"Prep" Part Deux

I finished "Prep" last night. It was good. Curtis Sittenfeld has a way with the words, if you know what I mean. The main character "Lee" really gets fleshed out in all her adolescent insecurity. The prep school, does not get fleshed out in such a meaningful fashion. Upon completion, I had to sit there and wonder about what I had just read. What was the book about. I suspect that it was supposed to be a critique of sorts about both the positive and negative aspects of life at hoity-toity boarding schools. It wasn't though.

The book never delves into life at a boarding. Descriptions always come up in passing, but never in the level of detail needed to make a strong statement. Its always, "Oh, I heard she got kicked out for doing coke." or "It was rumored that the professor had once had an affair with a student." Nothing more. The book could have been set in a non-boarding school, or maybe even a college, and not much would have changed.

Perhaps, Prep is less about boarding school, and more a coming of age story. This would more accurately prepare a reader for what was to come, but again, it doesn't do justice to the story. I expect a coming of age story to have a dramatic climax where the main character is forced to confront her own shortcomings before discovering how to overcome them. That never happens in the story. In fact, Lee is not that different when she arrives as when she leaves prep school. There are realizations that she has made about life, but nothing that makes me as a reader take away a lesson with any deep meaning.

A strong effort with excellent writing, but Ms. Sittenfeld needs to find some thematic poise if she wants more than her prose to carry her novels.