Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:More like a desperate effort by the publisher to sell more than a few dozen copies. An article in the City paper at the same time?! Come on!

Isn’t press what all publishers want? What makes it desperate?

Honestly all these posts dragging the author sound kind of jealous. For all of you mocking her, tell us about the books you published, your advance, how many copies you sold, your superior marketing strategies…

You’d be shocked by how many accomplished people are on dcum, even those who wrote books! Sturm und drang, but jealousy it isn’t.

Washingtonian did troll the Sidwell stalker masterfully (and she didn’t even realize it at the time)

I knew she trolls here 😂
Make it less obvious

Anonymous wrote:More like a desperate effort by the publisher to sell more than a few dozen copies. An article in the City paper at the same time?! Come on!

Isn’t press what all publishers want? What makes it desperate?

Honestly all these posts dragging the author sound kind of jealous. For all of you mocking her, tell us about the books you published, your advance, how many copies you sold, your superior marketing strategies…

😂

Rob Brunner is a dark comedic genius. This woman is thick as molasses. He slowly guides her as she impales her own outsize ego on her sharp pencil. (He also went to Sidwell with her but had no clue who she was).

He takes her to lunch in the place she describes in the book across the street from Sidwell. He barely hides his disbelief at the spectacle unfolding in front of him with this crazy lady. He pulls out two quotes from what must have been a monologue about herself. She never clues on. A must read (the article, not the book)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://www.washingtonian.com/2024/09/04/new-book-its-a-privilege-just-to-be-here-emma-sasaki/

Well that was a nice opportunity for the author to tell us she went to Sidwell without telling us anyone else. That was a waste of time.

You’re joking right? She literally tries to enter Sidwell and is turned away (by the guard who has no idea nor cares who she is) and then does the walk of shame around the perimeter fence. Comedy gold!

She’s so quick to point out it’s not really about Sidwell. Did the lawyers and psychiatrists get involved?

“You know, I have some resentment”

You don’t say, Walter Mitty

The Washingtonian article is hilarious. The author of it barely tries and is just about mocking her throughout (is that why she’s Ema Sasakito in the first sentence?).

The writer herself comes off as more cray cray than the novel would suggest. No, girl, not true “we all have resentment” towards our high schools.

She dishes about not going to the reunions ever and is then turned away by the guard trying to enter Sidwell to stalk it in person. Comment Sasaki “… it looks so different, fences are so imposing… it’s almost like it doesn’t want you to have memories”. Nuts!

More like a desperate effort by the publisher to sell more than a few dozen copies. An article in the City paper at the same time?! Come on!

Anonymous wrote:https://www.washingtonian.com/2024/09/04/new-book-its-a-privilege-just-to-be-here-emma-sasaki/

Well that was a nice opportunity for the author to tell us she went to Sidwell without telling us anyone else. That was a waste of time.

Anonymous wrote:As a recent/current Sidwell student of a similar demographic background I had to comment on how terrible this book was. Maybe times have changed, but the racism and other tensions that serve as the backbone of the plot cannot even be said to be exaggerated — they barely exist in the first place. Sidwell parents are weird sometimes, but not that crazy, and they're not at all the "Charles H. Billington IV" WASP types she seems to think they are.

I'm also surprised at the atrocious writing. Sidwell prides itself on teaching kids how to write, so it's unfortunate that our writing program has this silliness as an example piece. It overall reads like something written by AI with inputs of a few data points about Sidwell found off Reddit, made by a college student who's hoping to pass a class by inserting ridiculous strawman attacks on elite racism and pretending to be extra liberal.

This!

I think the issue with the book is that it’s really poorly written and extremely trite and superficial. By giving in to the personal grudge against Sidwell, the author squandered an important opportunity.

The other thing to know is that the author is by all accounts extremely privileged and was likely more so during her time at Sidwell (now she’s seems underachieving for all the privilege she was given, but back then she had all the privilege and all the potential). The comment upstream from a recent senior at Sidwell rings true to me.

This to me reads as a pulp fiction revenge fantasy for imagined slights by an over-privileged person who never lived of what she earned. She appears to be a known Sidwell-stalker for decades

Meh. I went to a large (slightly less) prestigious private local high school and am reading the book. It rings "fictionally relevant" to me, albeit totally exaggerated. But it's a fictional book. So.

There was an instagram account about my high school a few years back called "Black at _____" and it's very similar to the IG in the book. I also wasn't rich (though not on scholarship) but I had friends who were, and I think a lot of those feelings ring true. Also, I knew boys from local boys schools and many were, frankly, racist and elitist in ways that are unique to privilege. Different demographics can have different problems and this book captures some of the ones I witnessed. I just got to the part where one of the kids asked the rest of the class if they knew what it was like to be poor and talked about how racial diversity is the only kind of diversity discussed, and that really hit home for

I wonder if the people criticizing this book are all over it because they are current parents who are invested in their schools, or are just are not seeing this experience in the current climate. Are there any peers of the author who may have had a similar experience to what she did? (I am assuming she is an alum of the 90s or 00s.) As the later (I don't know her nor did I know anyone at Sidwell), I get it.

It's not great literature but it's on par with lots of other books I read, and I'm enjoying it just as much. I don't exclusively read Tolstoy.

Even dcum got bored of her lightning fast