Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld- ALA Banned and Challenged Book

I really, really tried with this book. Usually I love coming of age literature of all sorts, but I couldn’t get into Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld. I downloaded this as an E-Book with no idea what it was about, other than it was on my Banned Books list.

Lee, the main protagonist, is oddly developed. I couldn’t make rhyme nor reason of her interactions with herself and the world around her. I first thought she was depressed and was in the process of finding herself at the boarding school she attends. The more I read, theme I felt she was just a flat character that I really couldn’t care less about. The author chose some interesting language, as well, which made me doubt them being from the country of which the protagonist resides. (Example: four of six regarding time of arrival. What does that even mean?)

The book itself is 1214 pages long, which I didn’t realize due to downloading the book. I have read up until page 354, or the E-Book equivalent to Chapter 4, and feel that I hadn’t grasped the characters. I felt they were air-headed and self-involved.  I had no empathy or sympathy, just immense apathy.

Prep was challenged in 2007-2008 in a California high school for being “pornographic.” And in 2012-2013 was removed from a  9th grade reading list due to “mature themes” and placed on the 12th grade reading list.

In my 354 pages, I did not find anything to be “pornographic” or more mature than what 9th graders already talk about in school hallways. Lee herself is a 9th grader  in the start of the novel and follows, assuming, through her final year at her boarding school Alt. Jests regarding blow jobs and breast fondling were fleeting and insignificant to the overall story.

I may try again with this book, but as of right now, I don’t have any emotional attachment to it.