Advanced
Error loading page.
Try refreshing the page. If that doesn't work, there may be a network issue, and you can use our self test page to see what's preventing the page from loading.
Learn more about possible network issues or contact support for more help.
Title details for Bad Habits by Amy Gentry - Available

Bad Habits

A Novel of Suspense

by Amy Gentry
ebook
1 of 1 copy available
Borrow Read a sample Read a sample
1 of 1 copy available
AN APPLE BEST BOOK OF FEBRUARY
"It is almost impossible to find the words for a truly original novel such as Bad Habits, a primal scream of a book that could be written only by this author at this time. Amy Gentry is in utter control of this anaconda of a story as it twists, squeezes and lashes out at the reader. And all the reader can do is stare helplessly back, mesmerized. In case it’s not clear, I loved it.” 
—Laura Lippman, New York Times bestselling author of The Sunburn and Lady of the Lake
A whip-smart psychological thriller from the author of Good as Gone (a New York Times Notable Book), in which a grad student becomes embroiled in a deadly rivalry that changes her into someone unrecognizable to her struggling family, her ambitious academic friends, and even herself
Claire "Mac" Woods—a professor enjoying her newfound hotshot status at an academic conference—finally has the acceptance and admiration she has long craved. But at the conference's hotel bar, Mac is surprised to run into a face from a past she'd rather forget: the moneyed, effortlessly perfect Gwendolyn Whitney, Mac's foil, rival, and former best friend.
When Gwen moved to town in high school, Claire—then known as Mac, a poor kid from a troubled family who had too much on her plate—saw what it meant to have. Money, sophistication, culture, the very blueprints to success. Mac had almost nothing, except the will to change. Change she did, habitually grinding herself to work as hard as straight-A Gwen, even eventually getting admitted into the same elite graduate program as Gwen. But then Mac and Gwen become entangled with the department’s power-couple professors and compete head-to-head for a life changing fellowship. The more twisted the track toward success becomes, the more Mac has to contort herself to stay one step ahead—which deception signals the point of no return?
Jack-knifing between Mac's world-expanding graduate days and the crucible of the hotel and its unexpected guests, Bad Habits follows Mac's reckoning between her hardscrabble past and tenuous present. What, exactly, did Mac do to get what she has today? And what will she do to keep it? With taut, powerful prose, Amy Gentry asks how far we'll go to get what we want—and whether we can ever truly leave the past behind.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    March 19, 2024

  • Formats

    • Kindle Book

    • OverDrive Read

      • ISBN: 9780358125051

    • EPUB ebook

      • ISBN: 9780358125051
      • File size: 3005 KB

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Booklist

      December 1, 2020
      When academic frenemies reunite at a conference, it brings back sad, sordid memories of their time in the Program, a claustrophobic midwestern graduate program with classes like Ret-Con Dynamics and the Sedentary Sublime. The class to get into, Ethical Negation, is taught by Bethany Ladd, a lofty intellectual whom hometown best friends, down-at-the-heels Mackenzie Woods and blithely privileged Gwendolyn Whitney, compete to dazzle. As Gwen and Mac increasingly show their resentments over too many drinks at the conference, the bizarre lengths they went to for success, the secrets they kept, and the lives that were destroyed will remind academic readers all too well of the worlds they came from or inhabit. Gentry has academic pettiness and feigned lack of ambition down pat, while also drawing a painful, all-too-real picture of a poor student trying to keep up with richer peers. Mac as narrator creates a tale of psychological survival and suspense that readers of Gentry's Good as Gone (2016) and other tales of women struggling in a world that wants them to fail will relish.

      COPYRIGHT(2020) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

    • Publisher's Weekly

      December 21, 2020
      Professor Mackenzie Claire Woods, the narrator of this engrossing psychological thriller from Gentry (Good as Gone), is on a career high, finally achieving her quest for respect after delivering a keynote speech at an academic conference held at an L.A. hotel. She’s about to retreat to her suite when she spots Gwen Whitney, her former best friend and rival. Flashbacks reveal how the once close friendship Mackenzie and Gwen formed in high school splintered after they were admitted to a prestigious, cultlike graduate humanities program at Dwight Handler University. There, the two women vie for the attention of the university’s power couple professors, Bethany Ladd and her husband, Rocky Semyonovich, who use gossip, betrayal, and sex to control students. Bethany and Rocky will also determine who receives a fellowship that, for some, is worth killing for. Superior storytelling makes up for the off-putting leads and an absurd twist toward the end. This rousing exposé of the politics of academia, with its textbook reputation for backbiting, will keep readers turning the pages. Agent: Sharon Pelletier, Dystel & Goderich Literary.

Formats

  • Kindle Book
  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

subjects

Languages

  • English

Loading