About two years ago, I read the book I am Charlotte Simmons by Tom Wolfe.
It was awful.
I knew it was going to be awful when I started it, based on all of the terrible reviews it got.
I read it anyway.
It was amazing how terribly wrong an 80-something year old man got the college experiences of a teenage girl.
I chalked Wolfe's inability to encapsulate the "college girl" experience to the fact that it was too far out of his realm of experience.
You'd think, then, that Curtis Sittenfeld, a twenty-something year old woman, could do a better job of relating to a teenage girl's prep school experience.
You'd be wrong, though. Really, really wrong.
Prep tells Lee Fiora's prep school experience, giving us 4 years in 403 pages.
Lee, the child of middle class working people, has a hard time fitting in at a school where most of the students are the children of wealth and privilege.
Well, duh.
It's hard to tell, though, if Lee has a hard time fitting in because she's "poor" or because she's so unbelievably self-conscious and socially stunted.
In the end, I'm not sure it matters.
Throw in a couple of storylines that don't make any sense and you've got a recipe for disaster.
I didn't like anyone in this book, not even Lee's likable friend Martha.
It took me about a week to read this book and I want all of that time back.
Ah well, I'd probably just waste it anyway.
1 comment:
I keep hearing reviews along these lines, and yet I sort of want to try it anyway... maybe it's an "Oooh, look! A train wreck!" sort of thing. Hmph.
I was going to tell you about my favorite prep school book but now I can't remember the title OR the author. Hah. Oh, here we go: Black Mirror by Nancy Werlin.
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