Depictions of the American teenager are not exactly scarce. Over the last few years we've seen queen bees, mean girls, freaks, geeks and dorks of all kinds. What we have not seen is someone like Lee Fiora, the reluctant heroine of Curtis Sittenfeld's first novel, Prep, which is a thoughtful, measured account of life at a top East Coast boarding-school. In a field dominated by shock tactics and deliberate quirkiness, Prep is a straightforward, serious, funny book.

LRB 6 October 2005 | PDF Download