Upper Class Book

I didn't really have high hopes for this book. I do like this sort of thing at times, the 'Gossip Girl's and 'A Lists' and the like, but I have to be in the right sort of mood. The mood I was in when I started was not of that ilk. Still, I wanted something that would be quick while I waited for my holds from the library to come in and I picked this up so that I could clear a space on my shelf. I figured it would follow the same formula as other teen fiction series; hot girl meets hot boy, other hot people interfere, they eventually get together in the end. The location doesn't usually matter that much. Except with this it did. I found myself comparing this to the likes of Curtis Sittenfeld's 'Prep' than the boarding school set Gossip Girl spin-off 'It Girl'. This wasn't a book about teenagers and their relationships, this was a book about boarding school. I didn't attend boarding school myself, I went to an all girls private school, but there are similarities. Growing up with this sort of experience instead of the traditional sort is an experience and I thought this book captured it pretty well.

'The Upper Class' is about two girls new to Wellington, a boarding school in rural Connecticut. Laine is everything Wellington could want, she's lovely, demure, wears the right clothes, keeps up her grades, and is a star at field hockey. Nikki is... not so much. The daughter of a self made man, Nikki grew up on Long Island with anything she could have ever asked for, but none of the finesse that seems to rule the other students at Wellington. They couldn't be more different and when they're thrown together as roommates it seems like the combination might be explosive.

For the first chapter where Nikki took center stage I was convinced I was going to hate her. She was brash, spoke in improper English, and walked around smacking her ass in a thong. But once she got to school she was immediately a character you couldn't help feeling sorry for. She was definitely a fish out of water, and a good bridge between what's popular today and what's popular in this world. Laine was okay, at times, but her bland personality (intentional) did nothing to endear me. When she finally started to loosen up towards the end I was relieved, wanting her to feel at home in Nikki's world, and you'd be far more likely to find me reading a book on the Cape wearing Nantucket red capris than at a kegger.

It's clear that the writers (three of them, sigh) knew their material and that they actually know how to write. They didn't dumb down the language, which was greatly appreciated. Of course, the prose could run towards the purple side, but that's only to be expected with this sort of literature. If you want to even call it that.

This book's not great. But it's really not as bad as it's other reviews might say. The user reviews for 'Prep' aren't that great either, but I enjoyed that one and this is just in the same vein. Don't read this for scandal and sex and scheming, read this for a portrayal of a way of life.