Prep, an all too real tale of high school

Curtis Sittenfeld’s debut novel brings to life the story of Lee Fiora, an average, undistinguished financial aid student from Indiana who longs to stand out at Ault, a fictional boarding school outside of Boston, and win the love of its most popular boy. Unfortunately for Lee, she is not pretty enough, rich enough, or smart enough, or, unfortunately for readers, funny enough to accomplish much of what she desires.

Lee’s character could easily make Prep a rather depressing read. To Sittenfeld’s credit, however, Lee is stunningly insightful, offering up careful explanations for feelings and actions she’s come to understand years after the fact. At one point she notes, “I remember myself as often unhappy at Ault, and yet my unhappiness was so alert and expectant; really, it was, in its energy, not that different from happiness.” It becomes clear that Lee’s great unrecognized talent is her capacity for exquisite observation.

Perhaps overly true to life, Prep is light on plot. The story winds its way through Lee’s four years at Ault. Four recognizable events take place throughout the book: Lee arrives at the school, eventually finds her best friend, deals with failing grades, and finds love. That these events define high school is exactly the problem. Everything in this novel seems perfectly ordinary.

Nevertheless, I found Prep was fascinating. Every few pages I saw something I recognized from my own boarding school experience: Sunday night chapel; formal dinner; color coded roses on Valentine’s Day; lacrosse games; the simultaneous guilt, pleasure, and regret felt every time one leaves home to return to school. These are the traditions and emotions that keep a boarding school so strange, so insular, and so closely connected to all those who have passed through it.

However, the real message of this book is not that you can “trade up,” as Lee says, but that life is hard. Sittenfeld does an excellent job of depicting the life of an ordinary outsider, someone who is not “cool,” but also not ugly or weird enough to be actively shunned. Most of all, Sittenfeld gets it right when she describes how easy it is to slide through life-altering decisions. Lee does this a few times at Ault, making her character a bit more fleshed out and sympathetic.

Prep is a first novel, fraught with some major imbalances. Lee is often unlikable, though Sittenfeld counters this with her striking present-day reflections. Similarly, what little action can be found in the novel is quick and lively, a real pleasure to read, but is often shattered by Lee’s clunky reminiscences. As they would say at Ault, “therein lies the paradox.” What makes Lee tolerable is also what ruins Prep’s flow, leaving the writing disjointed and disorienting.

The verdict? Read it if you went to boarding school and want to remember what it feels like to make out in a deserted classroom and sing “Jerusalem” in chapel, or if you’re just curious about what those rich brats were doing behind those red brick walls.