Arriving to Griswold Academy, Justine doesn't want to be seen in her dad's orange Volvo. She is not as privileged as the rest of her classmates—her parents run a theatre and struggle to pay their bills. Eve, a sophisticated daughter of Park Avenue parents, may be well off, but she too feels like an outsider. The girls become best friends and navigate their way through relationships, drugs, alcohol, and Griswold's in crowd and predatory male teachers.
After a less than stellar school year, the girls spend the summer in New York City with Eve’s childhood friend, India. Justine moves into India’s Hell’s Kitchen apartment and becomes more enamoured with her friends’ glamorous lives. Always under her parents' watchful eye, Eve interns at a SoHo art gallery with an unpredictable boss whereas India struggles to resist the advances of a famous artist represented by the gallery. All three women are affected by their sexual relationships with older men and struggle to assert their independence.
Age of Consent is a story about friendship, sex, and parental damage.
Set in 1983, Age of Consent is a nod to the 80s. Brainerd sprinkles pop culture references throughout but doesn't succeed in immersing her reader in the decade known for extreme fashion and incredible music (New Wave). What happens instead is that the novel is kind of affected, for example, the school is named Griswold Academy...
The whole thing is flat—the characters, the dialogue, the story—and there is an unnecessary subplot. Being set in the 80s, there is a lot to work with and yet nothing really happens. I had such high hopes for this novel, but ultimately it was not the promised captivating coming of age story and failed to evoke any nostalgia for my teenage years.
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AMANDA BRAINERD graduated from Harvard College and earned a Master of Architecture from Columbia University after being expelled from Choate Rosemary Hall boarding school in the 10th grade.
Brainerd lives in New York City where she is a real estate broker, wife and mother of three. Age of Consent is her debut novel.
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