Casualties of Privilege: Essays on Prep Schools' Hidden Culture

Rating:
Summary: Fairly good book
Review: Adolescents are pretty much rebellious. No getting around that. It's natural. It's necessary. It's just part of the process of growing up. However, there are differences between children going through this while living at home and going to a public school verses living at a boarding school. It isn't a major difference, but it does exist and has its own flavor. This book gives you a taste of it from those that experienced it or were experiencing at the time of that the book was published. I found the recommendations given by this book to be sound and reasonable. While I do not view this as a great book, I would recommend it for those thinking of going to a boarding school or sending their child to one. However, I would also recommend you not base your decision on just this book but read several about boarding schools before doing so.

Rating:
Summary: A candid look at boarding school life...
Review: Casualties of Privilege offers an inside look into some of the dark realities of our nations elite boarding schools. The essays, written by those who have witnessed or participated in the rituals they describe, offer a candid look at a side of the world that few of us ever get to see.

I read this book when I was considering the possibility of attending boarding school. At the time, I thought the essays in the book made boarding school look very intriguing. Had my parents seen the book, there is no way they would have even let me apply.

Overall a very good book, if an honest portrayal of boarding schools is what you're looking for. For those who may think the subject matter is controversial, open up your eyes and realize that these schools are no different than the rest of society.

Rating:
Summary: Shallow
Review: The basic premise underlying this book of essays written by former prep school students is that there is such a thing as a standard prep school experience. In fact, the term "prep school" has been adopted by so many different types of secondary schools as to have become meaningless.

Those common threads that do exist (loneliness, use of alcohol and drugs, sex, etc.) are really part of being an adolescent, and are not unique to prep school students, although the young authors of these essays would have us believe otherwise.

There is nothing in these essays that wasn't said better by J. D. Salinger in "The Catcher in the Rye." Read it instead.