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janine1122 's review for:
Prep
by Curtis Sittenfeld
EDIT: I decided to bump this book up to 4 stars because I found myself thinking about specific scenes from the book the other day out of the blue, and they were still so vivid in my mind, stirring emotion in me despite having finished the book a couple of months ago. That is almost unheard of in my reading life, so for a book to have somehow imprinted itself on my heart and mind that solidly it must be deserving of 5 stars.
Well, this book....where to begin?
There was a lot about this book I really liked, despite really not liking the narrator herself sometimes. And the book was long, and about sort of nothing specific, while also being about a very specific time in life, which meant there was SO MUCH there.
I guess I'll start with the beginning, and the first piece of the story that jumped out at me, which is also an example of why I gave this a 4 star rating. When the book begins, Lee is a freshman at Alt, a boarding school just outside of Boston. After an embarrassment in her English class, she flees, running into a senior girl named Gates. And Lee is enamored by Gates almost immediately. This attention from a senior and subsequent girl crush is short-lived, but felt so true and real. I could so clearly remember a time in junior high when there was a girl in my gym class that I just thought was so cool. Not because she was necessarily one of the popular girls, but because she just had this air about her that was so nonchalant and....well, cool. I wanted so badly to just be her friend, be near her, thinking some of her would rub off on me. Lee's preoccupation with Gates was so reminiscent of that for me, and I loved that Sittenfeld was able to tap into those adolescent feelings so well, in a way that felt so authentic. This was the first instance of that, but those moments are really present all throughout the book: first crushes, fleeting friendships, the feeling of being the outsider, beginning to rebel against your parents -- those things are all here, and I think if most people are being honest, they can relate to all of these things.
That being said, however, Lee was sometimes a very difficult narrator to connect to. It wasn't just her self-deprecating nature -- I think that's present in a lot of people. And I've seen it done in books before, where the narrator is super self-deprecating, but also actually very cool (though of course they don't realize how well-liked they are...blech), and that wasn't Lee either. My problem with Lee wasn't necessarily her insecurities or the areas that she felt flawed or like an outsider -- my issue with her was the way she whined about things, but didn't do anything to change them. The way she would want things, but then when presented with them would sometimes push them away. That drove me crazy, and while so many other things she went through rang true, some of these didn't. An example of this is the night Cross shows up in her dorm room unexpectedly, a little drunk, and climbs into her bed. He goes to kiss her, she knows that's what he's going to do, and she rejects it. Obviously, that rejection doesn't last, but the impulse to NOT want to kiss the person you've been crushing on for YEARS was not something I could necessarily relate to. My ass would have kissed him without a second thought.
Lee's lack of inaction and reluctance to say what she really feels or really means to the people that matter (when it matters) is a very frustrating piece of the book. And a pretty major focus towards the end of the book.. I just had a lot of issues with the way in which she dealt with things, and while Lee is narrating this from some time in the future and can see things a bit more clearly from that perspective, it didn't make me feel any more kindly to her, at least in regards to some of the issues with Cross and Martha.
I think the other thing that really stood out to me in the book was Lee's relationship with her parents. It stood out in a way that made me uncomfortable, but more because, again, I felt what was happening was really relatable. Lee's experience at boarding school distanced herself from her parents earlier than would have been the case otherwise, but her emotions regarding her parents, and the way she felt other people viewed her or her family seemed really relatable. The weekend of the parent visit at the school was so painful to read at times -- the way she was embarrassed by her parents, the fight with her dad -- and yet I can't imagine an adolescent that hasn't gone through a time like that in their life. Granted, Lee had the added layer of being at a boarding school surrounded by rich kids when she herself was not rich, but the rest of it still felt true. There is that phase that you experience where all of a sudden your parents go from being these cool people, to being incredibly embarrassing humans who couldn't possibly know a thing about you. You cringe when they say the wrong thing in front of your friends, and start to think you know so much more than they do. That, of course, is not true -- and eventually you come to realize you were not nearly as cool or right as you thought you were -- but those feelings and that changing view of the people who raised you seems pretty universal.
Anyway...fair or not, the book lost a star because Lee annoyed the crap out of me sometimes. But...I felt like this book really captures a certain time of life (and in a very specific place) remarkably well. I really did enjoy it, and it made me remember being a teenager and think about the way I would have viewed things at that age compared to my current adult perspective.
Well, this book....where to begin?
There was a lot about this book I really liked, despite really not liking the narrator herself sometimes. And the book was long, and about sort of nothing specific, while also being about a very specific time in life, which meant there was SO MUCH there.
I guess I'll start with the beginning, and the first piece of the story that jumped out at me, which is also an example of why I gave this a 4 star rating. When the book begins, Lee is a freshman at Alt, a boarding school just outside of Boston. After an embarrassment in her English class, she flees, running into a senior girl named Gates. And Lee is enamored by Gates almost immediately. This attention from a senior and subsequent girl crush is short-lived, but felt so true and real. I could so clearly remember a time in junior high when there was a girl in my gym class that I just thought was so cool. Not because she was necessarily one of the popular girls, but because she just had this air about her that was so nonchalant and....well, cool. I wanted so badly to just be her friend, be near her, thinking some of her would rub off on me. Lee's preoccupation with Gates was so reminiscent of that for me, and I loved that Sittenfeld was able to tap into those adolescent feelings so well, in a way that felt so authentic. This was the first instance of that, but those moments are really present all throughout the book: first crushes, fleeting friendships, the feeling of being the outsider, beginning to rebel against your parents -- those things are all here, and I think if most people are being honest, they can relate to all of these things.
That being said, however, Lee was sometimes a very difficult narrator to connect to. It wasn't just her self-deprecating nature -- I think that's present in a lot of people. And I've seen it done in books before, where the narrator is super self-deprecating, but also actually very cool (though of course they don't realize how well-liked they are...blech), and that wasn't Lee either. My problem with Lee wasn't necessarily her insecurities or the areas that she felt flawed or like an outsider -- my issue with her was the way she whined about things, but didn't do anything to change them. The way she would want things, but then when presented with them would sometimes push them away. That drove me crazy, and while so many other things she went through rang true, some of these didn't. An example of this is the night Cross shows up in her dorm room unexpectedly, a little drunk, and climbs into her bed. He goes to kiss her, she knows that's what he's going to do, and she rejects it. Obviously, that rejection doesn't last, but the impulse to NOT want to kiss the person you've been crushing on for YEARS was not something I could necessarily relate to. My ass would have kissed him without a second thought.
Lee's lack of inaction and reluctance to say what she really feels or really means to the people that matter (when it matters) is a very frustrating piece of the book. And a pretty major focus towards the end of the book.
Spoiler
In relation to her and Cross, I felt like I should really dislike Cross. I mean, he was supposed to kind of be the stereotypical jock who takes advantage of girls, right? And yet...their confrontation near the end of the book really felt like he was never necessarily trying to take particular advantage of Lee. Would he have been okay with being with her publicly? I don't know. But the fact that Lee hid behind a wall of "he'd never want this anyway, so I'm going to tell him I don't want it" and then was UPSET by the fact that he never took their relationship public bugged the shit out of me. As he points out in that final confrontation, other people in school knew something was going on with them. It's not like it was a secret that could ever fully be kept. And if he was so worried about his own reputation, he probably would have distanced himself from her sooner as people became aware of their connection. Lee was the one who made herself the outsider, who didn't feel like she could or should approach him outside of their late night visits, and then put all of the responsibility on him. It didn't seem right, or fair, and I was really upset by her for that. Then, when you added her feelings towards Martha into the mix (Martha expressed skepticism over Cross ever being her actual boyfriend, so of COURSE Lee herself then never thought she was worthy of being his girlfriend, even after they started hooking up), I was just over her damn pity party, and her willingness to blame everyone else while taking no responsibility of her own for the way things played out.I think the other thing that really stood out to me in the book was Lee's relationship with her parents. It stood out in a way that made me uncomfortable, but more because, again, I felt what was happening was really relatable. Lee's experience at boarding school distanced herself from her parents earlier than would have been the case otherwise, but her emotions regarding her parents, and the way she felt other people viewed her or her family seemed really relatable. The weekend of the parent visit at the school was so painful to read at times -- the way she was embarrassed by her parents, the fight with her dad -- and yet I can't imagine an adolescent that hasn't gone through a time like that in their life. Granted, Lee had the added layer of being at a boarding school surrounded by rich kids when she herself was not rich, but the rest of it still felt true. There is that phase that you experience where all of a sudden your parents go from being these cool people, to being incredibly embarrassing humans who couldn't possibly know a thing about you. You cringe when they say the wrong thing in front of your friends, and start to think you know so much more than they do. That, of course, is not true -- and eventually you come to realize you were not nearly as cool or right as you thought you were -- but those feelings and that changing view of the people who raised you seems pretty universal.
Anyway...fair or not, the book lost a star because Lee annoyed the crap out of me sometimes. But...I felt like this book really captures a certain time of life (and in a very specific place) remarkably well. I really did enjoy it, and it made me remember being a teenager and think about the way I would have viewed things at that age compared to my current adult perspective.