“oh, come on! as if there’s a clear distinction between real and fake for any of us. aren’t we all performing ourselves?”

sally, you’ve confused the romance of comedy with the romance of romance.

aw man, i just love curtis, okay? prep is one of The formative texts of my youth. so reading this was EXTREMELY fun, largely because i didn’t know until, like, 90% through just how straight curtis was playing the whole romantic comedy schtick, you know? i thought for SO long she might pull the rug out from under me. and do i wish she had? well!! kind of!!! i think that push-pull might displease a lot of readers, because it’s very much curtis sittenfeld doing romance, and those two genres are,,, at odds.

but it worked on me, and i found myself deeply, intimately charmed by the romance of it all. i was reeled in! i FELT that crush. if there’s one place curtis really shines it’s in the details, and she Got me. loved sally’s relentless self-sabotaging and insistence on the danny horst rule. loved the handmade mad libs. loved when she responds with such excitement that she accidentally spits on him and he doesn’t wipe it off. loved noah explaining the joke before making it, and her calling him on it. LOVED the moment where she sits admiring his music and feeling lonely/jealous because his talent doesn’t involve her, and then stops and wonders if anyone feels that way about her and her talent. just!!!! loved sally. what a finely drawn character: barbed, arrogant, winning, slippery, boring, performative. 

i didn’t really care for the last bit set in KC; i thought covid as a plot device was kinda hamfisted, and i didn’t feel the emotional conflict resolved in a terribly compelling way. so. not a perfect book, but the most fun i’ve had reading in ages, and very excited to revisit prep :)