Prep
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  • Published: 1 October 2010
  • ISBN: 9781407094328
  • Imprint: Transworld Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 480

Prep

The startling coming-of-age novel by the Sunday Times bestselling author of AMERICAN WIFE

Formats & editions
Paperback
1 Nov 2020
EBook
1 Oct 2010
Audiobook
19 May 2020
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Orange Prize shortlisted debut novel by the phenomenal word-of-mouth bestselling author of AMERICAN WIFE

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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
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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.
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'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
  • Published: 1 October 2010
  • ISBN: 9781407094328
  • Imprint: Transworld Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 480
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About the author

Curtis Sittenfeld

Curtis Sittenfeld pulls no punches in her scathing and hilarious indictments of the American middle classes. Her Sunday Times bestselling novel American Wife was longlisted for the Orange Prize, as was her debut novel Prep. Her other books include The Man of My Dreams, Sisterland, Eligible, the acclaimed short story collection You Think It, I’ll Say It and her latest novel Rodham. Her stories have appeared in the New Yorker, Esquire, Oprah Magazine and the New York Times magazine. Sittenfeld is also the guest editor for the 2020 Best American Short Stories anthology. She lives with her family in the American Mid-West. Follow her on Twitter @CSittenfeld

portrait photo of Curtis Sittenfeld

Also by Curtis Sittenfeld

You Think It, I'll Say It
Romantic Comedy
American Wife
Rodham
Help Yourself
Sisterland
The Man of My Dreams
See all

Praise for Prep

Sweet Valley High as written by George Eliot. Sittenfeld is a pin-sharp observer, and in Prep she needles away at class, race and character...Prep will appeal to any age...A highly accomplished novel.

Independent on Sunday

The OC meets Donna Tartt's The Secret History with flashes of Clueless... Sittenfeld's strength is in making the experience feel universal...Everyone will wince with recognition at the horror of being a teenager. It's great to relive it all, now that it is happening to someone else.

Observer

A highly accomplished novel

Independent on Sunday

Curtis Sittenfeld shares with Salinger a knack of capturing, in effortless prose, a teenager mindset...It feels important...Most vitally of all, it feels like adolescence.

The Times

Fresh and vivid...extremely enjoyable

Sunday Times

Magnificent

Guardian

Sharp, caustic and brilliantly observed

Observer

Sittenfeld's humour and sharp observation deliver a coming-of-age novel you can relate to

Daily Express

Straightforward, serious, funny...There is so much that is right about this book. Sittenfeld captures the hothouse atmosphere of boarding-school, the way you see even people you don't like in their underwear...Mostly, however, it's Lee's voice that makes all this worthwhile.

London Review of Books

You don't have to have attended an elite Massachusetts boarding school to find yourself reliving your adolescence in Curtis Sittenfeld's Prep...Even the Cross Sugarmans (major crush) and Aspeth Montgomerys (long legs, super popular) of this world will cringe with recognition at the book's fine-knit accuracy and detail.

Vogue