The Academy

3.7

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Author(s)

Katie Sise

Publisher

Balzer + Bray

Genre(s)

Age Range

13+

Release Date

May 22, 2018

ISBN

978-0062404145

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Frankie Brooks knows what she wants in life: to become the world’s next great fashion editor. All she needs to do is get into the elite American Fashion Academy in New York City. If she gets in, her life plans will be going right on schedule. Anna Wintour, watch out.

But after Frankie messes up one too many times—hey, it’s hard keeping up with classwork and an acclaimed fashion blog—her parents come up with entirely different plans for her future: Military school. How is Frankie, the least athletic person in the world, who knows absolutely nothing about the military, going to survive a whole semester at the famed—and feared—Academy?

With students who seem to be totally uninterested in her, a course-load that’s even more difficult than at her old school, and the weird athletic War Games competition Frankie has to join—her life is way harder than it used to be. And no one, including her roommate Joni, seems to understand Frankie at all.

As she learns how to cope in about a million drills, a hundred different specialized classes, and is maybe even falling for super-hot and super-smart cadet Jack Wattson, can Frankie prove to everyone that being a fashionista doesn’t mean she can’t succeed?

Editor reviews

2 reviews

Frankie is a bratty delight of a character

January 23, 2022

Overall rating

3.7

Plot

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Characters

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WHAT I LOVED:
Frankie Brooks is a fashionista with a very precise goal in mind and she’s determined to hit every single milestone along the way. School? Doesn’t matter, she needs to focus her energy on her fashion blog and get her foot in the door of the industry. Her single-minded determination and the work she puts into her life plan is admirable, but then she throws a boozy party and screws her own pooch. Now the girl is stuck in a military school and has to pass the semester if she doesn’t want to repeat a grade when she goes back to her old school.

Y’all, Frankie is a brat. A self-aware brat who doesn’t know how to contain herself and gets herself in trouble multiple times because she doesn’t read the room or fails to filter her thoughts on their way to her mouth. She’s sixteen and I definitely remember being that bratty at her age. Might say something negative about me, but oh well.

WHAT LEFT ME WANTING:
Of course, being this is set in a military school, there’s plenty of love for the US military. Both Frankie’s love interest Jack and her roommate Joni are determined to serve their country however they can. It’s just hard for me to get behind that after hearing about war crimes our troops commit abroad, like the My Lai massacre, the Mahmudiyah rape/killings, and the Haditha massacre. In two of those, the US military did their things trying to cover it up and most of those involved faced no severe repercussions.

You will certainly not like this book if you feel even stronger than I do.

But if you can vibe with this book’s respect for the military, the ending provides another mood-killer. We work ourselves up to a big reveal that could make or break Frankie’s future both at the school and at home but theeeeeeeen it just ends. Readers don’t get to find out if she qualified for the War Games, which is implied to be necessary if she’s going to pass the year and not get held back to repeat sophomore year again.

Were another 50-100 pages missing from this book? Where it leaves off doesn’t feel like the end. Rather than being tantalizing and encouraging me to think of how things end for Frankie, it just makes me frustrated.

FINAL VERDICT:
So if you want a book with a conclusive ending, you are absolutely not getting it here. I’d still recommend reading The Academy if you’re not afraid of a little military justification and a too-open ending. Frankie is a delightful main character worth following and I would do something unspeakable to get what’s left of the story.