Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld

Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * A modern classic of adolescent angst and ambition set in the world of prep school, from the author of Romantic Comedy and Eligible--"a tart and complex tale of social class, race, and gender politics" (The Boston Globe)
 
One of The New York Times Book Review's Ten Best Books of the Year
 
Lee Fiora is an intelligent, observant fourteen-year-old when her father drops her off in front of her dorm at the prestigious Ault School in Massachusetts. She leaves her animated, affectionate family in South Bend, Indiana, at least in part because of the boarding school's glossy brochure, in which boys in sweaters chat in front of old brick buildings, girls in kilts hold lacrosse sticks on pristinely mown athletic fields, and everyone sings hymns in chapel.

As Lee soon learns, Ault is a cloistered world of jaded, attractive teenagers who spend summers on Nantucket and speak in their own clever shorthand. Both intimidated and fascinated by her classmates, Lee becomes a shrewd observer of--and, ultimately, a participant in--their rituals and mores. As a scholarship student, she constantly feels like an outsider and is both drawn to and repelled by other loners. By the time she's a senior, Lee has created a hard-won place for herself at Ault. But when her behavior takes a self-destructive and highly public turn, her carefully crafted identity within the community is shattered.

Ultimately, Lee's experiences--complicated relationships with teachers; intense friendships with other girls; an all-consuming preoccupation with a classmate who is less than a boyfriend and more than a crush; conflicts with her parents, from whom Lee feels increasingly distant--coalesce into a singular portrait of the painful and thrilling adolescence universal to us all.

Prep, The Man of My Dreams, American Wife, and Sisterland are among Curtis Sittenfeld's best-selling novels, which have been translated into twenty-five languages. Her nonfiction has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Time, and Glamour, among other publications, and has been broadcast on public radio's This American Life. She was born in Cincinnati and now resides in St. Louis with her family.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780812972351
ISBN 10	081297235X
Title	Prep
Author	Curtis Sittenfeld
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Random House USA Inc
Year published	2005-11-22
Number of pages	448
Prizes	Winner of New York Public Library Books for the Teen Age 2006
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.