Unsurprisingly, Gerry beat me to the punch, but I have to add my two cents. Here's what the NY Times Top 10 (and WHO is writing this??) says about Prep:

“This calm and memorably incisive first novel, about a scholarship girl who heads east to attend an elite prep school, casts an unshakable spell and has plenty to say about class, sex and character.”

Good god, y'all. Now you know I hate to talk bad about folks, but this was one of the worst books I’ve ever read. So bad, in fact, that I have to put it down there with The Devil Crapped Prada. Juvenile, superficial, simpering, and eye-glazingly dull, I finished the thing only because I could not believe it could be as bad as it was. But oh, yes, it was. The only thing this book has to say about class is that its author does not know what class issues are. About sex, it says (breaking new!) that teenagers like to have it. And character? Oh, please please please. I mean, sure, there are a lot of them . . . does that count as “plenty to say”?