Prep (2005)

Lee Fiora is a middle-class, Midwestern girl who finds herself at an elite Northeast boarding school filled with lacrosse-playing WASPs who inspire in our heroine both a drooling envy and a sense of alienation. Sittenfeld's debut novel nails the twisted narcissism that makes all teenagers swear that they alone are the frauds and everyone else is perfect — and the embarrassment and loneliness that go with the territory. But she hasn't quite honed a sense of plot; Prep, which spans the entirety of high school, drags between incidents. Still, Curtis Sittenfeld shows a sharp ear and a soft heart for the state of psychosis otherwise known as adolescence.

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