I now know what people mean when they call a book "compelling."
It was always just a definition to me, a word that gets tossed
around lightly in almost every review you read. Prep,
the new novel from Iowa Writers' Workshop graduate, Curtis
Sittenfeld, not only fits the definition of "compelling,"
but somehow makes the reader feel the definition. With only
15,000 copies originally printed, I don't even remember where
I heard about this book. It has since been reprinted at least
once, and is now on the New York Times bestseller list.
At first glance Prep is reminiscent of Beverly Hills
90210 or The O.C. It has a plain-white book jacket with a
basic pink and green belt going around its center. It's simple,
but somehow pretentious. Although the description inside alludes
to a literary novel, it's just really hard to believe that
this book could be any better than an average teenage angst
story. Luckily, it is.
Prep is told by Lee Fiora, a self-conscious middle-class
Midwesterner who decides at the ripe age of 13 to attend Ault,
a prestigious boarding school in Boston. As Hank Stuever of
the Washington Post writes, "Popular culture loves
a prep school story…WASPs! Can't stand 'em, but can't get
enough of them - why is that?" Apparently Lee feels the same
way.
Lee is a curious girl, and her first-person observations
of prep school dissect commonalities that occupy our everyday
lives - class, race, and gender. To a country-gal, these commonalities
didn't occupy her life until Ault. Learning these things with
Lee, we get a different perspective.
Essentially Lee is, as Simon Cowell from American Idol
would say, "forgettable." She makes it a habit of studying
people and being indifferent to everything. She wants to do
what people expect her to do, but no more. She seems to her
classmates as inarticulate and shy, and really doesn't have
any friends. She is not, however, a misfit. Misfits choose
to be that way; Lee doesn't really choose anything. In fact,
one of the biggest complaints about this novel is that nothing
really happens. This is true, but ironically it is also why
it is so… compelling. The point is - people grow-up.
Throughout the course of her four years at Ault, Lee learns
one of the biggest assets that any grounded individual already
knows - dealing with problems then letting them go. This "revelation"
doesn't take place in a huge climatic scene, but gradually
over time. This book is real life in the surreal-like setting
of the rich.
As we all know, being a teenager can be the most difficult
time of one's life. Lee tells her story in a very perceptive
way, almost as if she is real and this is her biography. Curtis
Sittenfeld (a girl named Curtis!) curiously has lived a similar
life. Is this book fact or fiction? When posed with the question
[Sittenfeld] answers, "If I were like Lee, which I really
wasn't, if I were a really self-conscious, insecure person,
I think the last thing I would do is write a 400-page book
about my neuroses and my self-consciousness and draw attention
to them sort of nationwide. I think it's an understandable
question…At some point I just kind of think, well, think whatever
you want to think."
This book will appeal to all women. There are some very humorous
spots, especially the names of the people who attend the school
- like Aspeth, Cross, and Dede! But mostly the insight gained
by reading it is its greatest asset. It's one of those books
that everyone will get something different from, which means
it is perfect for book discussions. Reserve your copy today!
