Devon University is like an Ivy League school, the creme de la creme, the type of school where the people you meet and the things you learn can set you up for life. Professor Ephraim Russell chose it specifically to hide his low-brow Alabama roots. Social justice warrior and seventh-year student Red Wheeler chose it as a way to bring woke redress to the underclasspersons. Social climber and influencer-wannabe Lulu Harris chose it as a place to launch her brand. Add in sororities, feminists, cliques, special interests, alcohol, and panicky donors, and you’ve got a recipe for the wildest year on campus yet.

Professor Russell’s hopes for tenure go up in smoke when a group of rabble-rousers attend his literature class where he talks about The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and attack him verbally about choosing such a problematic book, putting him on the spot, and using their phones to record short videos, which they upload to the internet. That puts the alumni and Devon President Milton Strauss on notice, so when his office is overtaken by students wanting change and then Lulu starts a one-woman protest that goes viral, Strauss feels the pressure to keep everyone happy.

As the insults fly and harassment claims come to the forefront, it is only when all the students end up at the same protest at the same time that the whole campus implodes in this satire of modern campus life. Campusland by Scott Johnston is a crazy, vivid look at what an happen when people take ideas to extremes just to get some attention on their pet projects.

I love a good satire, but I admit I struggled with this one. There was something about it that made me feel connected to the drama, that made me feel the pain of those unjustly drawn into the drama. That makes me think that Johnston’s writing is excellent, and that any issues I had with this story were mine. Maybe it just felt a little too soon for some of these story lines. But my feelings aside, if you’re interested in reading a satire about campus life these days, then by all means, let Scott Johnston enroll you in Devon, and make sure you are strapped safely in place for this roller coaster of a story.

Galleys for Campusland were provided by St. Martin’s Press through NetGalley, with many thanks.