The influence of Malory Towers as a child made me wish I went to boarding school instead of a boring day school. Midnight feasts, all your friends with you in your dormitory; surely it must be like one big slumber party? Reading Prep would have cured me of that longing. At the beautiful and prestigious Massachusetts school, Ault, things aren't all jolly hockey sticks and pillow fights. Instead we're transported to an institution with a rigid social hierarchy and taken on a dark teenage journey. Worth a read for the spot on adolescent voice of the main character, Lee Fiora.
_____________ From the bestselling author of ROMANTIC COMEDY, RODHAM, AMERICAN WIFE and YOU THINK IT, I'LL SAY IT.
'Sittenfeld writes girls and women as they truly are, with shades of light and dark, with and without grace, apologetic as well as fearless' GUARDIAN
'PREP might just be my favourite book' PANDORA SYKES
'Sittenfeld shares with Salinger a knack of capturing, in effortless prose, a teenager mindset' THE TIMES _____________ 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. _____________ 'PREP is more than a coming of age story - it's a study of social class ... and Sittenfeld renders it with astonishing deftness and clarity.' JENNIFER EGAN
'Straightforward, serious, funny.'London Review of Books
'Sharp, caustic and brilliantly observed' Observer
'Smart, witty and sensitive . . . Any girl who's ever felt like an outsider will be drawn to troubled Lee, a scholarship teen at a posh boarding school’ InStyle
'An addictive portrait of adolescence - The OC meets Donna Tartt’s The Secret History with flashes of Clueless’ Observer
‘Sittenfeld writes with confidence, her dialogue rings true . . . and her observations range from witty to surprisingly funny, sometimes absurd’ Herald
Author
About Curtis Sittenfeld
Curtis Sittenfeld is a graduate of Stanford University and the Iowa Writer’s Workshop where she was taught by Marilynne Robinson. As well as four bestselling novels, Curtis has also written for publications such as The New York Times, The Atlantic Monthly, The Guardian, Glamour and Time magazine, where she interviewed Michelle Obama.
