Parents' Guide to The Academy

Parents need to know that mother-daughter co-authors Elin Hilderbrand and Shelby Cunningham's The Academy is set at Tiffin Academy, an elite boarding school recently ranked number two in the country—despite not being known for academics, though it quickly becomes clear that someone is determined to expose the school's sordid secrets. The book was published and marketed to adults, but its high-school-age boarding school setting holds a lot of teen appeal. Violence includes some bullying that happens to a new student, another student struggles with bulimia, and there's talk of a suicide from the year before. A teacher starts a sexual relationship with a student, which is illegal sexual assault of a minor. Mean language is typically called out, as when someone is referred to as a "slut" and another character points it out as slut-shaming. Lots of language like "douchebag," "bitch," "s--t," "hell," "ass," "d--k," "f--k," "twat," "damn," "slut," "boobs," "ho," "whore," "piss," "t-ts," "c--k," and the middle finger. Students and teachers drink alcohol on several occasions, and one of the teachers drinks with a student. The teacher-student sexual relationship includes descriptions of making out and oral sex. Sex between teachers and sex between students as well, but no explicit details are described.