Ah, Beach Week: a time-honored tradition in which the D.C. suburbs' high school grads flock to Chelsea Beach for seven whole days of debauchery. In this dark comedy, ten teenage girls plan an unhinged blowout the likes of which their young lives have never seen. They smuggle vodka in water bottles and horde prescription drugs by the dozen. Meanwhile, their misguided, affluent parents are too busy worrying about legal liabilities to fret over some missing pills or random hookups.
With the wit of Nora Ephron and the insight of Tom Perrotta, Susan Coll satirizes a teenage rite of passage, in the process dissecting the lives of families in transition.