The distinct voice and the wonderful characters construct an immersive novel about responsibility, relationships, and finding your place. From Corinne who is incredibly intelligent and unabashedly outspoken, to her mother who is a professor at an Ivy League, her aunt who runs a bakery, and Henri’s own mother-a firefighter-in-training that Henri jokes is “becoming more ripped than him.” The influential women Henri is surrounded by and gets to meet have a strong sense of self and are incredible at what they do. The issues in understanding each other felt incredibly raw and resonant.Īll the characters in the novel were well-developed, with even the minor characters being nuanced rather than cardboard cutouts of characters-especially the female characters. I do wish that Philippe spent some more time here, in the conflict of the novel and the messiness of these relationships between Henri and his family.

The book explores struggles of (mis)communication and understanding, especially in Henri’s relationship with his father.

The characters are so well developed, and felt authentic and complex. Especially while being immersed in the competitive environment of his school, the Fine Arts Technical Education Academy (FATE) on the Upper West Side.Īt the center of the story are the relationships-Henri’s friendship with Ming, the complicated relationships he has with his family, and this strange new possibility developing between him and Corinne. These factors lead to Henri’s conflict to balance his understanding of his own desires with his parents’ version of the American Dream. Henri was raised on the “Haltiwanger Hunger” but sees the opportunities his peers have access to due to their financial and familial status, making it a more difficult dream. The myth of meritocracy, or “the Great Hunger” as Henri’s dad likes to call it, pushes Henri to achieve opportunities on the level of his classmates through maintaining a high GPA at his prestigious school while balancing his financial and extracurricular responsibilities for a well-rounded application. That is, until his “intense” neighbor Corinne Troy discovers his scheme and uses it to blackmail him into helping her become more sociable at school.Īs a reader who is not much older than Henri, the struggles of the college admission process are not far back in my memory. Except Uptown Updogs isn’t a real business-it’s a website constructed by Henri to give himself credibility with his richer neighbors so that he can walk their dogs. Henri “Halti” Haltiwanger is a Haitan-American high school student attending an elite private school on scholarship with the hopes of getting into Columbia, while supposedly working as a dog-walker for Uptown Updogs.

Charming is a verb