Prep

Prep Curtis Sittenfeld 8/10

Prep is an impressive novel. Much like Catcher in the Rye, it doesn't feel like a work of fiction. It's another book providing insight into the real world, allowing me to remember what those high-school years were like. Sittenfeld is an amazing author in her ability to present situations that beg for some kind of moral judgment with a kind of distinct objectiveness. You want to know what's right, you want to know what is to be learned from a situation, but you're forced to make your own decision.

In a certain way, the novel is depressing in that way. Not because we can't come to our own decisions about what's right, but that the protagonist can't. We're forced to live through years of poor decisions, and as such it becomes a very difficult read. It's so easy, from an older age, to look back at some of the problems and insecurities of youth dismissively...but we get no such satisfaction from our protagonist in Prep. Late into her junior year, one of her classmates attempts to come up with a particularly cutting insult. "Lee," she says, "you haven't changed at all since freshman year." The classmate is correct, and reading Prep puts you through all those years with Lee while you agonize over the poor decisions she makes over and over again.

I don't mean to focus on the poor aspects of the book. I highly recommend Prep if you enjoy books that spur thought, self-evaluation, and remind us of our not-so-perfect past. Just don't expect you'll read it and be cheered right up.