn't let people like Meredith Lawton procreate. Or do yoga. Nothing worse than a karmic salutation that screams, I've found mind body bliss and I'm now superior to you in this life and in the next. "Tiger moms are so 2011," I say to a silent, still-empty school campus, except for my own seventeen-year-old daughter, Etta, stretching her enviably smooth mocha, I-can-eat-Slim-Jims-and-Flamin'-Hot-Cheetos-for-lunch, ballerina body on the other side of my office. She doesn't bother to acknowledge my deeply profound thought, her sound-canceling headphones to blame. PRIVATE SCHOOL ADMISSIONS ARE NOW OPEN. Subtext: Let the freaking out, sucking up, buying in, overstating, underlistening, overselling, calling in of favors, pushing boundaries, and, in general, appalling parental antics begin. There should be a torch I light every Monday after Labor Day that stays lit until March 15-since urban private school admissions really are the Olympics of parenting. Instead, I've created a tasteful banner at the top of the Fairchild Country Day School website announcing: NOW ACCEPTING APPLICATIONS. With a single click on the link, parents are invited to learn more about Fairchild admissions and embrace the truth that their upcoming year will be lost to an abyss of essays, interviews, veiled dinner party conversation, stressful pillow talk, and heavy self-medication, all in the name of kindergarten. Let's call private school admissions what it is, an obsession for all those families who desperately want a spot on the private school crazy train. In San Francisco, it's a bit different than the famed stories of cutthroat manipulation and desperation that define the Upper East Side of New York City. Don't get me wrong, San Francisco has its overabundance of the rich and anxious, too, but here they're well concealed behind a dirty SUV with a surfboard on top, HOKA running shoes, retro T-shirts, ripped jeans, flip-flops, and a shitload of stock options. The more Bay Area parents feign "It's all good, everything will work out," my stats show what a higher pain-in-the-ass quotient they are. I actually welcome the occasional New York transplant family who comes into parent interviews owning their perceived superiority in head-to-toe Prada and gray banker suits attempting to establish their dominance through the traditional where they went to school, what they do, and where they work (usually someplace with three last names) introduction. With upfront elitism you immediately know with whom you're dealing and where you stand. When elitism hides behind a white ribbed tank top, aviator sunglasses, and a messy bun it's much more difficult to figure out from where an ambush may come. That's why you can't be fooled by the San Francisco mom in her 24/7 painted-on yoga pants who looks like your best friend or the 100 percent organic lady right out of Goop's weekly online newsletter. Sometimes she's as sweet and detoxed as she looks, but just as often behind that barre-class bod is a momster so determined to get her child into the best school she would toss you off the Golden Gate Bridge while sipping her green juice if she thought your kid was in direct kindergarten competition with hers. Over the years I've learned the cultural subtlety of West Coast admissions. The first lesson came early in my career when my baby, Etta, was in first grade at Fairchild and I was in my second year as an admissions assistant. I made my first and only mistake of slipping from business English into what Aunt Viv calls "home speak" and getting a little too chummy with an applicant mom who was sweatin' it because her son was channeling mini-Mussolini meets Donald Trump during his kindergarten visit. "I know how you feel, Charlotte, I'm a mama, too, and sometimes our babies can bring us to our knees." I gave her a big smile in motherly solidarity, but thinking back on it I probably showed too much tooth as this hundred-pound Barbie popped back, "Why you shore is, honey!" and patted my forearm to seal our new "sistahood." Since that moment, I've had to endure Charlotte's ridiculous banter as her son has moved through the grades at Fairchild and her warped sense of our friendship has grown. Luckily, I'm a quick study and I've never slipped into anything resembling black speak again without being related to my audience. Well, except for Lola. I also never told my aunt Viv about my early career slip. She would have skinned me alive. "Can we go yet? I'll freak if I'm late," Etta yells, to hear herself above her headphones as she rolls her upper torso up from the hideous, stained maroon industrial carpet, her legs split east to west. My office is budgeted for a remodel next year. I glance at Etta over the top of my computer. After seventeen years it still shocks me that I birthed a child who goes apoplectic if she's not ten minutes early to everything. I didn't even notice when my period was six weeks late eighteen years ago. Time and I have a very loose relationship. "Two Josie minutes," I yell back, holding up a peace sign. Etta's trained to know that means "ten real-time minutes." From: Josephine Bordelon- jbordelon@fairchildcountrydayschool.org Date: September 24, 2018 Cc: Bcc: Subject: RE: Introduction to our son, Harrison Rutherford Lawton To: Meredith Lawton CONGRATULATIONS, Meredith! You indeed were the first family to submit your application for this coming fall with a post time of twenty-eight seconds after the WeeScholars common application website opened. Our 110-year-old bylaws state that ruthless competitiveness, punctuality, and lama reincarnation are three of the four criteria to qualify Harrison for the golden ticket (YAY! Envision 24K gold confetti raining down, the confetti being compostable, of course), which means he's automatically accepted into the Fairchild Country Day School class of 20-and-who-fucking-cares. No need to tour, attend an open house, or show up for the admissions visit date and parent interview. In fact, you don't even have to wait until March 15 to find out Harrison's elementary school fate like all the other die-hard parents out there. Fairchild has been waiting years for a family as touched by perfection as yours to attend our school. Please let me know how I can best serve what I can only imagine will be endless, relentless needs and wants every step of Harrison's educational path. With complete ambivalence that you know Beatrice, Josie Bordelon Director of Admissions Fairchild Country Day School "I've never worked in a school, but I'm pretty sure you'll get fired if you swear in a work e-mail." I didn't even notice Etta hop off the carpet to come snoop over my shoulder. "And you should have a comma after . . ." DE-LEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE-TE. Grammar show-off. Etta certainly did not get her punctuality from me, but her sarcasm-100 percent Bordelon. As director of admissions this has become my free therapy to keep all the over-the-top parents from chipping away at my sanity. I say my piece and I erase. Then I move on. "I'm having a hard time rallying for the ridiculousness of the entitled this year. I just want to find some old-school families who parent like it's 1986: roof, food, clothes, water, manners, and if you don't get good grades your ass will get whooped 'cause you gotta earn your keep. I'm looking for black-to-basics parenting." That's my knee-jerk reaction. When I grow weary of the rich, I fall back on my Nawlins Ninth Ward background. Or really Aunt Viv's, since I can only kinda claim my Southern black Baptist roots. "You're not helping the cause with that e-mail." Etta points to my now-empty screen. "Yeah, I know, but sometimes it feels good to type the conversation that's going on in my head instead of official director of admissions missives. If only once I could push send on my real thoughts, maybe I could save a privileged child from a life of indulgence and complete cluelessness about the other 99.9 percent of the world. It could be my own act of social justice-to help a rich kid lead a normal life. It's got potential, don't you think?" "Nope, not at all." "I'd give my firstborn for the chance to point out to one parent, any parent, when they're in the early stages of ruining their child." "I'm your firstborn." "Right, and if I give you away before next August someone else can pay your college tuition." I blow Etta a kiss with a wink. She knows I'd never abandon her; we'd be lost without each other. "Tell me again why you work in a school? Seems to me at forty you should like what you do. Especially since I'll be gone next year and the only reason you'll have to come to Fairchild is to work hard and watch Headmistress Gooding take all the credit." Etta raises her eyebrows at me. "Clearly I work here for the fame, money, close relationship with my boss, and, of course, the lice. And because I'll still have to feed you in college-it's called a meal plan. And I do like what I do, sort of, mostly, kind of." Etta turns and pretends to barf in my wastebasket. "And I'm not forty." "Yet." Daughters are the worst. With one Josie minute to spare to get Etta to ballet, I chop out the e-mail that will allow me to pay the bills and keep my kid in leotards. From: Josephine Bordelon- jbordelon@fairchildcountrydayschool.org Date: September 24, 2018 Cc: Bcc: Subject: RE: Introduction to our son, Harrison Rutherford Lawton To: Meredith Lawton Dear Meredith, Thank you so much for applying your son, Harrison, to Fairchild Country Day School. We look forward to seeing your family at the first tour. Warm regards, Josie Bordelon Director of Admissions Fairchild Country Day School Send. "Good job playing nice, Mama. Now, come oooooon, we gotta go. I'm begging you, don't make me late," Etta stresses, stuffing her headphones in her dance bag, her booty in my face. I know that booty and those endless legs. That was my body eighteen years and twenty pounds ago, strutting down the runway in Tokyo in nothing but a thong, pasties, and an open Jean Paul Gaultier kimono with Japanese characters hand painted on the back. If I had known then what I would know a few short weeks later when I couldn't button my jeans, the characters on that kimono should have read baby on board. "Mama, just send me to ballet in a Lyft. You know how you are the minute admissions opens up-it's like a car crash, you can't stop rubbernecking, or, for you, reading e-mail." Etta huffs at me, a side effect of being artsy and a teenager. I toss her the car keys only because she's not entirely wrong; I do completely lose myself during admissions season. "I don't have my license yet." Etta says as she deftly snatches my keys out of the air. "What are all those classes I've been paying for the last three months?" "Driver's Ed. And it doesn't end until next month. Then I take my driving test." "Well, I'm not paying for a Lyft when I have a perfectly good car, and I still have the handicap placard from when I sprained my ankle, so drive carefully and park for free. Just don't get caught and text me when you get there." I'm not sweating Etta driving, but I still want to know she's arrived in one piece. "You're a terrible parent," Etta reprimands, turning to head out of my office. For an on-time ride she's willing to turn a blind eye to the law and drive, but I know she won't use the parking placard; that's playing outside her moral boundaries. "Nope, I'm just black-to-basics." I start working on kindergarten tour and visit dates for the school year, even as I repeatedly check for a text from Etta. My phone finally pings, stopping me from wondering if I should call the San Francisco County missing persons hotline. Of course she made it. I turn back to my computer. Even after thirteen years of kindergarten tours and visits I still find myself eager to show off Fairchild to potential families. The ohhhs and ahhhs from moms, dads, and grandparents remind me of how lucky I felt when I was a student at Fairchild. Excerpted from Tiny Imperfections by Alli Frank, Asha Youmans All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
