“I don’t need a cursory explanation about class,” a friend replied when I asked him if he had ever read Prep, Curtis Sittenfeld’s debut novel.

Good news, friend: Prep isn’t a cursory explanation about class. Even though it’s set in a prep school and narrated by a scholarship student, the book is really about the social caste system of high school. Money is just another index, along with looks, athletic skills and brains, with which to judge people.

I’m only about half away through, so it may be too early agree with both Marie Claire and the