Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.42 AVERAGE
3.42 AVERAGE
I'm probably going to piss off a lot of people, but I'm going to go ahead and psychoanalyze a bunch of Goodreads reviewers I don't know. People didn't like Prep because it's about an unsympathetic teenager "suffering" through privilege. People don't like books when they don't like the main character, or if the character behaves in ways they wouldn't behave. But isn't that misplaced blame? It's like when you watch a movie and you end up hating the actor who plays the villain, but really you hate him because he played the villain so WELL, not because he's a bad actor. Lee Fiora, the main character in Prep, is not likeable precisely because we know her when she's a freshman-through-senior in high school-- quite possibly the most awkward, difficult years of one's life. Sure, she behaves snobbily; sure, she is selfish and narcissistic; yes, she is irritatingly embarrassed by anything and everything. She's a TEENAGER. (Now maybe I'll get a bunch of Goodreads reviewers saying, "Well I wasn't like that as a teenager." To which I say sarcastically, "Congratulations. You're one in a million.") I think Sittenfeld captures adolescence as purely and truly as any author I've read. I cringed through the novel, not because it was bad but because it was a spot on portrayal of an age that you couldn't pay me a million dollars to return to.
Great inside look into the world of prep school while also giving a peak into the brain of a smart adolescent girl. This one has stuck with me a few years and is one of my favorites of Curtis Sittenfeld.
This book didn't interest me at all, the plot was dense and I wasn't enticed into the story.
I really liked this book about Lee's years at Ault boarding school. I find myself identifying a lot with Lee, especially in the beginning of the book. I also loved all the names: Aspeth, Cross, Darden, Reynolds, McGrath, Horton...just the type of names you'd think you'd find at a boarding school.
At close to 60% through, I’m tired of trudging through this slow-paced teen drama. And that’s saying a lot because I LOVE a good teen drama.
The characters just feel boring to me and the storyline very mediocre. I pushed through as far as I did because I feel like Lee is autistic and kept waiting for that piece of info to drop. It hasn’t and I’m over it.
The characters just feel boring to me and the storyline very mediocre. I pushed through as far as I did because I feel like Lee is autistic and kept waiting for that piece of info to drop. It hasn’t and I’m over it.
A little more than four stars. Maybe five if I can get over my sadness at the last few pages. But not about the book or the writing
I don’t know if I’ve ever read a book I have related to so much so that it almost made me feel embarrassed and uncomfortable to keep reading since a lot of Lee’s experiences seemed impossibly similar to my own. I could think of 6 different ways to write my own version of this book and even if bits and pieces of those unwritten novels stay in the notes app on my phone, I’ll be glad to have read this and known to have held those memories close - 5
Curtis Sittenfeld's debut novel apparently became something of a cult classic in the US, which isn't surprising. It's very US school system centric and therefore a curiosity of a kind to readers outside the US. A protagonist who ages from 14-18 during the course of the book (but strangely doesn't seem to age correspondingly in terms of emotional maturity) is probably a stretch too far back for me to fully relate to. It did bring back memories of the terrible insecurities and anxieties I suffered at that age which made it painful reading at times.