Hacking Harvard by Robin Wasserman

Good deeds go unrewarded all the time, and despite what the song says, that dream that you dare to dream almost never comes true.
Maybe there's no such thing as an offer you can't refuse; maybe you would have had the strength to turn him away.
I didn't.

Hacking Harvard was written by Robin Wasserman, author of the Skinned trilogy (now known as the Cold Awakening trilogy, each book now bearing different titles than before). It quite an interesting story that handles the pressure of graduating high school and finding the right college with witty humor and even an adventure: the hack that the book is all about.

Max Kim's father went to Harvard, as did his mother and both of his sisters. Now he is expected, and even pressured, into attending his family's alma mater, but he has no desire to attend the Ivy League school. He has his own plans for his future, and they don't include the color crimson. He plays by his own rules and shoots for the greatest amount of profit every time.

Eric Roth's mother teaches at Harvard and would love it if her son also attended Harvard, but he already has a plan. He's going to go to MIT, the college whose students played one of the greatest hacks of all time, and he's going to devote his life to helping those who can't help themselves. He is all about fair play and the underdog.

Schwarz is a Harvard freshman, previously home schooled and the youngest of the group. He goes along with whatever Eric and Max put him up to, or anyone else for that matter. Let's just say he hasn't quite developed his "saying no" skills yet. Numbers are his greatest solace. Order is everything to him.

And finally, there's Lex, the one girl who can throw a wrench in all of their plans.

What is their plan exactly? They've made a bet that they can get the bum of their choice, an undeserving candidate, into Harvard, proving the admissions system is flawed and can be easily tampered with. The stakes are high and the hack is more than challenging. But if anyone can do it, these guys can.

Hacking Harvard was a well-written, witty detailing of the antics of four nerds whose lives are rapidly spinning out of their control and they just want to make a difference in it. Life is coming at them in a whirlwind of sights and smells and sometimes it's a little too much to handle. Wasserman managed to capture the emotion of teenagers staring down their futures with pinpoint accuracy and created some memorable characters along the way.

So why was it that I found myself disappointed? I'm not sure. Honestly, I think it was because I wanted it to be what the Cold Awakening trilogy was and this just didn't quite live up to its excellence. Wasserman still proves herself a great author and can create an interesting story, but this one just didn't interest me quite as much as her previous books captured me. Maybe it was the subject material that put me off (I'm not one to put too much stock in college). Maybe it was just my want for something as ground shattering as the series of hers I had already been exposed to.

I was left a bit disappointed, but I still suggest reading her works. Who knows? You might like this book more than I did. Wasserman is a fantastic writer (and quite an interesting person), so don't let this review put her off of her works as a whole. Go pick up the Cold Awakening trilogy instead.

Either way, it was an alright book, but probably the kind you would only read once.

Rating: ♥ ♥ ♥

"Everything works out, you know." 
"Is that some kind of law of nature, MIT boy?"
He grinned, and a little of the awkwardness faded away. "Sure. First law of thermodynamics: Energy can neither be created nor destroyed. Whatever happens, the universe maintains its equilibrium."
"Doesn't the second law say that entropy increases and the universe is just going to keep falling apart until there's nothing left?"