Prep (2005)

boring. too long. sloooooowwww ( )

I like to think that while I'm well removed from high school at this point, I can still remember vividly the feelings of insecurity and loneliness, contrasted with those of the sometimes triumphs, that that particular institution has a tendency to engender. And because of this, I can very much sympathize with the narrator of Prep, Lee Fiora. But while I was certainly prone to the same insecurities that Lee experienced, her character takes them to an extraordinary level that I sincerely hope most other students don't experience. Lee is someone who is coming from a background very much different from those of the rest of her classmates as she is a student on scholarship, and combined with the ordinary teenage apprehensions and a major tendency to overanalyze everything, Lee is more or less reduced to a puddle at the slightest provocation within this book, and for this she becomes somewhat of a nuisance from time to time. For me, this nuisance caused me to outright groan at times, thus detracting from what could have been an enjoyable book otherwise.

But aside from this, this book has much to recommend for it. While I never went to boarding school, much of Lee's experiences had parallels for me with my freshmen year of college, a year which I recall fondly. The difficulty with making friendships and the recognition of how special one is when you truly find it was eloquently put. The distress a casual crush can cause was explored well (a little too well for my tastes, but as a man, I suppose that's to be expected). And the embarrassment of failure and feeling like your family can no longer understand you because you've changed so much apart from them is something I believe anyone can relate to. I found the scenes surrounding Surprise Holiday, Lee teaching Conchita how to ride a bike alongside Lee's first introduction to Bob Dylan, and the evolving relationship between Lee and Martha to be particularly compelling.

Ultimately, I wish that Lee had learned more from her experiences than she did. It felt like even upon reflection she derived little from her blunders, and too much was left unsaid. The last conversation she had with Cross I felt to be exceptionally true and well done, but I felt that there needed to be more of those as well. Lee ultimately addresses the overriding theme of her insecurity about her middle class stature only obliquely, and this to me was just a mistake on Ms. Sittenfeld's part. How easy it would have been for Lee to talk to Martha in the end about how she felt at Ault in terms of her class, and yet this never occurred.

As a coming of age novel, I certainly enjoyed Prep for some of the moments of wonder that it conveyed. If Goodreads would allow half stars, this book would have been a solid 3.5. But ultimately the failure of Lee to evolve, combined with her annoyingly overanalyzing everything and her failure to really tell anyone aside from Cross face to face how she felt, rates this as closer to a 3 than a 4. Ms. Sittenfeld's prose is clean and exquisite at times, and so I may look for another book by her (especially considering this was her debut effort). ( )

I don't know why I thought this was going to be ordinary chick-lit, but I was pleasantly surprised. It's an excellent, involving story covering Lee's 4 years at Ault boarding school. She's not rich like most of the other students, and she's from Indiana. She's introverted, insecure and fascinating. Very well-written. ( )

Original review - in French - on my blog:
This">http://moncoinlecture.over-blog.com/article-prep-campus-curtis-sittenfeld-96243011.html

This one is quite different from the other "school" books that I read. And if I enjoyed it, it's because of the "real" feeling I got from this book, not because I liked any of the characters. It's slow paced, with small events that seems so important for many teenagers. I was quite fascinated by the way the heroine brought on her everything that happened... Liked it. ( )

I don't know who told Curtis Sittenfeld she could read my teenage diary. Especially since I never actually kept one. ( )