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This would be a great choice for a book to take on summer vacation. It includes all the sex and drama that one could ever crave in a beach read, but it isn't a trivial book.
The book follows the life of Lee, a teenage girl who attends a swanky boarding school called Ault on a scholarship, from her freshman year all the way through her graduation. The story is told from the perspective of the adult Lee looking back on her teenage years. The reader sees occasional glimpses of the future and learns where Lee and her classmates wind up.
Having come from a middle-class background, Lee never quite fits in with her wealthy classmates--and she is conflicted about whether she wants to. She spends most of her time when she arrives at Ault memorizing the student directory and pouring through old yearbooks. And of course, she harbors a crush on the most popular boy in school. She learns everything she can about her classmates while remaining utterly anonymous to them.
Even after she makes a few friends, Lee remains largely inscrutable. Although she doesn't particularly like Ault and doesn't excel there, she is unwilling to confide any mixed feelings to her parents, whom she had to convince to let her attend the school.
Lee is someone I like who is not very likable. She's aloof, self-involved, and terribly insecure...in other words, a teenager. Moody, middle-class, and pretty yet unremarkable, Lee becomes a sort of "every girl." I related to her so well, and I sense that others would too.
The final chapter--in which her crush becomes a regular hookup--was so real and so true that I felt as if it might have been ripped right out of the pages of my adolescent diary (the emotions, anyway; I couldn't have expressed myself that well). Needless to say, the relationship goes horribly wrong.
When you are young and obsessed with someone for the first time, that person becomes everything; the meaning drains away from all else. And yet usually you know little or nothing about the other person in reality. Surprisingly, Cross (Lee's hookup) actually does know something about Lee. This book totally nails what it's like to be stuck between childhood and adulthood.
The book follows the life of Lee, a teenage girl who attends a swanky boarding school called Ault on a scholarship, from her freshman year all the way through her graduation. The story is told from the perspective of the adult Lee looking back on her teenage years. The reader sees occasional glimpses of the future and learns where Lee and her classmates wind up.
Having come from a middle-class background, Lee never quite fits in with her wealthy classmates--and she is conflicted about whether she wants to. She spends most of her time when she arrives at Ault memorizing the student directory and pouring through old yearbooks. And of course, she harbors a crush on the most popular boy in school. She learns everything she can about her classmates while remaining utterly anonymous to them.
Even after she makes a few friends, Lee remains largely inscrutable. Although she doesn't particularly like Ault and doesn't excel there, she is unwilling to confide any mixed feelings to her parents, whom she had to convince to let her attend the school.
Lee is someone I like who is not very likable. She's aloof, self-involved, and terribly insecure...in other words, a teenager. Moody, middle-class, and pretty yet unremarkable, Lee becomes a sort of "every girl." I related to her so well, and I sense that others would too.
The final chapter--in which her crush becomes a regular hookup--was so real and so true that I felt as if it might have been ripped right out of the pages of my adolescent diary (the emotions, anyway; I couldn't have expressed myself that well). Needless to say, the relationship goes horribly wrong.
When you are young and obsessed with someone for the first time, that person becomes everything; the meaning drains away from all else. And yet usually you know little or nothing about the other person in reality. Surprisingly, Cross (Lee's hookup) actually does know something about Lee. This book totally nails what it's like to be stuck between childhood and adulthood.