Elliot Allagash

Simon Rich writes with the precision of a sketch comedian who has learned to sustain a longer form, and Elliot Allagash moves at a pace that earns its dark laughs. The premise — a bored billionaire heir decides to transform a friendless fat kid into the school's alpha through increasingly corrupt means — is a sharp vehicle for satire about wealth and the compromises we make for social belonging. The novel is funny and fast. The honest caveat: some critics called it slight, and they are not wrong — it reads more like an extended comic piece than a fully realized novel, and the moral bleakness resolves into nothing in particular. Best for older teens and adults who enjoy dark satire. Parents of younger teens should know the protagonist's corruption is played entirely for laughs.