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Favorable
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Boston Globe Caroline Leavitt
This is a book that's rich in both character and ideas.
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Favorable
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Chicago Tribune Valerie Laken
The narrator's voice is crafted so naturally that the novel has the feeling of a memoir or a girl's diary.
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Favorable
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The New York Times Book Review Elissa Schappell
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.
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Favorable
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The New Yorker
[A] richly textured narrative.
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Favorable
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Washington Post Caitlin Macy
[A] gripping debut effort.
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Favorable
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Boston Globe Joanne Skerrett
Sittenfeld's writing is wonderfully descriptive... as well as spare and clear-eyed; her talent is evident in the smooth pacing and well-developed characters. However, the novel is too long.
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Favorable
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The Onion A.V. Club Keith Phipps
Sittenfeld never depicts the struggle in simple snobs-vs.-slobs terms, however, and the ambiguity gives the novel an extra charge.
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Favorable
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Village Voice Ed Park
Sittenfeld has a field day weaving [the school's] aura, but she's also canny and believable about lust.
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Favorable
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New York Observer Daniel Asa Rose
Rarely has the purgatory of prep-school privilege been spelled out in such excruciating, subtle detail. [17 Jan 2005]
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Favorable
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Publishers Weekly
The book meanders on its way, light on plot but saturated with heartbreaking humor and written in clean prose. [1 Nov 2004, p.41]
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Favorable
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The Observer Viv Groskop
Sittenfeld's strength is in making this experience feel universal.
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Favorable
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The Guardian Rachel Hore
In this incisive account of an unhappy adolescence, Curtis Sittenfeld exposes the artificiality of a community that fails to compensate for lack of family love.
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Favorable
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The Spectator Andreas Campomar
Prep is an assured and very well-written debut.
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Mixed
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San Francisco Chronicle Jesse Berrett
After a while, its relentless self-consciousness is too much to take, at least for readers who are not teenagers.
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Mixed
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The New Republic Sacha Zimmerman
Sittenfeld's writing is spare and sharp, her tone is infectious, and her portrait of Lee is astounding. Prep, however, has no arc and no plot.
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Mixed
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Los Angeles Times James Marcus
There are too many dead spots here, too much pedestrian prose that wouldn't be out of place in, well, Seventeen. [6 Feb 2005]
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Mixed
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Entertainment Weekly Rebecca Ascher-Walsh
Sittenfeld shows a sharp ear and a soft heart for the state of psychosis otherwise known as adolescence.
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Mixed
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Library Journal Elaine Bender
To interest adult readers, a novel like this needs something special: Holden Caulfield's voice, say, or the literary flair of Tobias Wolff's Old School. Here, events add up to little more than a familiar picture. [1 Dec 2004, p.103]
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