We Regret to Inform You Book Review

Book title: We Regret to Inform You

Author: Ariel Kaplan

Mischa Abramavicius seems like the perfect student on paper: straight A’s, Vice President of Student Council, incredibly high SAT scores, a favorite with the teachers at her prep school. By the time Decision Day comes, the time when most Ivy Leagues release acceptance (and rejection) letters, she’s completely sure she’s done everything she can to get into her top schools — and if worst comes to worst (she’s hoping it won’t) she’s a shoo-in at her local safety school, Paul Revere. But when every school she applied to rejects her, even Paul Revere, Mischa is devastated at first, then extremely confused: what’s going on?

As Mischa tries to get to the bottom of this entire fiasco with a group of rebel hacker girls and her best friend/crush Nate, she not only discovers some shocking secrets those in her school may be trying to hide, but also finds out more about herself as she faces the possibility of her dream college being only a dream.

Ariel Kaplan’s writing was really relatable as a high school student. She described the college process in a really truthful way, describing both the goods and bads of it, from piling extracurriculars onto your resume to the sincere joy you feel if you are accepted.

She also gave us a pretty relatable character — while Mischa may be overly intense at times when it comes to school, she also wants something that most of us also do: college. However, I especially liked that Mischa was a person who was undecided about what she wanted to do in life. It showed that she hasn’t got everything in life figured out and that she’s also confused about her future. Mischa is also presented as a really funny and kind person — most overachievers are depicted as cutthroat and only focused on schoolwork, but Mischa knew how to balance both her personal and academic life.

Kaplan also maintains the mystery well throughout the novel. It wasn’t obvious to me at all who the culprit was and I was kept waiting through every step of the novel. The characters of the Ophelia Syndicate, a tech club of four girls that helps Mischa find out what happened to her applications, were also a nice addition to the book. They not only give a great example of girls being amazing at STEM, but also give advice to Mischa and help her make one especially important decision at the end of the book.

The only things I would criticize about the book are its wording and also some of the more unrealistic aspects of it. For instance, at one point in the book, Mischa says "It was good. It tasted maple-y. I like maple." And there’s also this line: “‘Oof,’ I said, because having a plastic skull under one’s nether regions was not especially pleasant.” It’s not the most sophisticated writing and that distracted me a little at times from the plot.

And as for the unrealistic aspects of the book, while I realize that the entire story is based on something that would most likely happen, the fact that Mischa and her friends were able to do some illegal activities, like easily breaking into a prep school that should have enough money to provide better security, kind of surprised me. I also found it a little unrealistic that Mischa just completely ignored her friends for almost a month during her investigations, but when she finally realized she’d been ignoring them, they all fell back into conversation without a problem.

Verdict: Overall, this is a quick read that provided an intriguing mystery — it’s not the type of book to discuss the value of college and how someone recuperates after rejection. Although the wording in the book isn’t as polished as I’d wanted it to be, this book is interesting enough to read whenever you get a chance, especially if you like a good mystery and don’t mind looking past some unrealistic aspects.

Reviewed by: Siri Palreddy'20