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Prep

A Novel

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Prep

Written by: Curtis Sittenfeld
Narrated by: Jorjeana Marie
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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A modern classic of adolescent angst and ambition set in the world of prep school, from the author of Romantic Comedy and Eligible—“a tart and complex tale of social class, race, and gender politics” (The Boston Globe)

One of The New York Times Book Review’s Ten Best Books of the Year

Lee Fiora is an intelligent, observant fourteen-year-old when her father drops her off in front of her dorm at the prestigious Ault School in Massachusetts. She leaves her animated, affectionate family in South Bend, Indiana, at least in part because of the boarding school’s glossy brochure, in which boys in sweaters chat in front of old brick buildings, girls in kilts hold lacrosse sticks on pristinely mown athletic fields, and everyone sings hymns in chapel.

As Lee soon learns, Ault is a cloistered world of jaded, attractive teenagers who spend summers on Nantucket and speak in their own clever shorthand. Both intimidated and fascinated by her classmates, Lee becomes a shrewd observer of—and, ultimately, a participant in—their rituals and mores. As a scholarship student, she constantly feels like an outsider and is both drawn to and repelled by other loners. By the time she’s a senior, Lee has created a hard-won place for herself at Ault. But when her behavior takes a self-destructive and highly public turn, her carefully crafted identity within the community is shattered.

Ultimately, Lee’s experiences—complicated relationships with teachers; intense friendships with other girls; an all-consuming preoccupation with a classmate who is less than a boyfriend and more than a crush; conflicts with her parents, from whom Lee feels increasingly distant—coalesce into a singular portrait of the painful and thrilling adolescence universal to us all. Coming of Age Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Funny
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Ultimately I'm not sure that the main character Leah is quite worth this degree of analysis and self exploration, but overall the novel captures the realities of adolescence as experienced in the unique bubble of boarding school. In classic bildungsroman style, Leah's middle class ordinariness leads her to struggle to find a way to merge her identity with the weird upperclass world of elite prep schools. It took me awhile to finish--about 3/4 of the way through I needed a break from her solipsism, but I eventually returned to it and I am glad--the ending is unexpected and actually brings to light some of the class problematics alluded to throughout.

as a prep school alumnus this rang too true

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