The Plot (The Book Series, #1)

by Jean Hanff Korelitz

Writers wanting him to confirm their theories about discrimination in the publishing world—Anti-Semitism! Sexism! Racism! Ageism!—as the sole and true reason their 800-page experimental non-linear punctuation-free neo-novel had been turned down by every publisher in the country.

Yikes

but they broke down along another divide: those determined to make high school the best time of their lives and those who expected to move on to far more interesting experiences.

He tried, by some fearful instinct, to avoid seeing himself in the mirror, but inevitably he caught his own gaze, and there it plainly was: the impact of these last months, deeply and unmistakably etched into dark circles around his eyes. Pale skin. Lank hair. And above all an expression of intractable dread.