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Dutton, 2003
Nick and his friends have everything: expensive clothes, beautiful apartments, rich friends. The island of Manhattan is at their feet. But underneath this picture-perfect world of private schools and private parties lies a gang world filled with drinking, drugs, causal sex, and graffiti. And Nick wants out. He’s had enough of the life, and he’s in love with his best friend, Kris, even though she’s oblivious to his feelings. When Kris’s younger brother becomes a gang target, Nick thinks he can help, even if it means putting his own life at risk.
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American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults (2004)
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Junior Library Guild Selection |
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| Praise for Prep: |
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“Sex, drugs, art and dialogue, Coburn and his book kick ass.”
— James Frey, author of A Million Little Pieces
“A wildly entertaining glimpse into a hidden, fiendish world located right under our eyes. Less Than Zero marries The Catcher in the Rye.”
— Tama Janowitz, author of Slaves of New York
“Jake Coburn finds the staccato, self-protective poetry in the hip-hop preppie-speak of Manhattan’s drug-and-thug private-school underworld. Required reading for parents willing to pay private-school tuition so their children will make the right contacts.”
— Richard Peck, author of A Year Down Yonder, a Newberry Medal winner
“In Prep, Jake Coburn has written a minimalist novel that turns the world of J.D. Salinger inside out. A fresh, startling look at an unexpected subculture, the raw, ugly world of affluent prep-school gang boys in name-brand jackets who talk like punks and put their knives where their mouths are.”
— Norma Fox Mazer, author of After the Rain, a Newberry Honor Book
“A novel of competitive adolescence on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, set before cell phones but contemporary in every other way, including status schools, clothes, graffiti and love.”
— New York Times Sunday Book Review
January 18, 2004
“The staccato rhythm of Coburn's prose is the best part of this tale of Manhattan prep-school gangsters. Coburn, himself a prep-school graduate, sheds light on a fascinating subculture of privileged teens who lack for nothing save their parents' attention . . . There is a fair amount of action, but what pulls readers along is the language. Realistic, slang-filled dialogue and short, crisp narrative passages create a minimalist world of frenetic gang warfare, substance abuse, and wild parties that become nightmares.”
— Booklist
November 1, 2003
“This novel focuses squarely on the world of Manhattan prep-school teens with too much money, too little family, and too few morals. These young men beat and cut one another for fun, territory, or girls, and generally use violence to gain reputations, power, and control . . . Prep does an excellent job of revealing the darker side of growing up rich, including drugs, easy sex, and drinking. Coburn's brief sentences and often-raw gang slang create a cadence and reflect the movement of the novel through four suspenseful days. While some of the gang members seem to be from central casting, the main characters are exceptionally well drawn and sympathetic.”
— School Library Journal
October 2003
“The relationship between Nick and Kris is artfully conveyed, painful and bittersweet.”
— Publishers Weekly
September 29, 2003
“This is a raw, convincing portrait of a disturbing and little-known subculture.”
— KLIATT
“Many people blithely assume that students who attend private schools are somehow insulated from drugs, underage alcohol abuse and sex. Well, Jake Coburn's smart, scary Prep will set those folks on their ears . . . Prep ought to be required reading for every parent who assumes that private-school tuition is the cost of keeping their children innocent.”
— Denver Post
August 17, 2003
“I genuinely enjoyed this book. The romantic subplot delights, and the fighting scenes enthrall. I could truly relate to the main character, Nick. He is, by turns, confused, introspective, furious and in love with his female friend, Kris. The dialogue between the teen-age characters is also very realistic. Refreshingly, the author doesn’t try to disinfect or exaggerate the behavior of the teens. What does all this sin and obscenity lead to? It doesn’t encourage kids to become juvenile delinquents. On the contrary, the dirty, gritty scenes of street life combine with the strong plot to formulate a new message: Wasting yourself on the streets isn’t worth it; in the end the sex, drugs and house parties fill you with nothing but emptiness. For kids with the maturity level to ingest the details of street culture, Prep is an exceptional book.”
— Fort Worth Star-Telegram
November 25, 2003
“Novels about teenage gangs members fighting for respect on the mean streets are nothing new in young adult fiction, but when those boys are among the wealthiest, whitest inhabitants of New York’s Upper East Side, the results are frankly unsettling . . . Coburn has the ear of an insider not very far removed from his characters; he captures the offhanded cruelty of their malaise in his depictions of the stylized gangsta affectation of their clothes and speech patterns.”
— The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books
January 2004
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