susielmnop 's review for:

Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld

4.0

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This is a story about Lee, a teenager who who has grandiose dreams of what boarding school is like, who move away from her family at 14 to attend a prestigious high school. Most of the book takes place in her head and she can come across as completely neurotic, worrying about situations that haven't happened and situations that will *never* happen. She over-analyzes everyone and everything, and yet while she can be exhausting, I think there are parts of her personality that are quite relatable. She keeps to herself for the most part, and manages to fly under the radar through school, maintaining her outsider role. Lee begins a secret "relationship" with one of the popular boys in her class during her senior year, but things don't work out the way she planned, especially after she gives an interview for the newspaper that exposes the social structure of boarding school life. I really enjoyed the writing; the author managed to capture the high school angst, but articulate it from the narrator's adult point of view.