Customer Reviews

Restless Virgins: Love, Sex, and Survival at a New England Prep School

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(19)

 

 

Let's be honest, it's easy to make fun of prep schools. Unfortunately this book is a really lousy read, and completely unenlightening. If it's based on a true school as it says, then the authors have no one to blame but themselves for the weak character development and canned 'insights'. I was definitely disappointed and wouldn't recommend it - whether or not you liked "Prep" or prep schools.

As a non too-distant prep school grad and former high-school teacher, I though this book would shed insight into the minds of high-schoolers. Though the book starts out well, after I while I was bored reading about high school jocks having crazy sex and the titular "virgins" (a brainy trio nicknamed "The Hysterics" by classmates) doing pretty much nothing. The characters do not at all come to life in this drawn-out, repetitive waste of a book...why should I care what they think, feel or desire? In addition, the books is sold as a story of seniors who were at Milton when "the incident" happened (the incident involving one 15 yr old girl and five male sophomores and juniors, all apparently consentual). But the seniors are at best distantly related to the 5 guys in question: two of about 6 main characters know the accused boys, and the scandel hardly rocks the boat of any of the students we follow.

As an expose of teen sexual beliefs and practices, it is equally bland. Kids give eachother oral sex as young teens; who didn't know this? Some may be shocked and appalled, but come on. Many girls their same age (14-16) bear children across the world (including my former students). Since I was in high school nine years ago, not much has changed, it's just more known in the media that teens like sex. But even though the books sells sex, we see no aftermath of sexual activity, save the briefly mentioned incident. What about the emotions, reputations, repercussions? We get none of that.

All in all, this book is a waste of time. I can't even give it to my friends becasue I'm unable to not say, "But it's really, really bad." Sucks for the poor shopper who will buy it at Goodwill after I donate it.

As a single father who spends a fair amount of time worrying about my daughter, I picked up this book with hopes of learning what her high school experience might be like. After finishing it, I must say I'm surprised it's being marketed as a tool for empowering young girls and sparking conversations in families. Instead, all this book does is exploit girls. I certainly wouldn't bring it up at the dinner table. I think this book missed its sociological target and ended up in the airport romance novel genre.

Don't waste your time. There was no character development and I could not distinguish one character from another. I expected to get insight into the characters' minds.... but got nothing. It is poorly written. I tried to make the best of it, but toward the middle I gave up and skipped through the rest of it.

It's amazing what a title can sell. In truth, it's hard to believe these "women" graduated from anywhere, considering their poor writing skills. The entire book was the same dullness, over and over and over. And, it wasn't a question of repeating the same thing in novel ways--it was always the same thing in basically the same way. Hard to believe editors and publishers picked this one up--anything for money. Don't waste yours. This will be on the dollar shelf soon enough if you really must see what a waste of time this book is.

When this book first came out, it was hyped as being an important and insightful look at the pressures experienced by today's high school students. The book is anything but. Instead of a thoughtful examination of high school and its social and academic pressures, the book is a vapid narrative of seven incredibly self-absorbed, boring young people written by equally boring, vapid, self-absorbed young people. I learned nothing other than apparently the very rich young people of Milton Academy are empty-headed and rather pathetic. The seniors at Milton who participated in this book appear incapable of having any thought not related to themselves and their tiny world.

To me, the only thing this book did was make me question the value of prep schools and Ivy League educations. If the lame, cartoonish writing of Abigail Jones and Marissa Miley exemplifies in-depth journalism and critical analysis, it speaks poorly of the institutions these two young women attended. They appear incapable of critical thought and write as if the book were a cheap romance novel.

I was not familar with the Milton scandal at all before this book. I found it interesting and eye-opening on several levels, and it quite frankly made me scared to have daughters. Much of the book promotion was on the scandal itself, however, most of the book was about teenage sexual behavior in general... how the scandal was only a scandal because the participants got caught. I recommend this book to naive parents who refuse to acknowledge the shift in casual sexual behavior, as well as to people who feel they are liberal on the subject.

Another great book that depicts the pressures teens face today (although fiction) is The Time Keeper by Kevin E. Cropp.

This book is perhaps one of the worst books I have ever read. I completely agree with another reviewer who said it was so poorly written it is amazing it was published at all. The characters are entirely one-dimensional. It is hard to care what happens to any of them. The authors hammer home the point of teeenagers being so preoccupied with social standing and what makes people popular. But it is insulting as a reader to feel that the authors don't feel that we get it in the first hundred pages.

I am surprised at how polarized the reviews on this book are. Most readers seem to either love it or hate it. I found myself somewhere in the middle. In my mind, the authors accomplished what they set out to do: they gave us a window into the dynamics of sex and dating in modern high school.

Having not left high school so very many years ago, I can tell you that the stories in the book seem extreme when put all together, but they are not really surprising. This may be something that bothered other readers--the book has a fairly narrow focus. It doesn't give a well-rounded view of what it is like to be in high school, nor does it intend to. It captures a single year in the lives of a group of high schoolers and deals with many of the personal issues which we all know, in retrospect, have very little to do with the real world, and are not as important as say, the drug war in the streets of Mexico, or Maoist rebels fighting in the jungles of India. But in the insulated, hormone-pumping world of high school, these problems are everything to the people living them. We can point out the stupidity of these teenagers all day long, but somehow, I can't find it in me to blame them.

One weakness of the book is its cast. There are a lot of characters, and I found myself struggling to keep track of names. Some, we get to know well, and their personalities are well-developed. Others, not so much. I guess that is one of the challenges of writing about people based solely on interviews and reading IM chats.

Also, the book seems about 50 pages longer than it needed to be. Again, this is part of the problem of having such a large cast. Then again, if characters were cut, I think it would feel a lot less like high school. Maybe this is just a topic that can't sustain interest in the long term. It does get repetitive before long.

For what it does, this book is probably about as well written as it could be. I learned a thing or too, and I enjoyed certain moments. if the idea of reading about what all them youngsters are doing when the parents are out doesn't disturb you, pick it up used, and sell it when you are done.

It sounded like it would be interesting to read, but I never was able to get into it. I kept thinking, well maybe if I keep reading it will pick up. But it never did. The characters all blended together. I could never remember who was who. The authors follow 7 students through their senior year, and it seems like they try to develop their stories, but they didnt succeed. They jumped from story to story and I couldn't keep track of who was who because everything was so repetitive and boring. Even by the end of the book I couldn't distinguish the characters. They all just blended together because the authors didn't develop the characters. And the writing was so repetitive! I kept thinking, "when is this going to end!" But the authors just rambled on and on. I never write reviews, but I was so annoyed about wasting my time with this book, that I thought I'd write one. So don't bother reading this book.