Curtis Sittenfeld

Curtis Sittenfeld's sparkling debut is set in an American boarding school, a hotbed of privilege, ambition and neurosis, every bit as snobbish and competitive as anything dreamed up on this side of the Atlantic. Lee Fiora is an intelligent, observant fourteen-year-old when her father drops her off at the prestigious Ault School in Massachusetts; she leaves behind her affectionate family in South Bend, Indiana, her head filled with images from the school's glossy brochure, in which boys in sweaters chat in front of old brick buildings, girls hold lacrosse sticks on pristine athletics fields, and everyone sings hymns in chapel. As Lee soon learns, Ault is quite unlike anything she has previously experienced, a self-enclosed world populated by jaded teenagers whose expectations, values and social rituals are utterly unfamiliar to her. At first an observer of, then a participant in the hyper-vigilant, intricately demarcated life of the school, Lee eventually finds her own place in the pecking order - until a single act of spontaneous folly shatters her carefully honed identity. 'Smart, witty and sensitive . . . Any girl who's ever felt like an outsider will be drawn to troubled Lee, a scholarship teen at a posh boarding school’ InStyle 'An addictive portrait of adolescence - The OC meets Donna Tartt’s The Secret History with flashes of Clueless’ Observer ‘Sittenfeld writes with confidence, her dialogue rings true . . . and her observations range from witty to surprisingly funny, sometimes absurd’ Herald

Prep

In the late 1980s, for reasons even she has difficulty pinpointing, fourteen-year-old Lee Fiora leaves her middle-class, close-knit, ribald family in Indiana and enrolls at Ault, an elite co-ed boarding school in Massachusetts. Both intimidated and fascinated by her classmates, Lee becomes a shrewd observer of, and ultimately a participant in, their rituals and mores, although, as a scholarship student, she constantly feels like an outsider. By the time she's a senior, Lee has found her place at Ault. But when her behavior takes a self-destructive and highly public turn, her hard-won identity within the community is shattered. Lee's experiences, complicated relationships with teachers, intense and sometimes rancorous friendships with other girls, an all-consuming preoccupation with a classmate who is less than a boyfriend and more than a crush, are both a psychologically astute portrait of one girl's coming-of-age and an embodiment of the painful and thrilling adolescence universal to us all.

a novel

Addictive, great names, compelling, relatable.

Jess Rez

Caroline

This is a book I read when I was 15 and I am now 32. Being young and old at the same, consuming fiction from youth and now is becoming an interesting exercise. This book still grabbed me like then, albeit the saucy parts with a dickhead now seem sad and I want to shake the poor young lass. It is also interesting reading this with the context of living in the US where cultural differences between areas are now known to me. Overall this book is tome which I enjoyed but probably wouldn’t recommend unless I went to boarding school.

linda

Really authentic portrayal of boarding school life. Poignant, touching. Lee's story was one I could definitely relate to. 

The plot was meh and predictable. Other elements of the story felt too stereotypical.

I would recommend this book to anyone going to boarding school or anyone parents with children in boarding school.

Elisabetta Gianasi

Un libro che ha decisamente segnato la mia adolescenza. L'ho perso nei vari traslochi. Forse è un segno

Chiara Malaspina di Orezzoli

Prima di prendere in mano questo libro ne avevo sentito parlare da molti come un "nuovo giovane Holden": il paragone, a fine lettura, mi è sembrato oltre che azzardato assolutamente inutile. Allora perché non paragonare qualunque romanzo di formazione mai scritto al giovane Holden?
Ad ogni modo l'ho trovato scorrevole, ben costruito, tutto sommato piacevole. Personalmente non mi sono identificata con la protagonista (per quanto io non sia stata certamente popolarissima e benvoluta durante gli anni del liceo -frequentato tra l'altro negli stati uniti), ma anzi mi sono trovata -specialmente nella seconda parte del romanzo- a provare un'irritazione ricorrente nei suoi confronti e questo ha sicuramente contribuito a togliere stelline dal giudizio finale. Non so trovargli difetti grandiosi, ma nemmeno pregi meritevoli di menzione: insomma, sta nel limbo delle letture piacevoli.

Emily Ruth Carter

I thought people were being negative in their reviews, but the protagonist in this book is awful. Getting through the story through her eyes was so frustrating, and several times throughout the book I thought she needed to seek therapy. She is so detached from reality and has no clue what is really going on. She essentially misses her entire boarding school experience reveling in sadness that she manufactured. Even in the end, when she tell you what happened to everyone else, she doesn't even see herself as worthwhile enough to let you know what became of her after high school. I wanted to see where the story goes, but if you are debating putting the book down as I was, don't waste your time. Put the book down.

Eh, it was alright. It catered to a little younger audience than I thought from the description.

Rebecca Light

Curtis Sittenfeld is a fantastic writer. I almost DNF this novel because I will admit the first half is driven almost entirely by insight, it's quite cerebral, and not a lot of action or emotion. On top of that, the protagonist is flawed, self-deprecating, and a bit narrow-minded, and I was almost turned off by the whole thing. So glad I stuck with it. By the end I felt like I had revisited my own journey through high school, for better or worse (probably worse). I'm grateful for that chance. We were all Lee Fiora, in one way or another. I can attest that as a writer, it takes guts to make your protagonist flawed to the point of being unlikable. First, because you're afraid it will turn off your readers, and second, because you love your protagonist and like a parent does a child, you want them to make good choices. But Sittenfeld bravely crafted a complex young woman making all the mistakes and having all the insecurities that most of us had. This book was honest, and though I wouldn't describe it as a page-turner like some have, it was deeply satisfying. After reading this, I feel like I attended Ault.

Jessica 

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Full review of Prep can be found here and will soon be available on my Tumblr location which can be found here. 

“There are people we treat wrong and later we're prepared to treat other people right. Perhaps this sounds mercenary, but I feel grateful for these trial relationships, and I would like to think it all evens out - surely, unknowingly, I have served as practice for other people.” 

Okay. I’ll admit that I first read Prep at an age that was, perhaps, too young to be reading it. I understood some thing, other things didn’t quite click with my middle school aged mind. I didn’t fully appreciate parts of the narration, the story, until I was older and had experience life a bit more for myself.

I was too young.

(Except not really because, I was certainly the same age as our narrator Lee Fiora.)

What I mean to say, there were many things I didn’t necessarily understand at the time and didn’t realize the book was written for someone far older than me. Prep is the perfect case of how everyone’s life progresses at a different speed than our own and is a generous nod at fiction. All the same, I connected with it instantly and even still it is one of my favorite books ever.

At the time it was mostly a cover buy during the days I’d spend my lunch money on books and a coffee at Barnes and Noble; looking eagerly for the next book to take me away from the dull events of everyday life. There was something cute and simple about the cover art and name; causing me to flip it over and read the summary.

Prep

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