Prep is a very well written book (though not quite “Sweet Valley High as written by George Eliot” as was quoted on the cover) and because Lee spends so much of her time observing people and situations, we get a lot of insights into every aspect of boarding school life. “Of course, now I wonder where I had gotten the idea that for you to participate in a gathering, the other people had to really, really want you to be there and that anything short of rabid enthusiasm on their part meant you’d be a nuisance…Sometimes now I think of all the opportunities I didn’t take – to get a manicure in town, to watch television in another dorm, to go outside for a snowball fight – and of how refusal became a habit for me, and then I felt it would be conspicuous if I ever did join in.” She has trouble fitting in and feels out of place at Ault.

She misses out on parties, meals, trips to Boston and other social activities because she doesn’t know how to deal with them. She agonises over every decision she analyses every word anybody says to her. But Lee is more than just shy she suffers from social anxiety. A lot of her unhappiness is caused by her own insecurities – people do try to be friends with her, but her shyness and paranoia makes her push them away. Because most of the other students at Ault have rich parents, Lee feels inadequate and inferior. Prep tells the story of four years in the life of Lee Fiora, who wins a scholarship to an exclusive boarding school in Massachusetts.

Prep curtis sittenfeld review