Prep: A Novel

Prep: A Novel
Average customer rating:

If I finish this book, it will be a miracle.

Media Hype

A Frustrating Read

The guy that knows us

Wow! It's written by a male

Prep: A Novel
Curtis Sittenfeld
Manufacturer: Random House Trade Paperbacks
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 081297235X
Release Date: 2005-11-22

Amazon.com

Curtis Sittenfeld's poignant and occassionally angst-ridden debut novel Prep is the story of Lee Fiora, a South Bend, Indiana, teenager who wins a scholarship to the prestigious Ault school, an East Coast institution where "money was everywhere on campus, but it was usually invisible." As we follow Lee through boarding school, we witness firsthand the triumphs and tragedies that shape our heroine's coming-of-age. Yet while Sittenfeld may be a skilled storyteller, her real gift lies in her ability to expertly give voice to what is often described as the most alienating period in a young person's life: high school.

True to its genre, Prep is filled with boarding school stereotypes--from the alienated gay student to the picture perfect blond girl; the achingly earnest first-year English teacher and the dreamy star basketball player who never mentions the fact that he's Jewish. Lee's status as an outsider is further affirmed after her parents drive 18 hours in their beat-up Datsun to attend Parent's Weekend, where most of the kids "got trashed and ended up skinny-dipping in the indoor pool" at their parents' fancy hotel. Yet even as the weekend deteriorates into disaster and ends with a heartbreaking slap across the face, Sittenfeld never blames or excuses anyone; rather, she simply incorporates the experience into Lee's sense of self. ("How was I supposed to understand, when I applied at the age of thirteen, that you have your whole life to leave your family?")

By the time Lee graduates from Ault, some readers may tire of her constant worrying and self-doubting obsessions. However, every time we feel close to giving up on her, Sittenfeld reels us back in and makes us root for Lee. In doing so, perhaps we are rooting for every high school student who's ever wanted nothing more than to belong. --Gisele Toueg

Book Description

Curtis Sittenfeld’s debut novel, Prep, is an insightful, achingly funny coming-of-age story as well as a brilliant dissection of class, race, and gender in a hothouse of adolescent angst and ambition.

Lee Fiora is an intelligent, observant fourteen-year-old when her father drops her off in front of her dorm at the prestigious Ault School in Massachusetts. She leaves her animated, affectionate family in South Bend, Indiana, at least in part because of the boarding school’s glossy brochure, in which boys in sweaters chat in front of old brick buildings, girls in kilts hold lacrosse sticks on pristinely mown athletic fields, and everyone sings hymns in chapel.

As Lee soon learns, Ault is a cloistered world of jaded, attractive teenagers who spend summers on Nantucket and speak in their own clever shorthand. Both intimidated and fascinated by her classmates, Lee becomes a shrewd observer of–and, ultimately, a participant in–their rituals and mores. As a scholarship student, she constantly feels like an outsider and is both drawn to and repelled by other loners. By the time she’s a senior, Lee has created a hard-won place for herself at Ault. But when her behavior takes a self-destructive and highly public turn, her carefully crafted identity within the community is shattered.

Ultimately, Lee’s experiences–complicated relationships with teachers; intense friendships with other girls; an all-consuming preoccupation with a classmate who is less than a boyfriend and more than a crush; conflicts with her parents, from whom Lee feels increasingly distant, coalesce into a singular portrait of the painful and thrilling adolescence universal to us all.

From the Hardcover edition.

Download Description

Curtis Sittenfeld's debut novel, Prep, is an insightful, achingly funny coming-of-age story as well as a brilliant dissection of class, race, and gender in a hothouse of adolescent angst and ambition. Lee Fiora is an intelligent, observant fourteen-year-old when her father drops her off in front of her dorm at the prestigious Ault School in Massachusetts. She leaves her animated, affectionate family in South Bend, Indiana, at least in part because of the boarding school's glossy brochure, in which boys in sweaters chat in front of old brick buildings, girls in kilts hold lacrosse sticks on pristinely mown athletic fields, and everyone sings hymns in chapel. As Lee soon learns, Ault is a cloistered world of jaded, attractive teenagers who spend summers on Nantucket and speak in their own clever shorthand. Both intimidated and fascinated by her classmates, Lee becomes a shrewd observer of-and, ultimately, a participant in-their rituals and mores. As a scholarship student, she constantly feels like an outsider and is both drawn to and repelled by other loners. By the time she's a senior, Lee has created a hard-won place for herself at Ault. But when her behavior takes a self-destructive and highly public turn, her carefully crafted identity within the community is shattered. Ultimately, Lee's experiences-complicated relationships with teachers; intense friendships with other girls; an all-consuming preoccupation with a classmate who is less than a boyfriend and more than a crush; conflicts with her parents, from whom Lee feels increasingly distant, coalesce into a singular portrait of the painful and thrilling adolescence universal to us all.

Customer Reviews:

If I finish this book, it will be a miracle. .......2007-10-08

First let me start out that this book is NOT written about (Lee) a guy, nor is it written BY a guy. There are two reviewers who stated that. Easy to do, I'm sure, considering the book is written by a woman named Curtis. But this can also shed some perspective on the book now that you know.

I would find Lee a much more likeable character if we weren't inside her head all the time. It's like all those things you think to yourself but don't say out loud just because they aren't worth saying - that's kind of how this book is written. Lee is probably one of the most self-concious, self-doubting characters I've ever read about, and it's equally depressing and a bit dull. I find her sometimes brashness to be a bit out of character for someone who is otherwise a bit of a wallflower or constantly worried about what people will think to the point they're almost afraid to move. And I'm not even done with the book yet! There are moments, as the review suggests, that just when you want to smack Lee, Sittenfeld does something to 'reel you back in.' Yes, I can agree to that; but those moments, sadly, are few - at least for me. I thought this novel would better be suited for the Young Adult section, rather than a novel geared towards adults.

The constant over-analzying of Lee's character starts to get on one's nerves after awhile. If I finish this book, it will be a miracle.

Media Hype.......2007-09-21

The nutshell: Lee goes to private school. She's from the mid-west, & suddenly finds herself surrounded by the hoity-toity, richer than God set. She makes a bunch of semi-interesting observations. Lee isn't an incredibly likeable narrartor, but I give Sittenfeld credit for that. Lee is honest. She makes unfair judgements; she's jealous, and self-involved: She's a teenager.

Much to the books detriment, she becomes obsessed with a boy about 100 or so pages in, and spends the next 300+ pages analyzing his every move and her every move around him.

For a quick read, (easy, flowing language, colloquial wording) the novel becomes incredibly tedious. What began as an interesting assessment and exploration of teen life at a prestigious boarding school, ended as an over-the-top meditation on what it's like to have a lot of sex with someone and it turns out they're using you. Realistic? Sure. But pretty darn boring in her telling of it.

I'm assuming Curtis Sittenfeld had a seriously dedicated group of book pushers behind her with all of the promotional campaigning "Prep" received prior to it hitting the shelves, not that it isn't without merit, but I have a hard time imagining this sometimes sluggish novel making its' way into all of the "Best of 2005" lists without the marketing push behind it.

In fact, I almost didn't read it- I was so sick of seeing her face plastered everywhere, and those goofy, preppie, reversible belts showing up in all of the stores... A book cover pushing an article of clothing? Odd.

It makes me sad to think if the marketing team behind "Prep" had divided themselves in half, a few more first novels could have made their way into the heads of readers across America.

It isn't that the book is bad... It just isn't that good.

A Frustrating Read.......2007-09-01

Lee Fiora, an average, peripheral girl from South Bend, Indiana, gets a scholarship to the prestigious Ault School in Massachusetts. PREP tells the story of the four years she spent in boarding school there, all the while trying desperately to fit in to the upper echelons of the old money social stratosphere of 1980's New England.

Lee spends pretty much the entire novel trying way too hard to fit in, alienating the few people who actually care about her along the way, and never actually succeeding. Witnessing every insecurity, paranoid anxiety, and and ridiculous thought from the inside of Lee's head gave me a headache. Having to spend so much time in the perspective of someone who cared so much about what other people thought of her (while all the while remaining too clueless about the fact that no one actually thought of her the way she wanted them to) was simply exhausting. I think the most frustrating part of all was that I kept expecting her to learn some sort of lesson from her experiences, to grow up, to mature in some way, or make any sort of progress, but at the end she's still the same insipid, shallow, self-absorbed girl she was at the beginning.

That's not to say that this novel had nothing going for it. I actually read it pretty quickly, because (despite the unyielding headache) I found Lee's deadpan social commentary to be fascinating. There are a lot of clever details, nuances, and subtleties that could only come from Sittenfeld's own prep school experience. The relationships also rang true in a raw way -- though I found the sex scenes to be so degrading that despite being one of the more objectively relatable parts of the book, they were almost painful to read.

That said, I cannot remember the last time that I detested a protagonist in a novel to this degree. And it's hard to enjoy a novel when you can't relate to a single thought that passes through its narrator's selfish, short-sighted, utterly clueless head (not to mention the whole wanting to strangle her thing).

The guy that knows us.......2007-08-10

Weird that this book was written about a guy. A great book that made me realize guys know more about us women than we think. If you like CONFESSIONS OF A CATHOLIC SCHOOLGIRL you will also like this.

Wow! It's written by a male.......2007-08-03

Not since "She's Come Undone" has a male done such an amazing job of getting into a female's head.

The Things They Carried (Spark Notes Edition)

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Great Book
review
Mary Anne in the heart of darkness; or: Just another Lemon Tree
Personal and touching
What soldiers carry on their backs and in their hearts

The Things They Carried (Spark Notes Edition)
Tim O'Brien , and SparkNotes Editors
Manufacturer: SparkNotes
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Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1586638270

Amazon.com

"They carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die. Grief, terror, love, longing--these were intangibles, but the intangibles had their own mass and specific gravity, they had tangible weight. They carried shameful memories. They carried the common secret of cowardice.... Men killed, and died, because they were embarrassed not to."

A finalist for both the 1990 Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, The Things They Carried marks a subtle but definitive line of demarcation between Tim O'Brien's earlier works about Vietnam, the memoir If I Die in a Combat Zone and the fictional Going After Cacciato, and this sly, almost hallucinatory book that is neither memoir nor novel nor collection of short stories but rather an artful combination of all three. Vietnam is still O'Brien's theme, but in this book he seems less interested in the war itself than in the myriad different perspectives from which he depicts it. Whereas Going After Cacciato played with reality, The Things They Carried plays with truth. The narrator of most of these stories is "Tim"; yet O'Brien freely admits that many of the events he chronicles in this collection never really happened. He never killed a man as "Tim" does in "The Man I Killed," and unlike Tim in "Ambush," he has no daughter named Kathleen. But just because a thing never happened doesn't make it any less true. In "On the Rainy River," the character Tim O'Brien responds to his draft notice by driving north, to the Canadian border where he spends six days in a deserted lodge in the company of an old man named Elroy while he wrestles with the choice between dodging the draft or going to war. The real Tim O'Brien never drove north, never found himself in a fishing boat 20 yards off the Canadian shore with a decision to make. The real Tim O'Brien quietly boarded the bus to Sioux Falls and was inducted into the United States Army. But the truth of "On the Rainy River" lies not in facts but in the genuineness of the experience it depicts: both Tims went to a war they didn't believe in; both considered themselves cowards for doing so. Every story in The Things They Carried speaks another truth that Tim O'Brien learned in Vietnam; it is this blurred line between truth and reality, fact and fiction, that makes his book unforgettable. --Alix Wilber

Book Description

One of the first questions people ask about The Things They Carried is this: Is it a novel, or a collection of short stories? The title page refers to the book simply as "a work of fiction," defying the conscientious reader's need to categorize this masterpiece. It is both: a collection of interrelated short pieces which ultimately reads with the dramatic force and tension of a novel. Yet each one of the twenty-two short pieces is written with such care, emotional content, and prosaic precision that it could stand on its own.

The Things They Carried depicts the men of Alpha Company: Jimmy Cross, Henry Dobbins, Rat Kiley, Mitchell Sanders, Norman Bowker, Kiowa, and of course, the character Tim O'Brien who has survived his tour in Vietnam to become a father and writer at the age of forty-three. They battle the enemy (or maybe more the idea of the enemy), and occasionally each other. In their relationships we see their isolation and loneliness, their rage and fear. They miss their families, their girlfriends and buddies; they miss the lives they left back home. Yet they find sympathy and kindness for strangers (the old man who leads them unscathed through the mine field, the girl who grieves while she dances), and love for each other, because in Vietnam they are the only family they have. We hear the voices of the men and build images upon their dialogue. The way they tell stories about others, we hear them telling stories about themselves.

With the creative verve of the greatest fiction and the intimacy of a searing autobiography, The Things They Carried is a testament to the men who risked their lives in America's most controversial war. It is also a mirror held up to the frailty of humanity. Ultimately The Things They Carried and its myriad protagonists call to order the courage, determination, and luck we all need to survive.

Customer Reviews:

Great Book.......2007-09-25

I was forced to read this book for class but I am certainly glad I did. The book gave first person insight on the personal aspects of the Vietnam War, not just the obvious blood and guts. Stories of women snuck in to the base, lost loves, and interaction with the natives all highlighted the other side of war, not just the trenches, although those aspects are illustrated as well. Fascinating read.

review.......2007-09-25

i ordered this book a month ago and it still has not come. i need it for my college class!!!!!

Mary Anne in the heart of darkness; or: Just another Lemon Tree.......2007-09-24

A book, a novel, a collection of stories and reflections and corrections about war, post-war, pre-war; writing about war and about writing about war. Meta war literature.
This sounds formalistic, but it never is. It grips you.
The biggest surprise for me here is that I never heard about Tim O'Brien and his Vietnam books until now. Or maybe, I did hear about them but I ignored or forgot them. The title 'If I Die in a Combat Zone' somehow does ring a bell. How did I encounter it now? My daughter, a senior and good in lit, wrote a paper about it. She got an A- and let me read it. First the paper and then the book. Well done, daughter.
Footnote: contrary to O'Brien who invents a daughter called Kathleen and has dialogues with her, I really have a daughter, but her name is not Kathleen. Kathleen is possibly the weakest invention of the book, maybe not in concept, but the actual dialogues are wrong. Maybe TOB should have practiced?
A word re my headlines: the Mary Anne story is awesome. And the Lemon Tree is one of the weirdest lines in the books, though my choice of song title is an anachronism. The book certainly refers to the older Lemon Tree song: very pretty...

Personal and touching.......2007-09-21

This is a moving book. A beautiful metaphor for a title. "The things they carried" sums up what this is about - the hopes and fears these soldiers brought, and took away, from war.

Tim's style jumps - there are times when you feel like he is "writing like a novel writer", with the usual eloquence, well-thought out structure expected from a great work of fiction. The first part of the book is in this style and is great in it's own way.

However, there are times when you can feel like you are reading his private journal. You can sense that he is not writing for me or for you in that moment, but rather for himself - to remember, to just make sense of it all. In these parts, the writing is so raw and honest it is hard to imagine not being moved. His fears, the sense of hope, and finally the courage, become real. (Specifically the portion where he was contemplating escaping the draft.) Sometimes I felt like I was just reading my own journal because of his voice...those were the most powerful moments and for that alone, worth the whole book.

What soldiers carry on their backs and in their hearts.......2007-09-09

An amazing book that succeeds in portraying what it was like for the ones who were sent to Vietnam. The difficulty of the telling shows through as the story comes out in pieces that ultimately are woven together for an intense read. There are some gruesome scenes and brutal actions that you come to understand are just normal under the extreme circumstances of war. Fantastic storytelling that shares what these soldiers have to carry inside them.

Autobiography of Malcolm X (SparkNotes Literature Guide) (SparkNotes Literature Guide)

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Interesting But I Didn't Always Agree
wow
Masterpiece Revisited
One of the best books I've ever read.
A Must Read for Everyone --- Especially Black Men---

Autobiography of Malcolm X (SparkNotes Literature Guide) (SparkNotes Literature Guide)
Alex Haley , Malcolm X , and SparkNotes Editors
Manufacturer: SparkNotes
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1586638335

Amazon.com

Malcolm X's searing memoir belongs on the small shelf of great autobiographies. The reasons are many: the blistering honesty with which he recounts his transformation from a bitter, self-destructive petty criminal into an articulate political activist, the continued relevance of his militant analysis of white racism, and his emphasis on self-respect and self-help for African Americans. And there's the vividness with which he depicts black popular culture--try as he might to criticize those lindy hops at Boston's Roseland dance hall from the perspective of his Muslim faith, he can't help but make them sound pretty wonderful. These are but a few examples. The Autobiography of Malcolm X limns an archetypal journey from ignorance and despair to knowledge and spiritual awakening. When Malcolm tells coauthor Alex Haley, "People don't realize how a man's whole life can be changed by one book," he voices the central belief underpinning every attempt to set down a personal story as an example for others. Although many believe his ethic was directly opposed to Martin Luther King Jr.'s during the civil rights struggle of the '60s, the two were not so different. Malcolm may have displayed a most un-Christian distaste for loving his enemies, but he understood with King that love of God and love of self are the necessary first steps on the road to freedom. --Wendy Smith

Book Description

The Autobiography of Malcolm X is the focus of this title in our Bloom's Notes. Along with a collection of some of the best criticism available on his work, this text includes a brief biography of the authors, Malcolm X and Alex Haley, structural and thematic analysis, an index of themes and ideas, and more. This series is edited by Harold Bloom, Sterling Professor of the Humanities, Yale University; Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Professor of English, New York University Graduate School. These texts are the ideal aid for all students of literature, presenting concise, easy-to-understand biographical, critical, and bibliographical information on a specific literary work. Also provided are multiple sources for book reports and term papers with a wealth of information on literary works, authors, and major characters.

Customer Reviews:

Interesting But I Didn't Always Agree.......2007-10-04

My sixth grade teacher assigned this book for homework, and we had a field trip to go see the Spike Lee movie when it came out. When a freelance writer and I had a discussion about Black leaders, she suggested that this book should be required reading, and I'd forgotten so much besides the most standout things that I picked up the book again. There are things that I don't agree with, such as Malcolm Little's ideas on how women should be checked and physically put in their place. There are things that I didn't agree with in Muslim religion, such as calling people White Devils. I understood where he was coming from, but after awhile, that just got old and I wanted the book to move on...quickly.

However, as with the movie, I was very interested and admired Malcolm X a great deal when he started paying attention to the world around him. It was interesting to watch the transformations he went through before he was unfortunately called to death way too soon. I'd be very interested in seeing his early notes, watching him go from not being able to tell what a verb was to writing the last word in the dictionary. Out of all of the things I respect about Malcolm X in this book and from other historical lessons I've learned is that no matter what the subject, if he wanted to talk about something or get it done, he didn't sit around waiting on someone else to do it. Every single event in this book was something he either played a part in organizing or made sure to get the ultimate results.

Favorite Quote of His: I've never been one for inaction. Everything I've ever felt strongly about, I've done something about it.

wow.......2007-09-14

this book was my guide book to loving my race and myself as a black woman..

Masterpiece Revisited.......2007-08-04

I read this book once about a decade ago and felt it was my civic duty to read it again. This book is the gospel truth. Reading it was deja vu. I blink once or twice feeling like I just witnessed a scene described in the book. There is nothing radical about this piece of work. It is an eye opener and often times people will put a negative slant on this story or any story of this calibre when they don't want the truth revealed/discovered. I recommend this book to every breathing human being, especial blacks, negroes and the "n-word" as we were branded. The book is personal, political, emotional and above all a forecast of the present state of America. Read and process it and pass it on!

One of the best books I've ever read........2007-07-22

You can't have a discussion on race in America without reading this book first. I loved the movie, but this books will leave you with a lot to think about, which I don't believe the movie does. It has totally opened my eyes. A must read!!

A Must Read for Everyone --- Especially Black Men---.......2007-07-09

This book has seriously changed the way I view the world around me. As an African-American male who once led a life "in the mud" as Malcom would describe, it is inspiring to see how far one can rise. History has truly committed one of the most heinous crimes in keeping his life hidden away from mainstream society. Even if one does not agree with his thoughts, words, or actions, you have to agree with his conviction and dedication to change. This book will be a required reading for all members of my family.

Average customer rating:

Silent Cry
Silent Cry is a wonderful read.
An Accurate Depiction of the 50's
Fantastic First Novel
A good read

Silent Cry
Julie Bigg Veazey
Manufacturer: BookSurge Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1419636960
Release Date: 2006-08-16

Book Description

New Hampshire's Julie Bigg Veazey has created an intimate coming-of-age novel set in an elite girls' boarding school in the 1950s, rich in psychological insights, compelling characters, and gothic elements. Silent Cry is a moving story of strength in the face of shattering life-changing events.

Customer Reviews:

Silent Cry.......2006-12-28

Julie Bigg Veazey's Silent Cry is a realistic fictional portrayal of life in a boarding school during the '50's. Its excellent characterization and riveting plot keep the reader thoroughly engrossed through surprising twist-turning events until the very last page. A must read.

Silent Cry is a wonderful read. .......2006-11-18

Silent Cry is the kind of book that you can easily lose yourself in. You are instantly carried into the life and times of the 1950's. The characters are introduced in such a way that you feel connected with them from the very beginning. The author has a magical way of telling a story. As I read the book I was thinking about who might play the characters if the book was brought to the big screen. It would translate wonderfully!

An Accurate Depiction of the 50's .......2006-11-08

I hardly know where to start. As a reader of the usual best seller novels,
this story held my interest to the point where I could hardly wait to see what happened next. The lineup of characters, both the students and the faculty at Winthrop Academy, were all so vividly portrayed that in my mind I started to have favorites. As a guy who was just slightly older than the girls at Winthrop at that time, I visited a similar school for a social event that had similar boy/girl restrictions. Even today I find it hard to know the thoughts of young girls so vividly brought out in this book. Julie Bigg Veazey deserves the highest praise for this work. I hope to see more of her writing in the future.

Fantastic First Novel.......2006-11-03

I found "Silent Cry" was just a great book to sit down and read. I was intrigued by the plot and after meeting the author I couldn't wait to find the tiime to sit down and read her work. The girl's featured in this book were very real and had the same fears/insecurities/cliques/drama that any girl in high school faces today. They were a lot of fun to get to know and the twists in the plot took me completely by surprise. I hope there are more works of fiction coming soon from this author and I would be honored to host those authors signings as well!!

A good read.......2006-10-21

Few would name the 50s as their favorite decade, but those who lived through it, especially if they happened to go to a straight-laced private boarding school, are likely to remember feeling conflict between the normal impulses of adolescence and the imposed manners and mores of a time reminiscent of the Victorian era.

Such is the case in Silent Cry, a novel that explores the concluding months in the senior year of a small group of girls "privileged" to attend Winthrop Academy, an elite all-girls' school in Connecticut.

Nancy Waldron enters in the middle of senior year, sent away by her family to avoid "disgrace." She meets a group of girls who are each struggling with their own inner demons. Intense bonds and conflicts develop, and Nancy experiences the first true friendship she has ever known.

Dramatic incidents propel the novel along unexpected lines, keeping the reader guessing until the very end. Julie Bigg Veazey demonstrates a keen eye for physical detail and psychological nuance in this first novel.

Spark Notes One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

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Spark Notes One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Ken Kesey , and SparkNotes Editors
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ASIN: 1586633791

Book Description

Get your "A" in gear!

They're today's most popular study guides-with everything you need to succeed in school. Written by Harvard students for students, since its inception SparkNotes™ has developed a loyal community of dedicated users and become a major education brand. Consumer demand has been so strong that the guides have expanded to over 150 titles. SparkNotes'™ motto is Smarter, Better, Faster because:

· They feature the most current ideas and themes, written by experts.
· They're easier to understand, because the same people who use them have also written them.
· The clear writing style and edited content enables students to read through the material quickly, saving valuable time.

And with everything covered--context; plot overview; character lists; themes, motifs, and symbols; summary and analysis, key facts; study questions and essay topics; and reviews and resources--you don't have to go anywhere else!

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Spark Notes Of Mice and Men
John Steinbeck , and SparkNotes Editors
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The Dropanchor Chronicle: A SAT Vocabulary Novel,

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The Dropanchor Chronicle: A SAT Vocabulary Novel,
Stephen, D. Ring
Manufacturer: Virtualbookworm.com Publishing
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ASIN: 1589396278

Book Description

For Allen, Joannie and Ricky it becomes the senior year that wasn't. Allen is a journalist, and all he asks from his final year is a minor scandal now and then to report in the school paper. Joannie wants only to get on with her project of cataloging the bugs and beasts of Mercurial Canyon. And Ricky would be content just to keep going nowhere with his hopeless yet sustaining crush on a TV travel hostess.

But things don't turn out like that. The three of them and their friends are overtaken by events. Their senior year becomes a dangerous struggle against the empire building of editor and business tycoon Peerless Bamalford. He's big and verbally abusive, emotionally impoverished and just plain mean. He holds every advantage--a wealthy patron, a political chokehold, a twisted creativity. And in his arrogance he begins to meddle with deep forces of nature that were better left alone. Ignoring the man is not an option, and step by hesitating step Allen and gang advance toward a dark confrontation.

The Dropanchor Chronicle is a vocabulary novel, with 1491 tough words woven into its story line. The Dropanchor word list was drawn up only after long study of real SAT exams released by the College Board. The Dropanchor list is a fairly tough one. Moderately difficult words that you have probably mastered by now (such as erode, benefactor, disastrous, incorporate and superstition) are kept off the list to leave room for more challenging items. Finally, the definitions in The Dropanchor Chronicle are carefully written and distinctly easy to use: they are always right there, appearing on the same page as the word being defined, or sometimes on the page before.

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The Single Strangest Book that I have Ever Read!

Spark Notes Slaughterhouse 5
Jr., Kurt Vonnegut , and SparkNotes Editors
Manufacturer: SparkNotes
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Binding: Paperback

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Slaughterhouse-Five
Slaughterhouse Five

ASIN: 1586634585

Book Description

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The Single Strangest Book that I have Ever Read!.......2002-12-03

I didn't know that books could be this intreging, disturbing, enlightening, satirical, and strange all at the same time. This story definitly has a message that is akwardly strange in a sense that it is a common and blurred message. The thought of coming unstuck in time is truly brilliant and has the diversity of environments and scenes will keep most readers (and disturbed people like me) glued to this book. Since Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time there are scenes in which you will learn of his experiences in the second world war, times you will learn of his wild times with the adult film star Montana Wildhack on Tralfamadore, and even of his postwar married life. The selection of scenes will seem random at first and espcially when he jumps through time from the war to his career, and then to Tralfamadore, but in the end a rythm of the scenes is found. It takes the entire book to understand whats going on so you can't spread out your reading of this book or else you will be hopelessly lost. Slaughterhouse Five, or Shlachthof-Funf as it is said in German, is not an easy read. The plot is very sporadic and strange and will keep you up saying to yourself,"What was that supposed to mean?" and other questions along that line which does detract from the story, but otherwise it was an incredible book. I only recommend this to people who are willing to put something more than time into a book. Still it is worthwhile even though you have to be open minded about what you read, otherwise this book will scare yoour little zealot boots right off your feet. If you're are willing to change your views on the world and take a more philisophical standpointyou would enjoy this book, but if you're the latter you will absolutly hate this book. The latter will wish to burn every last copy of this book. It will scare people that much. So it goes. Hello, farewell, hello, farewell.

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Spark Notes Uncle Tom's Cabin
Harriet Beecher Stowe , and SparkNotes Editors
Manufacturer: SparkNotes
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Binding: Paperback

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