Minor Dramas & Other Catastrophes
Book Feature - Minor Dramas & Other Catastrophes by Kathleen West
HBL Note: Another book about teachers! I wrote about growing up with educators as parents in this book review. What attracted me to Minor Dramas & Other Catastrophes, though, was that it was touted as perfect for fans of Where’d You Go, Bernadette? I read that book years ago with my book club when I lived in Bloomington, IN. We had a great time reading and discussing that book. I wish I could read this one with them. Most of them are parents now and I’d love to chat with them about their experience with teachers and helicopter moms. Scroll down to read more about this book.
From the publisher:
When a devoted teacher comes under pressure for her progressive curriculum and a helicopter mom goes viral on social media, two women at odds with each other find themselves in similar predicaments, having to battle back from certain social ruin.
Isobel Johnson has spent her career in Liston Heights sidestepping the community’s high-powered families. But when she receives a threatening voicemail accusing her of Anti-Americanism and a liberal agenda, she’s in the spotlight. Meanwhile, Julia Abbott, obsessed with the casting of the school’s winter musical, makes an error in judgment that has far-reaching consequences for her entire family.
Brought together by the sting of public humiliation, Isobel and Julia learn firsthand how entitlement and competition can go too far, thanks to a secret Facebook page created as an outlet for parent grievances. The Liston Heights High student body will need more than a strong sense of school spirit to move past these campus dramas in an engrossing debut novel that addresses parents behaving badly and teenagers speaking up, even against their own families.