From the New York Times bestselling author of The Leftovers and Tracy Flick Can't Win comes a darkly hilarious novel about a high school election that brings out the worst in everyone—the basis for the film starring Reese Witherspoon!

Tracy Flick wants to be President of Winwood High. She’s one of those ambitious girls who finds time to do it all: edit the yearbook, star in the musical, sleep with her English teacher. But another teacher, staunch idealist Jim McAllister, aka “Mr. M.,” thinks the students deserve better. So he persuades Paul Warren—a well-liked, good-hearted jock—to throw in his hat. But that puts Paul’s sister Tammy in a snit. So she runs too, on an apathy platform, before starting a real campaign...to get herself kicked out of school. 

The idea was to educate the students at this suburban New Jersey school in the democratic process and the American way. But with all the sex scandals, smear campaigns, and behind-the-scenes power brokers at Winwood High, it doesn’t look as if they need any lessons....

In one of the funniest, most insightful, most surprisingly touching novels of recent times, Perrotta "captures the texture of high-school life in a refreshingly unromantic manner" ("Time Out New York"). Soon to be a major motion picture from MTV Films and Paramount, starring Matthew Broderick.

“[A] darkly comic and winning novel.”—San Francisco Chronicle

“Funny, sad, realistic, irreverent, and very readable.”—Library Journal

“Captures the texture of high-school life in a refreshing manner.”—Time Out New York

“Exceedingly funny...sharp observation...a delight.”—The Clevland Plain Dealer

“A neatly written, nimble-witted novel...a good-natured, John Irvingesque portrait of the contemporary world...seamless storytelling.”—The Washington Post

“Perotta is that rare writer equally gifted at drawing people's emotional maps...and creating sidesplitting scenes.”—People

“An American Chekhov.”—The New York Times Book Review