Prep 

Prep
By Curtis Sittenfeld
Random House (New York, NY), 2005
$21.95 US, 403 pages, hard cover

Reviewed by Beth Provinse
Independent Admission Counselor (MD)

Curtis Sittenfeld writes a story of painful adolescence set against the backdrop of privileged life at Ault, a fictitious prep school located outside Boston. The main character, Lee Fiorma, is a scholarship student from Indiana, and presumably her outsider credentials make her a suitable commentator. With the right combination of familiarity and distance, she is an outsider on the inside. The author then sustains the central character's outsider status through her angst-ridden personality. Lee's self-doubt certainly must strike a chord with many readers—especially female readers closer to Lee's age. However, this older reader, who was not unmoved, was habitually drained by the story's steady, dour drumbeat. Lee's hobbling insecurities dominate the mood and tone of the book, eclipsing even the title subject.

What emerges is a picture of prep school social life. Anyone expecting a serious look at anything other than teenage interaction, however, will be disappointed as this is not a book that loses time exploring either prep school academics or college admission. Instead readers get a close look at prep traditions: the game of assassin (an elaborate quest of finding secret targets in a game of elimination), surprise holidays, parents' weekends, dorms, and dining halls. Occasionally, readers even find a description of teachers and classes.

Beautifully-written dialogue, supplemented by Lee's introspective narrative, tells the story, but the other characters are thinly sketched, and readers are only given enough detail to see where, through Lee's eyes, they fit into the all-important social milieu. We're not even told a great deal about Lee. We learn that she is neither athlete nor scholar. Her math is so weak that she comes within one take-home exam of being expelled from school and she is characteristically timid in her other classes. We're never told of any particular interest or academic accomplishment. What makes her worthy of acceptance to the University of Michigan is a complete mystery. She's not even an in-state applicant.

Lee's four-year crush on Cross Sugarman and their senior-year sexual encounters comprise a major story line of the book, but there is no relationship here in any meaningful sense. Cross is the popular swinger, reportedly sleeping his way through the girls in their class, but Lee happily settles for his crumbs. All adolescents struggle with relationships and Lee wouldn't be the first girl to grasp an empty prize, but the failing here is that she is on a personal treadmill through the entire book, and that is why I resist the "coming of age" label that has been suggested. Where are the advances and setbacks, the growth that comes from triumphs and failures? Where, for that matter, are the occasional lighthearted moments and private giggles with friends? Notably absent, we only see Lee in her daily, determined struggle.

The one crack in her facade occurs when a New York Times reporter interviews her for a feature about boarding schools. She finally speaks, daring to say that having money, or not having it, makes a difference at Ault even though such things are never, never discussed openly. The article's publication creates a firestorm that moves Lee from the social periphery to full-scale notoriety. Her crime is not having criticisms, but in sharing them with an outsider. As the book closes, her outside position becomes permanent.

In any book readers want to understand the author's message. In this case, readers who hope to take a literary peek at a typical prep school experience are likely to be disappointed, as will teachers and counselors who hope to gain insight into elite academic settings. That's because, by making the main character's focus purely social, the title subject is shortchanged. What are we to understand from Prep? Perhaps we see the author's message in the portrayal of teen life as years of angst and superficiality and prep school in terms of money and exclusivity. If that was the message, the author nailed it.

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