![]() Sittenfeld's novel sets up dramatic expectations that aren't met. What is of interest, and why Prep deserves pride of place on any summer recommended reading list, is the incisive and evenhanded way in which Sittenfeld explores issues of class. ![]() Sittenfeld's dialogue is so convincing that one wonders if she didn't wear a wire under her hockey kilt. ![]() This isn't to say the story doesn't feel true to life. In the end, however, Lee's passivity, her refusal to pursue anything past the point where it might get embarrassing, limits her as a character. Sittenfeld captures the teenage hook-up experience in a way that isn't too cringingly young-adult or clinically distant. It is the sex between Lee and her crush, Cross, a boy far more popular than she is, that lifts the book, overlong at more than 400 pages, out of its sophomore slump, and restores its narrative momentum. Lee is no saint, and no victim, but rather a willing cog in the machine of exclusion. ![]() It would be very easy to blame the school's not-so-subtle caste system for Lee's problems and unhappiness, but Sittenfeld doesn't. ![]()
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