Dan's Book Review: The Sixth Form

By Karma Hope

Childhood is the carefree time period filled with bike rides, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and finger paints. Someday, however, we all arrive at the destination called adulthood, a time when our worries become markedly different - mortgage payments, career decisions, busy schedules, marriage and raising children of our own. But the decisions we make in our adolescence, a time when we know ourselves the least, sometimes have the largest impact on whom we become.

In his newest novel, The Sixth Form, Tom Dolby explores this turbulent yet exciting time. Set in a New England boarding school, Dolby not only delves into teenage existence but teenage existence among the rich and privileged.

Ethan Whitley is a California transplant attending Berkley Academy for his senior year and is met by a world unlike anything has experienced. Watching from the sidelines, he is surprised when Todd Eldon befriends him and introduces him to a world that only money can buy. As the boys' friendship develops, they are faced not only with their differences, but with the inexorable truths of their lives and the incompleteness they are both searching to fill. When Hannah McClellan, an English teacher at the school, befriends the boys, the three begin a friendship that will change all of their lives.

Dolby is a graduate of a New England boarding school himself. With the honesty and grit that made his first highly acclaimed book, The Trouble Boy, such a success, Dolby now gives the reader an in-depth look into boarding school life. He deftly gives the reader a glimpse into the pitfall often accompanying money - excess. With alarming clarity, we see how prevalent sex, alcohol and drugs have become among a population of people too young and inexperienced to understand the magnitude of their actions. Bringing societal deficits starkly into focus, Dolby gives voice to a generation that encapsulates overindulgence and exploration. The story gives rise to concerns facing society at large - lack of parental supervision, rampant drug and alcohol use, broken families, sexual exploration and children growing up too fast. Written with brutal frankness, Dolby's book forces the reader to examine the fine line between self-discovery and self-destruction and how the two can become mistakenly intermingled. Just as the reader becomes sure the author is complacent in his description of pubescent life, he writes, "Right now it all seems like it matters so much. At your age, everything does. Every little thing. But five years from now, you won't even remember this."

Dolby is gifted in his ability to convey meaning in the trivial and he writes with a richness that easily gives the reader insight into his complex vision. He doesn't waste a single word. As distressing as this intimate look into self-evolvement can often feel, Dolby expertly defines the conflict at the crux of the human experience. "Maybe there were no connections between people at all, just brief illusions, temporary salves to ease the pain of living. Maybe that was all love was: a series of shared delusions." The characters journey along a path starting with confusion and aloneness, moving into shared experiences and trust, then culminating in the knowledge that happiness is a combination of standing on one's own and still sharing the experience. This book gives the reader pause to question the state of our world, yet manages to leave you with the certainty that we can and will overcome.

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