PREP

In Prep, Lee Fiora is from a lower middle class family in the Midwest who attends a Massachusetts prep school on a scholarship. The novel is her account of her four years there. It's a world where she never fits in, despite how desperately she might want to. During her years there, she slowly emerges from being someone shrinking into the background and eventually develops a few friends and tries to carve out her place in its social structure. But being accepted as the equal of the wealthy and privileged is an obstacle that can never be overcome, yet fitting in back home seems just as foreign to her. Curtis Sittenfeld's coming-of-age story is one that might make many recall their own high school years and Prep has received mostly positive reviews. The Rocky Mountain News says, "Prep flows like an extended diary entry, and Sittenfeld's brilliant writing sparkles in each turn, hitting the bitter isolation of adolescence spot-on."