You Asked for Perfect

A fox spies luscious grapes in a vineyard, but the hole in the fence is too small.  He can't get through.  So he starves himself for three days until he can slip through and gorge on the grapes.  But once he's eaten all the grapes, he can't get back through the fence.  He must fast for three more days and leaves as unsatisfied as he came.

--Story from the Talmud

Ariel is a senior at a good Georgia high school.  With his family, he is an observant Jew, as are many of his friends.  Almost all of his classes are Advanced Placement, in which he makes straight "A"s..  He is first chair violinist for the school orchestra.  He is in line to be valedictorian.  Until his senior year, he played soccer, but gave it up because it was interfering with study time.  He volunteers at an animal shelter.  All of these activities were once enjoyable, but he now sees them as mere stepping stones to achievement of his ultimate goal -- admission to Harvard.

Then Ariel gets a C on his first quiz in AP Calculus, a crack in his carefully constructed persona of perfection, and his world begins falling apart.

I've had periods of stress in my life, but not in high school.  (I realize that high school has changed since my days there, long ago!)  In college I had short periods of stress before final exams, when I had to catch up with work I should have completed earlier.  I had longer periods of even greater stress as a trial attorney, preparing for especially difficult trials.  But I've never undergone daily stress for an entire year, to the point that my health and my ability to think clearly were affected.

Laura Silverman, in her YA novel, You Asked for Perfect (2019), puts us inside Ariel's mind and soul for an entire novel.  I had to put it aside occasionally because I felt Ariel's stress so clearly -- his feeling that he might just have time to do everything required of him, and then to have additional assignments added, or have family and friends -- whom he cared for deeply -- beg him for time-consuming attention.

Ariel views his C on a single calculus quiz as a breach in his carefully constructed stairway to Harvard, a breach that could cause the entire stairway to collapse.  Then his orchestra's conductor warns him that he's about to lose his first chair position if he doesn't vastly improve his playing of the prominent solo portion of an orchestral piece.  His sister and parents make demands on his time.  His best friend talks him into playing a part-time violin accompaniment in a two-person band she's formed.  His other friends feel neglected.  And he finds himself developing a crush on one of his classmates, a crush he doesn't have time for.

Step by step we follow Ariel through his senior year, as the vice tightens around his head.  He allots himself four or five hours a night to sleep, but sometimes needs an all-nighter.  His thinking deteriorates.  His fingers are bloodied from practicing the violin.  He runs red lights.  Because he has insisted on maintaining his image of perfection, none of his friends, let alone his parents, can understand what's bothering him.

I've never before read a book that caused me to suffer the same afflictions as the protagonist.  My muscles tensed, my head ached.  I had to stop reading every so often just to detach myself from Ariel's problems.

I wondered what kind of readership this story would attract.  Most YA books feature more or less average teenagers confronting the usual teenage problems.  Ariel himself, however, is surrounded by friends who consider themselves "slacking off" if they decide to settle for an easier admission to a "lesser" Ivy League school -- like Dartmouth!  Is high school today this bad?  

But on-line reviews by readers overwhelmingly indicate that the author has identified a widespread problem among high school students today, kids who are practically killing themselves to get into their "dream school." 

It's Ariel's rabbi who tells him the story of the fox and the grapes.  The rabbi encourages him to consider to what extent the admirable goal of Harvard admission is worth the sacrifices he's making during his high school years -- urging him not to abandon the goal, but to consider to what extent Harvard actually demands a "perfect" résumé from its applicants. 

Ariel finally makes some adjustments.  He accepts second chair in the violin section.  He drops an AP Spanish literature course   He takes time for family, and enjoys playing one-on-one soccer with his soccer-playing younger sister.  He kisses and holds hands with the boy on whom he's had a crush, an idealistic Muslim classmate who himself plans to become a doctor and who tells Ariel:

They make us think the grade is more important than the learning, and that's messed up.  We're all overwhelmed.  You're not alone.

Ariel is still overworked, but he has reasserted some control over his life.  The decision from Harvard will arrive when it will arrive.