THE UPPER CLASS: A NOVEL
by Hobson Brown, Taylor Materne and Caroline Says

Prep school books are all the rage in Young Adult (YA) literature these days, and THE UPPER CLASS is HarperChildren's latest contribution to the ouvre, written by three authors who met at Hotchkiss, a boarding school in Connecticut, which is fictionalized as "Wellington" here. A former editor from Harper tells me that these books are "aspirational," meaning that teen girls will choose to read about a life they'd like to have rather than the one they do have. In this case, it seems that teen girls aspire to have been born to wealthy parents-- something clearly beyond their control and not to their credit.

The prose in THE UPPER CLASS is surprisingly good-- although it is hard to understand why it required three authors-- and good intentions abound. We are presented with two main characters-- Laine, an introverted, willowy blonde from old money, and Nikki, a Long Island brunette who's considered questionable by her Hotchkiss peers not only because of her non-WASP origins but also because she has copied her sense of style from the Bratz line of children's toys. These two ostensible opposites are thrown together as uncomfortable roomates. Laine is pressured by the evil senior Schuyler to help demolish the unsuitable Nikki, and Nikki, under the character-building pressure of social ostracism, stops being a selfish princess almost immediately and becomes a thoughtful, caring person.

The fact that this book-- whose plot is merely a framework for the "aspirational" detailing of the fashions, attitudes, prejudices and horses of the Wellington students. THE UPPER CLASS emphasizes that these students will one day "rule the world" with a combination of weary acceptance and the sense that, these are, after all, the best young people who exist. An overwhelming pressure to conform is presented as a prerequisite for proper character-building. Regardless of Nikki's preordained triumph over her own roots and sense of style, THE UPPER CLASS must inevitably leave the vast majority of its readers convinced-- at least subconsciously-- of the utter futility of their aspirations, and with no recourse for their thwarted desires.

Perhaps the girls who read THE UPPER CLASS with no chance whatsoever to join it will spend the rest of their lives attempting to capture a sliver of this glory, haunting Filene's Basement or scrimping on their Weight Watchers meals to afford a pair of designer shoes they will never wear. Ultimately, this kind of aspiration, while presented as a Spelling-esque diversion, is nothing but poison for the soul, and for the ongoing perpetuation of our American feudal society. --C. B. Coble