Book Review: Prep

I started this novel with very high hopes as it was recommended to me by one of my best friends who has a very similar taste in literature as me. I listened to the audiobook and was so entranced that I borrowed the hardcover from the library to read when I wasn't listening. I devoured the book, rushing to what I expected would be a fabulous conclusion. No such luck...Nothing really happened in the whole book which made me think that the ending would have a wonderful twist or resolution, yet it seemed to just fizzle.


The plot of this book centers around Lee's experience at a prep school in Massachusetts. The majority of the students at the school are affluent and Lee finds it difficult to assimilate once there. The novel follows Lee as she makes friends, develops crushes, ends friendships, and goes through the ups and downs of teenage life. There are certainly passages that are heartbreaking as Lee struggles with herself, her friends, and her family while trying to find a balance in her life between who she wants to be and who others expect her to be.

If Curtis wanted to capture the "typical boarding school experience", I think that she did a pretty decent job but it read too much like a boring diary than an insightful look into a young woman's growth during her teenage years. As a former faculty member at a boarding school, I thought that this novel would be filled with the exciting and sometimes outlandish things that happen at prep schools. However, I had no such luck. I am a bit surprised as to why this novel received so much attention when it was first released as it only really scrapes the very surface of adolescent troubles. I feel that YA novels such as "Speak" or classics like "To Kill a Mockingbird" and "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" are far more poignant than this book.

-DLP