This is a stunning novel in the great tradition of American coming-of-age novels from "Catcher in the Rye" to "The Secret History". Lee Fiora is a shy fourteen-year-old when she leaves small-town Indiana for a scholarship at Ault, an exclusive boarding school in Massachusetts. Her head is filled with images from the school brochure of handsome boys in sweaters leaning against old brick buildings, girls running with lacrosse sticks across pristine athletics fields, everyone singing hymns in chapel. But as she soon learns, Ault is a minefield of unstated rules and incomprehensible social rituals, and Lee must work hard to find - and maintain - her place in the pecking order.
I've read many books set in Boarding Schools (I'm a bit of a Boarding School fanatic) but this is the first I've read that is aimed towards an older audience.
Prep is one of the most poignant and true books I've read in a very long time. It only took about 3 paragraphs for me to have fallen in love with Sittenfeld's writing and to be able to really feel the setting of Ault.
The main character, Lee, is an utterly loveable character. She observes the world around her with such intensity, something that Sittenfeld brings across with such ease. Her insight to life is probably what I loved most about the book, it took me back to my own teen years when everything around you seems so melodramatic and extreme.
The other thing I loved about Prep was that when I'd finished, it felt right. It ended in the most perfect way. When the book begins, Lee is 14 and just starting at Ault and by the end of the book, she's graduated and her and the rest of her class have entered their adult lives. Throughout the book, Sittenfeld has Lee describe events that will eventually happen in her later life, something I thought was a little confusing at first but it added so much depth to her story. No stone was left unturned.
Overall, a thoroughly enjoyable novel that I honestly cannot believe I waited this long to read!
Rating: 4.5/5
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