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Prep: A Novel (Paperback)

by Curtis Sittenfeld (Author)
Key Phrases: senior prefect, Sin Jun, Cross Sugarman, South Bend (more...)

3.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (496 customer reviews)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Curtis Sittenfeld's poignant and occassionally angst-ridden debut novel Prep is the story of Lee Fiora, a South Bend, Indiana, teenager who wins a scholarship to the prestigious Ault school, an East Coast institution where "money was everywhere on campus, but it was usually invisible." As we follow Lee through boarding school, we witness firsthand the triumphs and tragedies that shape our heroine's coming-of-age. Yet while Sittenfeld may be a skilled storyteller, her real gift lies in her ability to expertly give voice to what is often described as the most alienating period in a young person's life: high school.

True to its genre, Prep is filled with boarding school stereotypes--from the alienated gay student to the picture perfect blond girl; the achingly earnest first-year English teacher and the dreamy star basketball player who never mentions the fact that he's Jewish. Lee's status as an outsider is further affirmed after her parents drive 18 hours in their beat-up Datsun to attend Parent's Weekend, where most of the kids "got trashed and ended up skinny-dipping in the indoor pool" at their parents' fancy hotel. Yet even as the weekend deteriorates into disaster and ends with a heartbreaking slap across the face, Sittenfeld never blames or excuses anyone; rather, she simply incorporates the experience into Lee's sense of self. ("How was I supposed to understand, when I applied at the age of thirteen, that you have your whole life to leave your family?")

By the time Lee graduates from Ault, some readers may tire of her constant worrying and self-doubting obsessions. However, every time we feel close to giving up on her, Sittenfeld reels us back in and makes us root for Lee. In doing so, perhaps we are rooting for every high school student who's ever wanted nothing more than to belong. --Gisele Toueg --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly
A self-conscious outsider navigates the choppy waters of adolescence and a posh boarding school's social politics in Sittenfeld's A-grade coming-of-age debut. The strong narrative voice belongs to Lee Fiora, who leaves South Bend, Ind., for Boston's prestigious Ault School and finds her sense of identity supremely challenged. Now, at 24, she recounts her years learning "everything I needed to know about attracting and alienating people." Sittenfeld neither indulges nor mocks teen angst, but hits it spot on: "I was terrified of unwittingly leaving behind a piece of scrap paper on which were written all my private desires and humiliations. The fact that no such scrap of paper existed... never decreased my fear." Lee sees herself as "one of the mild, boring, peripheral girls" among her privileged classmates, especially the über-popular Aspeth Montgomery, "the kind of girl about whom rock songs were written," and Cross Sugarman, the boy who can devastate with one look ("my life since then has been spent in pursuit of that look"). Her reminiscences, still youthful but more wise, allow her to validate her feelings of loneliness and misery while forgiving herself for her lack of experience and knowledge. The book meanders on its way, light on plot but saturated with heartbreaking humor and written in clean prose. Sittenfeld, who won Seventeen's fiction contest at 16, proves herself a natural in this poignant, truthful book.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

Paperback: 448 pages
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks (November 22, 2005)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 081297235X
ISBN-13: 978-0812972351
Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.2 x 1.1 inches
Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (496 customer reviews)

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #9,843 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Surprise Me!

Inside This Book (learn more)

Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
senior prefect

Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Sin Jun, Cross Sugarman, South Bend, Dean Fletcher, The New York Times, Aspeth Montgomery, Darden Pittard, Angie Varizi, Henry Thorpe, Miss Fiora, Nick Chafee, Amy Dennaker, Madame Broussard, Angela Varizi, Gates Medkowski, Ancient History, East Coast, Lee Fiora, University of Michigan, David Bardo, Red Barn Inn, Low Notes, Jonas Ault, Hillary Tompkins, Martha Porter

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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Surprise Me!

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Customer Reviews

496 Reviews

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4 star:		(111)
3 star:		(85)
2 star:		(76)
1 star:		(81)

Average Customer Review

3.3 out of 5 stars (496 customer reviews)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

151 of 176 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars 'catcher' this is not, and thank goodness, January 22, 2005

By	E. M. Bristol "bibliophile" (boston, mass) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Prep: A Novel (Hardcover)

This book reminds me of "Joe College" by Tom Perrotta and "Old School" by Tobias Wolff with the same formula of working class outsider attends an elite school and learns life lessons en route to graduation. Unlike the protagonists in those books, however, "Prep's" Lee Fiora, manages to make more than just temporary connections with her classmates, and it is that which distinguishes the book from others with male protagonists.

Much has been made by reviewers of the fact that the protagonist is a snob. So what. Many teenagers are judgmental and materialistic, regardless of class, and most are, at some point, intensely embarrassed by their parents. It's part of growing up. What a cop out it would be if Lee were the kind of Hollywood teen who in the end always does the right thing. It's refreshing to see an author create a first novel protagonist who clearly isn't some idealized version of herself.

I just wish the author had prefaced each section with a date - it took me a needlessly long time to figure out when it was set. Characters used today's lingo (hook-up, etc.), but there were also elements specific to both the 80's and 90's. This was a bit jarring.

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20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars High school flashback, July 5, 2006

By	Melissa Niksic (Chicago, IL United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)

This coming-of-age story is told from the perspective of Lee Fiora, an Indiana resident who is awarded a scholarship at the prestigious Ault School, an East coast boarding institution. "Prep" chronicles Lee's four years at Ault and details the numerous experiences and heartaches that help shape her life.

Author Curtis Sittenfeld has succeeded in writing a very adult book about something that nearly all readers will be able to relate to: high school. Being a teenager is not an easy experience for anyone, and all of us have our fair share of high school horror stories to go around. In Lee's case, the high school experience is even more challenging because she is thrown into a world where she is unbelievably out of place. Lee feels like an outcast at Ault: she's one of the few kids who are there on scholarship, and the other students come from very wealthy families. The money issue is one of several reasons why Lee is unable to fit in with her peers and really make her mark at Ault. She withdraws from her classmates and has a difficult time making friends. As Lee struggles to succeed at her new school, she finally forms a solid friendship with one girl, Martha, and has a huge crush on a fellow student, Cross Sugarman, who is a member of the "popular" crowd. Throughout her four years at Ault, Lee manages to learn a lot about relationships with other people and also a lot about the relationship she has with herself.

Critics of this book complain that Lee is an annoying character because she's incredibly insecure and obsesses about everything all the time. Personally, those qualities just make her more endearing to me. The teenage years are rough, high school is brutal, and experiencing all of that in a strange environment where you have no contact with your family must be a thousand times worse than what the average kid has to deal with. Yes, Lee can be hurtful, selfish, and downright stupid at times...but she's a teenager, and most teenagers go through a phase when they're extremely moody and self-centered. That being the case, I don't think there's anything unusual about Lee. I think her best quality is her honesty. Lee recognizes positive traits and tragic flaws in every person she meets, including herself. It's very refreshing.

I think the best thing about this book is that although the story is narrated by Lee and she is detailing her high school experiences, she is reflecting back on her time at Ault ten years after she graduated. "Prep" isn't a sappy story of teenage angst that belongs in the young adult section: it's a summary of Lee's boarding school experiences being told to the reader by Lee when she's in her late 20s. This isn't a book for teenagers; it's a story that was written for adults. I think most adults will be able to relate to Lee's experiences on many different levels, which is why I highly recommend this book.

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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Authentic and beautifully written, April 18, 2008

By	Kendra - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

This was definitely one of the most engrossing novels I've read so far this year. PREP is the story of Lee, an insightful and eloquent (yet insecure) teen from Indiana. Remembering words her middle class father spoke years before ("these are the kinds of houses where they send their sons to boarding school"), she has made it her goal to attend an elite boarding school. And she achieves it-- with a scholarship. The story commences as Lee begins her first year at Ault (think Andover) and concludes as she graduates four years later.

This was an Amazon recommendation since I read Tom Brown's Schooldays. And, it's similar-- a bit. Like Schooldays, History Boys, even Harry Potter, etc., the book follows the lives of several teens during their formative years. I'm not sure everyone would like it-- I'm not sure I'd recommend it to my husband, for instance, but it was indeed excellent. The author, Curtis Sittenfeld , really has the voice of a young insecure teen growing into a more confident, but never completely secure, young woman. Initiallly, I thought the author was a man and was completely taken aback-- how could a man actually know this girl so thoroughly? However, Curtis Sittenfeld is indeed a woman. And, the protagonist and her friends and classmates lives were exactly as I remembered my own life and those of my friends and classmates during high school. Truly, the authenticity the author brought to this book-- the dialogue, the events, the crushes, the friendships-- was uncanny.

I've read the negative reviews here, but disagree with some of the reasoning. One reviewer, for instance, writes about how boring the sex scenes were. With all due respect, that reviewer missed the point-- of course the sex was boring and empty and that was the very purpose of writing about it. So much the narrator believed or hoped to be important was or turned out to be empty and insignificant (even while remaining a pivotal event in her own life).

If you're female and if your own memories of high school are less than ideal, I completely recommend this book but also warn you to read this with caution. For me, this brought back memories I haven't even thought about in years. And, worse, it made some of those memories absolutely new-- as if they happened yesterday. Obsessions over insignificant events become magnified . . . analyzing and over-analyzing every response and comment from every person within your social circle. . . reading between the lines when the lines themselves are perfectly clear. . . accepting much less than you deserve. . . giving less to others than they deserve (or maybe worse-- giving more to others than warranted). . . Prep will make all these memories new again.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars A Non-Heroine in a Non-Idyllic Setting
I can't remember another novel's protagonist who I grew to dislike more and more as each subsequent episode of her life was narrated. Read more

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5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful
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1.0 out of 5 stars Falls short of expectations.
After 494 reviews, I'm afraid I can't say much else.

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5.0 out of 5 stars Surprisingly, compelling
In any society, there are outsiders, people who do not fit in. The protagonist is an outsider who very much wants to fit in to her prep school, to an extent which is self... Read more

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4.0 out of 5 stars Prep
Prep was a good teen book. It is about Lee Fiora and her four years at a boarding school. Lee feels like an outsider because she is from Indiana and is there on scholarship. Read more

Published 4 months ago by Bennie

4.0 out of 5 stars Well written
I recently read American Wife and enjoyed it, so I decided to try her previous books. This is a well-written book about the world within a world at a boarding school in the... Read more

Published 4 months ago by Pam

5.0 out of 5 stars Guilty Pleasure
When I read this book, I was about two and a half years out of prep school myself. I was hesitant about reading it precisely because of its title. Read more

Published 5 months ago by Anonymous Book Reviewer

3.0 out of 5 stars Good high school novel that reminds you why you favored college over high school!
Great author - he writes so well from a high schooler's point of view that you wonder if perhaps he still is one. Read more

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2.0 out of 5 stars Unlikable Characters, weak story
This book was hard to read because I never developed a liking for the characters. The main character was as awkward when she graduated as when she was a freshman. Read more

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I picked up this book after seeing a report on its "scandalous" nature on Fox News. The reporters were very concerned that school children should read about other students of... Read more

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