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Lee Fiora, a girl from Indiana, comes east to go to a posh prep school near Boston and lives to tell the tale--but barely. From the vantage point of adulthood, she looks back on the experience, which was full of anguish and failure but also an increase in self-knowledge. Written by a boarding school survivor (Curtis Sittenfeld went to Groton), PREP is a page-turner that recreates the authentic experience with humor, insight, and a close attention to the details of what it's like to be a teenager in 1980s America. Named one of the 10 Best Books of 2005 by the New York Times.
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"[A] bittersweet coming-of-age novel....Saving the book from formula...are some fine writing and assorted shrewd insights into both the psychology of adolescence and the privileged world of a traditional prep school." - Darius Milhaud (Booklist, 12/15/04)
"A witty, involving boarding-school drama....The boarding school formula allows newcomer Sittenfeld the comforting slippers-and-ice-cream haven of chick lit while allowing much more in the way of psychological insight. Teenaged years served up without sugar: a class act." - (Kirkus, 11/15/04)
"Any feelings of nostalgia for adolescence should be dispelled by the exacting intimacies of this first novel....In the end, Lee's incisive vision of herself and others is her downfall but also--as this richly textured narrative suggests--her greatest gift." - (New Yorker, 2/7/05)
"Most novels are autobiographical in some way, first novels in particular. But even allowing for that, PREP, both in structure and in narrative, feels like a memoir. Without an author photo of a teenage Sittenfeld posed on the quad of an elite East Coast boarding school, we can't know. And it doesn't really matter. What is of interest, and why PREP deserves pride of place on any summer recommended reading list, is the incisive and evenhanded way in which Sittenfeld explores issues of class." - William A. Maddox (New York Times Book Review, 1/16/05)
"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." - (Publishers Weekly, 11/1/04)
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- Average review for this item:
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"Had to force myself to keep reading. Doesn't have a storyline."
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"I liked this book. I think you either relate to it or you don't. Brought me back to what it was like to live through those teenage years. I would definitely recommend it."
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"didn't really care for this book to many girls overpowering others."
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"It is an "ok" read. Not much happens...its a 400 page book without a huge defining moment. I kept reading and reading to get to the point and never found it."
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"good"
1-5 of 36 | 
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