"Prep"

"Prep" by Curits Sittenfield

I really enjoyed how the author started this novel off in chapter one with Lee (the main character) in class and having to present on a topic she wasn't supposed to do, right after someone else had just presented on the same exact topic. Lee completely panics and has a meltdown and ends up running out of class after just starting to present. You can totally relate to those feelings of panic and all the thoughts running through her mind. I think the author's point is to show how a teenager's mind works and all the problems they have with fitting in, sexual orientation, and making friends. One thing that kind of stuck out to me was that this private boarding school cost $20,000 to attend, they lived in dorms, and the expectations of the students was very high; it seems more like a college to me than a high school.
"I did not scream or hug anyone. In fact, as the noise gained momentum, I felt its opposite, a draining of excitement. But not a draining of tension -my body was still stiff and alert, and the impulse I had, strangely, was to weep. Not because I was sad but because I was not happy, and yet, like my classmates, I'd experienced an emotional surge, I too felt the need for expression. This phenomenon-being gripped by an overwhelming wave of feeling that was clearly not the feeling of the people around me had also happened at a pep rally: It made me uncomfortable, because I didn't want anyone to notice that I wasn't jumping up and down or cheering, and it also thrilled me, because it made the world seem full of possibilities that could make my heart pound. I think, looking back, that this was the single best thing about Ault, the sense of possibility. We lived together so closely, but because it was a place of decorum and restraint and because on top of that we were teenagers, we hid so much. And then, in dorms and classes and on teams and at formal dinner and in adviser groups, we got shuffled and thrust together and shuffled again, and there was always the chance that you might find out one of the pieces of hidden information" (pg 42). This was a part of this novel that really stuck out to me and describes a teenager's roller coaster of emotions.

Something that was a little strange to me was almost all the names of people were very different and I've never heard of most of them. I read these two chapters of the novel on the computer, which made it seem very dragged out and almost harder to read, I should have printed it out before I read it. This novel can relate basically to anything we've learned so far because it all relates to teenagers and their life growing up and how they deal with problems differently and adapt to situations they're not accustomed to.