Prep

Lee Fiora is a smart girl from Indiana who decides to leave the Heartland to journey to the mysterious, elite world of Ault School in Massachusetts. Her dreams of entering the ranks of her rich peers never quite come to fruition, and Lee is often waiting on the sidelines for her life to come together, and it never quite does. Prep is a leisurely-paced novel that revolves around the internal life of Lee rather than pure plot, which can be both fascinating and frustrating. At 400 pages, this detailed account of Lee's 4 years at Ault makes the reader feel like they have truly joined her in her high school experience. We are with her as she struggles to make friends, feels hopelessly alienated, stumbles through awkward and casual sex experiences, and grapples with being an invisible outsider on scholarship.

Appeals: Character-driven, frustratingly real protagonist, rich with detail. Elements of romance and friendship, but ultimately balanced in a way that addresses the loneliness and unhappiness many people feel during adolescence.

This book shares the alienation of Holden in Catcher in the Rye, the strange solitude and pointlessness of life felt by the main character of The Bell Jar, and the solitude and internal struggle of the main character in Speak (by Laurie Halse Anderson).

If you like stories about alienated, disillusioned youth, you might also enjoy Rule of the Bone by Russell Banks.

Sittenfeld, Curtis. Prep. 2005. 420 pages.

Looking for Alaska

Miles is looking for the Great Perhaps--and an Alabama boarding school offers the possibility of finding it, especially after he meets the charming, unpredictable, and utterly alive Alaska. Miles is captivated by Alaska's beauty and her intelligence. In a year that unfolds with pranks and surprises, Miles must ultimately come to terms with some of life's biggest questions: why are we here? After a tragedy, how can we possibly keep faith that life is worth living?

Appeals: Funny, smart, and deals with romance and friendship. Looking for Alaska also manages to get the reader thinking about deep questions about life and our existence... without being pedantic! Simple and thought provoking.


Want more about John Green? Be sure to check out his website, sparksflyup.com.

Green, John. Looking for Alaska. 2005. 256 pages.

Rule of the Bone

Drugs. Identity. Broken families. Slavery. Ashanti warriors and Rastafarians. White privilege. Journey.

This is how I would describe Rule of the Bone.

Bone is a story of 14-year-old Chappie. Chappie hates his stepfather and is well on his way to self-destructing when he starts using and dealing drugs, stealing from his family, and running from the law. Life changes when he meets I-Man, a Jamaican mystic who starts to change Chappie's outlook on life and who starts him on a journey of self-discovery.

Ultimately, Bone is a story about finding yourself and figuring out what's important in life.

Appeals: Strong first-person narration, gritty, tale of journey and growing up

If you like this book, you might also like What is the What by Dave Eggers for a similar though very different tale of pilgrimage and discovery. Also, the Autobiography of Malcolm X.

Banks, Russell. Rule of the Bone. 1995. 390 pages.