Such a guilty pleasure and I think it's really more like 4 stars, but what the hell.... let's do the Cinco. I have been obsessed with boarding schools since I was a kid. I used to sneak upstairs to watch The Facts of Life before dinner and at that time I loved school so much that to imagine a place where you LIVED at the SCHOOL was a dream come true. Not to mention having roommates and wearing a uniform were also secret fantasies of mine...

Add to that all of the fantastic movies about boarding schools (The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, The Children's Hour, Dead Poets Society, School Ties, Class -with Rob Lowe) that I used to watch on repeat and mix it in with a healthy dose of my being an overly-sensitive, intelligent Midwestern child and you have a recipe for my 5-star rating.

I WAS/AM Lee Fiora, minus the boarding school. She is highly observant, insecure, always wanting for something more and unsure of how she fits in with her family. This book put me right back into my childhood and thank God 20 years have passed, because I can finally read about it and feel like I've come out on the other side.

The writing is good! Curtis Sittenfeld is one of my favorite authors; she doesn't always hit the mark but she did with this one. I gobbled it up and relived all the awkward and wonderful moments but after finishing it, I confess it felt good to be a middle-aged person again. That's something I don't say too often.

So many reviews of this book say they hate the main character (Lee) — I don’t know what this says about me, but I love Lee. I love her and hate her in almost exactly the same ways I love and hate myself. She is selfish and naive and self-loathing and cynical and vulnerable and above all honest — honest with the reader and herself in a way it is so difficult to be in real life, even as an adult looking back in retrospect on your high school self. It is almost spooky to read a book that mirrors parts of your own life so closely, and as I read the vignettes that make me want to cringe, I feel not second hand embarrassment, but first hand embarrassment — a breath-catching, uncomfortable nostalgia that makes me feel so viscerally like an 11th grader again I forget for a moment just how far I’ve come

i hated the main character after the first chapter, and really could have cared less what happened to her. i have a hard time liking books where i can't find redeeming qualities in the characters i'm supposed to care about. also, i agree with the author's parents that the last chapter should have been cut. i might have liked it better then.

Cartea aceasta a fost o mare surpriză. Am cumpărat-o acum câțiva ani, atrasă de copertă și de comparația cu romanul De veghe in lanul de secară, și de atunci nu am avut nicio dorință să o citesc. Dar i-a venit și ei rândul. Citind review-urile, mai ales cele de 1 stea, nu mi-am creat așteptări prea mari. Și, ce să vezi, chiar mi-a plăcut. Da, sunt de acord cu părerile multora că nu are un fir epic clar, o poveste pe care să o urmărești. Sunt doar fragmente din viața lui Lee, personajul principal, pe parcursul celor 4 ani de liceu petrecuți ca bursieră într-o școală elitistă din USA. Urmărim problemele de acomodare ale lui Lee printre ceilalți copiii, care de care mai bogați, greșelile ei, momentele de singurătate, anxietățile adolescentei, prieteniile legate și primile iubiri, totul prezentat foarte realist și potrivit, mi s-a părut mie, cu vârsta protagonistei.

Man .. this book truly sucked. I have never in my life rated a book 1 star before. I have sat and tried to think of what the point or message of this book was and there was none (well there was, but it didn’t come through at all). The main character was awful. Apparently since she was supposed to be that’s supposed to make it better. It would if there had been literally any character development. She was shallow and rude and self-centered the entire book. At no point in the book did I feel bad for her. Literally every bad thing that happened was her own fault.

Despite the book having less than amazing reviews, I decided to give it a chance because it was said to have a good dissection of race, gender, and class. I thought that meant it would have something worthwhile. It barely mentioned race and any time it did it was just stereotypes. The commentary of how small of an amount of minorities were at the private school and how most of them were on scholarship had a point, but it was honestly barely discussed and was basically added at the end and wasn’t delved into at all. And I simply don’t feel bad for a middle class girl that was able to go to private school just because other classmates were upper-class. Are you kidding? Her parents still had to pay $4000 a year in tuition, which many families couldn’t. I thought it was going to represent real class issues. I guess that’s on me, though.

I get that growing up and trying not to compare yourself to others is hard, but the fact that she was too stubborn to switch out of the dumb school when she felt that way pissed me off. She was also terrible to her one friend she had that was nothing but good to her. I was supposed to think the boy she was obsessed with was shallow and rude and used her for sex, when she straight up told him she didn’t want a relationship with him and didn’t want anyone to know but still wanted to hook up. The guy was still a prick, don’t get me wrong, but she was basically just as bad. And when he tries to redeem himself she won’t let him, and then she still hopes he’ll come back to her after she is terrible to him. Also, she kept claiming she was in love with him, and even from her point of view from when she was an adult, this was never corrected and she acted like no relationship she had after that lived up to literally just a dude she hooked up with every now and then. It was a very, very toxic relationship, that wasn’t even a relationship. It is so problematic to teach any girl reading the book that the situation was simply a relationship with unrequited love. She was never in love with him. She was infatuated and craved validation. That should never be implied as even kind of okay.

It also turned weirdly grossly sexually explicit within the last 100 pages out of nowhere which was very odd. I am no prude when it comes to sex in books, and I have never blinked an eye at a single sex scene in anything else I’ve read, but the way it was written was truly off. I am all for first sex experiences being told in a realistic and awkward way, but the hookups still seemed romanticized and unrealistic and unnecessarily crass. The details it decided to give were odd, when there were other parts of the experience that would’ve made more sense to delve into that were completely ignored. Also the girl didn’t really like doing some sexual acts but she did because she wanted the boy to like her. She described how gross and uncomfortable she felt every time she participated in it, but the message was kinda like, even if you hate something you should do it for someone else in the name of “making them feel good”.

She was also too afraid to tell him that she didn’t want to have sex for the first time, so it just happened anyway, and the book made it seem like not only was that fine, but it was normal. She was gonna have it one day, so why delay the pain of when you lose your virginity? Girls, just do it even if you don’t want to :) (I am sure this isn’t what the author was trying to say, but it sure came off that way). The guy also never once asked for consent and just assumed she wanted to do things and she was too afraid to tell him otherwise and it was chalked up to her being insecure and not being an actual issue. There was also absolutely no birth control involved and the guy was like “that’s okay” and then the book acted like it was, in fact, okay. Great lesson! We love to see it!

If the book was trying to make a social commentary about gender, or be even remotely feminist, it failed miserably. It never fully addressed how toxic the main relationship was and why it was toxic. If I didn’t know any better I’d just think it was a kind of relationship that one person was more invested in than the other. I was also sick of how people’s looks got described by the main character. At one point she said she felt bad for a kid for having bad acne and that his friend was some kind of warrior for being friends with him because his face was so gross. Please .. even though she’s supposed to suck that was not necessary !!! I really didn’t need to hear how attractive or unattractive literally every person she looked at was. I understood she was shallow after the first few times. Again, it would be fine if there was character development or literally anything was addressed, but she ended being just as terrible as ever.

The book successfully showed how toxic a prep school environment is and how caring about how much money people make is bad, and that class issues are a true problem, but that wasn’t enough to redeem the book. And even besides these toxic parts of the book, it was just incredibly boring! It took me forever to read. I’ve read a lot of so-so books in my life but this takes the cake. I can’t come up with a single good thing to say. Also, her dad slaps her and is emotionally abusive at one point (it’s while she’s being particularly terrible, but there’s no excuse for a parent to act that way) and then it’s immediately glossed over and she’s like “we were so close while we were in college so honestly it didn’t really matter that that happened :)” huh???? what kinda message is that?? Basically, the main character was a spoiled, ungrateful, rude, judgmental, and despite what she or the author tried to make anyone believe, very very privileged brat. By the time you’re a senior in high school you should have become at least a little bit of a better person than when you were a freshman. Her age didn’t excuse her in the slightest. It’s not like she was 10.

Anyway, this was one of the biggest wastes of time I have ever experienced. I could’ve been doing literally anything else. And I could’ve dropped it, but I wanted to be able to finish it so I could accurately write this seething review. I just really wanted to talk trash on it. I’m going to go read something else now, thank goodness. Hopefully I never think about this bad content ever again.

It had all the makings of something I'd love: wealthy, elitist prep school kids. But I could not stand the main character. I don't think I've ever read a book where I hated the main character so much and gave less of a crap what happened to her. No, wait. I did not hate her. That is far too strong a word. She wasn't nearly interesting enough to hate. She was just very, very irritating. Plot....? What plot?

If I remember correctly, the story is loosely based on the author's own experiences. I wish she would've embellished just a tad more to make the main character less pathetic.

Two stars is way to generous...

I read the entire book. Okay, so I might have skipped huge chunks of it but I read it.

The book is about a girl that goes to a boarding school, she is shy (and quite boring), the book summary explains it. i did not pick up this book because I wanted to read about 4 years of being stuck in a boarding school, that she applied to (But changed her mind).

I thought it was going to be about a girl who climbs her way up the social ladder, makes lot's of friends, generally has a good experience and maybe meets a guy. Boy was I wrong. The main character grew in almost no way. She was winey and spent most of the book complaining about her life, which after the first 100 pages got really annoying. I was mentally screaming at her to go talk to someone, which she obviously could, as the author shows in small snippets. Oh and she also worships a total dick (Not even good supporting characters).

Overall, I really don't think this book is worth reading. It left me unsatisfied, and it wasted an entire saturday. So, just don't bother.

I enjoyed this book more than I thought I would. I thought it would be a run-of-the-mill story about another New England boarding school, like so many Hollywood movies are fashioned after. And while, at times, it was (the typical blond beauty, the jock the insecure girl lusts after, the closet lesbian), what I found different about this book was how everything DIDN'T end up all neatly wrapped in a bow.

The main character, Lee Fiora, didn't find the answers to all her questions by the time the book ended. She didn't just miraculously get a makeover, fit in with the popular people, and all was well. She had to work hard to get where she ended up, and still didn't have all the answers.

And I think everyone needs a friend like Martha. If only there were more people like her in "the real world".

Overall, good book, perfect for late-summer reading.

This book kept me entertained enough during my six hour delay at Logan despite the somewhat tedious subject matter (life for an "outsider" at a New England prep school). The characters in this book have names like Cross, Darden, Horton, Aspeth, Gates, and McGrath. I would have thought this was the author poking fun at the absurd names disgustingly wealthy people give their children (I'm sorry but doesn't naming your daughter Horton pretty much guarantee she'll become a coke-addled slut in her late teens/early twenties?), if not for the fact that the female author is herself named Curtis (and has a sister named Tiernan). And Curtis went to prep school, too!

Because this book has to be about something other than the brazenly self-indulgent lives of rich kids at rich kid camp, naturally the socially awkward and neurotic narrator of Prep is at this richy Massachusetts school on (gasp!) scholarship. She's also (gasp!) from the Midwest. No, she's not also Jewish, but somebody else is! Don't worry, though, I'm not into spoilers.

This is the sort of book that has (and it does) a list of discussion questions in the back for use at book club meetings. The writing makes for an easy read and, as a socially awkward neurotic myself, I was occasionally impressed by descriptions of internal thought processes (this book really spoke to me). Ultimately, though, I think Prep takes itself a little too seriously. It's a beach/airport/airplane read. It's not Catcher in the Rye for girls (though perhaps if I'd read it at age 14, I'd be singing a different tune).

Even though I kept turning the pages with amusement and curiosity, this is not the sort of book I would really recommend to anyone, with the exception, perhaps, of listless female travellers who are simply not in the mood for something more challenging (aka satisfying).

This book is another book that convinced me to be a teacher.
KEEP READING! It's not a book on education. It's a book about the teenage mind.
NO, SERIOUSLY! KEEP READING! It's a book about the female mind. It's a book about a girl's insecurities about her social status, her appearance, her relationships with members of the opposite sex, her feelings towards her peers...

I would recommend this book to anyone, but I don't think all of them will like it. The main criticism of this book is that Lee (the main character) is annoyingly self-destructive. I agree with that statement. However, knowing that, the book is a brilliant commentary on social class, high school life, and the female mind.

This book made me want to become a teacher because I was so intrigued as to how the main character's thoughts were portrayed. Girls/Students who are as self-concious as fictional Lee need a positive force in their lives.

3.5 Stars - although this could change depending on what day you ask me.

I told my well-read friend Robyn I needed a book to read to get me back into reading (I've been so negligent for the past 6 months or so) - so she suggested this little piece of literary fiction - and it did the trick.

It seems like reviews of this book vascillate wildly from one end of the spectrum to the other. For me it was middle of the road. I can understand readers not relating to the protagonist, Lee Fiora, as she's not exactly the most relatable person. She's self-sabotaging in the worst way. And her high school experience definitely isn't exactly common - at least in Texas - boarding school isn't really something many folks did. But the book was well-written, and Curtis Sittenfeld definitely got the feelings right - and the intensity.

Despite the fact that my HS experience differed from Lee's fictional one in so many ways, the book still took me back to the microcosm that was highschool. Reading about her falling outs with friends, her all-encompassing-crush, relationships with teachers - really reminded me of how HUGE every moment felt at that point in my own life. I'd love to think that I was less self-centered than Lee, but let's face it - most of us were in our own heads ALL the time in highschool. And that, at times, made the book painful to read - because who wants to think about themselves in that light?

Sittenfeld puts it plainly in the last few pages - "But I should say too that I don't scrutinize others the way I once did. I did not, when I left [school], carry my vigilance with me; I've never paid as close attention to my life or anyone else's as I did then. How was I able to pay such attention?"

My one wish is that Sittenfeld had written Lee's experience as a bit happier. Sure - there's PLENTY of drama and angst during those teen years, but our poor protagonist didn't seem to experience a fraction of the happiness that I did at that age. Sure - there were moments with Martha, or when she unearthed a skill set and surprised herself - but I wish these moments were more frequent and more encompassing.

Probably not everyone's cup of tea, but I enjoyed it and would probably seek out more of her writing.

I really enjoyed American Wife. Prep was hard to enjoy because I was so frustrated with Lee, the main character. She was very hard to like because she was unfriendly, stand offish and would go out of her way to not talk to people. She was very insecure and always worried about what others would think.
I could identify with her, however; regarding her unrequited love for Cross and understood her falling for him when to him, she was just someone to fool around with.