Restless Virgins: Love, Sex, and Survival at a New England Prep School

by Abigail Jones, Marissa Miley

An honest, intimate look at the lives of today's teens—told through the true experiences of friends at a New England prep school Established in 1798, Milton Academy has a proud history of achievement. It has educated artists and CEOs; it has produced a long line of distinguished scholars and dignitaries; and it has shepherded students through the world of high-pressure academics for generations. Since its founding, the public face of Milton had always been one of integrity and pride . . . until a sex scandal rocked the campus and made headlines in the spring of 2005. The offense? Teenagers doing no more than what others had done before them—except this time they got caught. Restless Virgins is the riveting real-life story of a group of seniors who were there as the "incident" (as it came to be called) Whitney, the athletic and sensual beauty every girl wants to be; Annie, who craves acceptance but is torn between the desire for peer approval and musical success; Jillian, the smart one who is sick of high school drama and desperate to go to college; and Reed, a "hockey god" who has it all but whose charisma masks a secret insecurity. From "friends with benefits" to STDs, today's teens face a wider array of social and sexual opportunities—and pressures—than ever before. Through its eye-opening yet sensitive depiction of a group of normal kids with normal struggles, Restless Virgins offers an important look at contemporary adolescence no teen, parent, or educator can afford to miss. And it is written by two recent Milton graduates who know this world—and these students—like no others.

Genres: Nonfiction, Gender, Education, Boarding School, Feminism, Memoir, Social Science

321 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2007

Reviews

[Sarah · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was horrible. As a Milton Academy alum, I'm more ashamed of the quality of writing that went into this book (written by MA alums), than I am of what went on. I couldn't even finish the book, it was that bad. Talk about a waste of a good opportunity to expose the current state of American high schoolers in relation to sex. Womp.

[Meredith · Rating 2 out of 5]

Female students at Milton Academy give way too much head, I would like to have seen more background on the girl who gave the infamous lockerroom "head"; and the five boys who received said "head". But instead we got way too much info on a handful of other students, and no real contemplative input on whether these activities have been going on since, say, the authors themselves were at Milton, AND has it really changed since, AND how about every other New England prep school, is this the currency of popularity, does it continue to be, and why do we as a society allow it to occur if so? The book still left me wondering what the hell was going on.......and is it still?

[Monica · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ugh. Uninspired expose about spoiled rotten prep school kids, written by grown up prep school kids. Lots and lots of florid descriptions of the underground high school sex scene. Don't bother.

[eRin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Somehow I missed the whole Milton Academy sex scandal that occurred in 2005. After the incident (that apparently made national news), two Milton grads attempted to uncover the sex lives of Milton students, what the scandal means, and what teenagers are really doing. They write about four girls and three boys who were seniors at the time of the scandal. Milton is one of the oldest prep schools in the nation and reeks of old money and entitlement. Therefore, the scandal was shocking. To most people, anyway. The book is more about the actual lives of these seven students than the scandal that made headlines--but these students have their own scandals and many of them are not pretty.

I went to a prep school. I even went to a boarding school. I've been both a day student and a boarder, but my school was all-girls and I desperately wished to go to a co-ed boarding school. In hindsight, it wouldn't have been such a great idea, but when you're 16 and surrounded by girls and only girls for the majority of your time... well, a girl can dream. The thing about this book is that it's not shocking. The authors do this big lead-up to the actual event, and I'm expecting some huge gang-rape, or orgy or SOMETHING. But it's really not that exciting. And it's not surprising. For some reason the general public has this idea that prep schools represent the best of America. That the students are better-behaved. When in fact the exact opposite is true. You've got rich kids with unlimited resources living on their own in high school with members of the opposite sex in the next building 50 feet away--what do you think is going to happen? The book is a good insight into the sexual lives of teenagers, but this is a very select group and I'm not sure that looking closely at any school that adequately describe the lives--sexual or otherwise--of all American teenagers. It's an interesting book in that it's a good look into the inside of a prep school (many of the traditions and rituals brought back similar memories of my own experience). It shows real-life Gossip Girls. And it shows how teenage girls are seen by the opposite sex and by themselves. And that is the worst part of all. It's depressing that the girls will do almost anything to be with one of the "it" boys. And it's disgusting how the boys treat the girls. Worth a read, I think.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm constantly fascinated by how much (and yet at the same time how little) has changed since I was in high school in the early 90s. Sure, people had sex in high school but it almost always occured when people were in monogomous relationships. Of course we went to parties and experimented with alcohol and drugs. But random sex encounters were rare and were looked down on as something that occured between people who didn't respect themselves.

From what I understand, the stories in this book are not exclusive to Milton Academy. In schools nation wide girls as young as 12 are using sex as a means to 'have a boyfriend' and they mistakenly think that by having sex the guys will love and respect them. So what has changed since the early 90s? I think Candace Bushnell and Sex and the City had a bigger impact on America's youth than people realize. Young girls looked up to Carrie and Samantha, adult women who held prestigious jobs, were well educated and financially well off. Women who sterotypically had sex like men and were able to own their sexuality without the repercussions of losing respect or degrading themselves. But they were adults.

Girls in high school are not yet emotionally ready to have sex with no consequences. Giving blow jobs to five lacross guys at one time in order to be 'liked'? It breaks my heart. And I have no solutions to the problem.

I thought this book was an eye opening read. Definitely something I would encourage teenage girls to read and have conversations about. Knowledge is power.

[Jess · Rating 2 out of 5]

What did the authors intend with this book? Did they want to titillate? Scandalize? Make some sort of social statement? Cater to the Gossip Girl-watching crowd?

As a prep school alum, I can certainly believe the events of the book transpired more or less as described. But I can't figure out what purpose the authors thought they'd serve. Much attention is paid to girls who reduce themselves to objects in the hope that male attention of any kind will gain them the respect of their peers, but in their description of the book's central event, the authors basically reduce the girl involved to a faceless, personality-less object. If the authors intended to make a value statement about the event, reinforcing it by failing to give any attention to the girl's side of the story doesn't help.

Also, finding a productive and self-aware student to interview in the "core group" who didn't buy into any of the social structure the authors claim is so pervasive...that would have helped the narrative along immensely - I know they exist (and if everything else has changed about prep school since the mid-90s, I am certain that this has not).

Readers hoping to get some insight into real prep-school society might do well to skip this and instead check out the anthology "Casualties of Privilege" (while dated, most of it's still very relevant), Lorene Cary's memoir "Black Ice," or Curtis Sittenfeld's oft-referenced novel.

[Daniel Sheerin · Rating 1 out of 5]

As I was once a restless virgin at a New England prep school, I thought this book would be interesting. It is not. I'm so glad I didn't hang out with the norms. Norms are so incredibly boring, not even scandalous blowjobs could keep my attention. Correction, not even a lamely written book about scandalous blowjobs could keep my attention. I'm not a TOTAL weirdo.

[Susan · Rating 2 out of 5]

1.5 stars. A few years ago, I read Anita Shreve's Testimony and loved it- found it fascinating and horrifying and just really gripping. I saw this book, realized it was about the true story that Shreve pulled inspiration from for her novel, and decided I must read it. Unfortunately, it was pretty bad. I would actually give it only one star, BUT it kept me interested enough to keep reading and I usually reserve one star ratings for books I either can't finish or truly don't want to finish, so that's something I guess. The writing in this book is awful; I'm pretty sure I had some students in my freshman English class who could have done a better job. The tone seemed to try to be objective, but it wasn't- the authors clearly favored some of their interviewees more than others and seemed to put way more emphasis on the students who "sided with" the hockey players involved in the 1-girl-5-boys incident that made national headlines. The main problem I had with this book, though, was the fact that though these kids at school seemed to accept their prep school society as just their reality, their world, that no one, not each other, not their teachers, and with a few exceptions shown in the text, not even their parents, really, ever talked to them not about sex, but about RESPECT, for themselves, for others, for ANYONE. The real moral I was able to find in this book was, "Kids who go to seriously expensive boarding schools are both sheltered from real consequences and don't have enough adults in their lives to make sure they don't turn into completely crappy people."

[Stephanie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Why did I read this whole book? I thought that it was going to go somewhere, that there would be some point to it. Sadly, I didn't find that, and I wish I had listened to earlier reviews and skipped the book altogether.

It was educational to hear about the cultural and social norms at a New England prep school. It's sad to hear how easily young girls are letting themselves be, even begging to be, used sexually by older boys. It would be one thing if they felt affection for these boys, or even seemed to enjoy the encounters on a physical level, but that did not seem to be the case.

Overall, the book seemed like it had enough material MAYBE for an article, but it was dragged out endlessly with day-by-day accounts of how each student was thinking, communicating, acting, etc. In the end, nothing terribly interesting or profound emerged. Even the usefulness of the book as a documentary seems limited by the fact that the authors were not observing events or interviewing the participants as they occurred, but rather based the whole book on limited interviews conducted well after the year was over. So not only is the book way too detailed, but I question the accuracy of those details.

Even the title is misleading -- "virgins" is not the word I would use to describe the teens in this book.

[Erin · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was relatively redundant. If you have been a student or a teacher (or both) at an elite prep school in the past decade or so, none of the information presented in the book will shock you. If you read the Boston Globe around the time the story broke, you are probably familiar with the general details about what happened during the 2004-2005 school year at Milton Academy. That is not to say that similar inappropriate behavior did not happen in years prior or years since - only that the students involved this particular year got caught. The authors are graduates of Milton Academy and they really did a poor job of doing much more than stringing together the individual stories of the students involved.

[Leanne · Rating 1 out of 5]

A vile book. Trashy, poorly written. Certainly some truth to the stories, and a realistic look at privileged youth, but a book that I was embarrassed to read in public. It was written by spoiled rich kids, about spoiled rich kids, who thought that their story was the most important one in the world, when, in truth, this story was in and out of the papers, and the locals' minds, right after it happened.

The only time I have ever given unsolicited advice in a book store was when I saw a woman pick this up and head to the register.

[Meera · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was like reading an episode of the OC or Gossip Girl.. except MORE! This is the true life story of the students that were rocked by the scandal at Milton prep school, and I have to say that I felt like my teenage years were very innocent in comparison. Pretty scary stuff if this is what kids today get up to.....

[Nancy · Rating 2 out of 5]

An interesting but disturbing look inside the sexual and social choices of boarding school teenagers. A "true" story set at Milton Academy during the 2005 hockey team incident involving five sophomore and junior boys and a freshman girl. If the stories told are remotely true, then things have really, frighteningly changed since I was in high school...

[mh · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked it but I didn’t get the point of it?

[Elaine · Rating 1 out of 5]

Trashy, and not even all that interesting. Just a week after finishing it, I can't even recall what the scandal -- the story's supposed climax -- was all about. Also, the authors didn't succeed in making me care about the characters' outcomes. But then again, maybe that wasn't a goal of theirs. After all, they're reporters, not necessarily storytellers. And this book pretty much reads like an unedited retelling of everything that transpired at the school in the 2004-5 academic year that may or may not have been relevant. It's as if the reporters transcribed the many, many hours of interviews they did, sorted them roughly chronologically, and stuck them together with some notably ineloquent connecting or explanatory sentences to call them a book. They made especially sure to quote the most insipid conversations and text chats verbatim.

Sure to become a classic!

[Katherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

So I'm on this kick with immersion journalism. I read all the ones about sororities and college and private school. there wasn't any reason for me not to read this one. I actually hadn't heard about the Milton scandal before.

This book is about something terrible that happened at Milton academy.things are about to get a little explicit here, in case you can't handle it.

From what I read, the whole school was somehow involved in things getting to the point they got to. Girls were giving boys everything but the sun, getting little in return ,and not minding. Guys were using their situation to the hilt. Those kids had more sexual experience than I will probably have in my whole life, and yet most of them weren't legal to buy lotto tickets.

If you like immersion journalism you'll really like this book. it was compiled from interviews with five students (whose names and certain id'ing info has been changed)

[Michelle · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book had the potential to be great, especially because it is based on true events which always grasps my interest. Unfortunately, the writing left much to be desired, and there are too many characters inconsequential to the plot. There is so much fluff included in this book that the reader doesn't even find out what the sex scandal is until half the book is read. It actually felt as if much of the useless information thrown into the book was just added for shock effect. If you're looking for good contraception, or a reason to not have children, this book shows no matter how your children are brought up, they'll end up disappointing you. It did serve as a wake-up call as to what is going on in private schools, and as a HS teacher, I agree. Still, I wish I skipped this one. It would have been better off as an article.

[Courtney · Rating 2 out of 5]

While the book was fascinating with its lurid accounts of extreme high school sex, I feel it might not have earned its categorization of "sociology." The authors make only pallid overtures at linking the stories of this particular high school class with any larger social issue, of which there were many to choose from. Though titillating, it misses its potential.

[Mary · Rating 1 out of 5]

I started reading this and couldn't get through it. Got 150 pages in and still no "event." In addition, the writing was so poor I sometimes had to read sentences several times to figure out what the authors were trying to say. Very disappointing indeed.

[Tiny Pants · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was very, very close to giving this book 4 stars, but in the end I went with three. While it turned out to be a total page-turner and reasonably well-written (much more so than I expected, which was why this had lingered on my bookshelf for months only to then be consumed in under three days), there was one big thing I didn't love about it: There's basically zero analysis here.

On the one hand, we could argue (and I'm certain the authors would argue) that this is a good thing. Their teenage subjects' voices and individual stories are relatively unobscured by authorial meddling. Sure, we don't know exactly what "identifying details" have been changed and some such, but we do know that we don't get much opinion or analysis of what these kids are up to. The authors themselves more or less never weigh in, and when they do, it's extremely understated.

As such, I'm arguing that their lack of analysis is not the best thing, for a couple of reasons. The main one can be seen just by reading all the cover blurbs on this book, which can be summarized as follows: "Holy ____, teenagers are having sex!" Well, no ____, Sherlock. I mean, Oprah. Of course they are. That's not the interesting story here.

The more interesting story -- and to some extent the main thread of the book, though it more or less disappears in the second half -- is of a sexual incident that draws the attention of the school's administration and of local law enforcement, and of how that is dealt with (or honestly, barely dealt with). Without going into details, suffice to say the incident is exemplary of what it seen throughout the book, and of what it could be argued actually makes the youthful sexuality on display here problematic: The extreme amount of latitude given to male athletes and other popular guys, the performative and obligatory aspects of female sexuality, the lopsided and non-reciprocal nature of youthful heterosexuality (what Paula England and other academics have termed the "orgasm gap").

The incident that forms the core of the book distills these three components in almost perfect form, and all of the broader narratives throughout the book -- of girls and boys trying to hook up, of boys looking to "create stories," and of girls looking to get male attention -- basically echo them again and again. In the end however, no one -- not the school administrators, not parents, not the authors -- actually really tries to start a conversation about any of these aspects of the school culture (or of American culture more broadly). Instead we get a lot of lists of questions, that can let us think well, maybe she was coerced or felt she had to, but you know, probably she just wanted to, so it's okay. You don't get the impression any of the individuals in the book, or the school itself, were actually changed in any way by any of the events that happened, in spite of all the "little did they know" assertions at the beginning of the text about how things would soon "never be the same." Things appear to be exactly the same, a couple of letters home to parents and expulsions aside.

As a result, there are a couple of other areas the authors completely ignore, but which have been addressed well in other places -- particularly in two books this one reminded me of, both also written by journalists for popular audiences about youthful sexual mores, Pledged: The Secret Life of Sororities and Our Guys: The Glen Ridge Rape and the Secret Life of the Perfect Suburb. (I know, "secret lives" are a hokey cliche, but those are both worthwhile reads.) In any event, something both of those authors address, and something these authors fail to completely, are the power dynamics involved between the individuals in these situations. Why is it always older guys going after younger girls? What does this mean for older girls? What does it mean for younger guys? As Alexandra Robbins (the author of Pledged) points out, this formulation more often than not tinges even putatively consensual encounters such as the central incident in this book with an exploitative character.

Another place they don't go -- which seems really obvious in a couple of places, and which is something discussed a lot more by Bernard Lefkowitz (author of Our Guys) is the frequently homo-erotic character of a lot of these boys' schemes and encounters (e.g., the discussion of the pleasure of watching your male friend receive oral pleasure, but how it would be disgusting to see a girl receiving the same from a guy). A shared enjoyment of time spent together naked and a pretty intense level of comfort in sexual encounters involving multiple men -- call me old-fashioned, but it just doesn't ring straight to me. Mostly, it reminded me of a book I've never read but which is frequently cited called Fraternity Gang Rape, which is about exactly what it sounds like it's about. How the author (a female academic) got her subjects to speak with her so candidly about participating in gang rape I can't even imagine, but one of her findings that gets cited particularly often is about the aspects of it that are homo-erotic (despite these all being victimizations of women).

And so long story short, while this book was eminently readable and interesting, the authors' decision to leave the students' tales relatively unadorned is, in my opinion, exactly what wound up making this book less something that anyone might learn from, and more something that folks like Oprah and the Today Show can trumpet in order to whip parents and educators into a frenzy over teen sexuality. Basically it turns into "hey look, we found an actual rainbow party, or at least the next best thing."

But again, like I said above, you know what? Many, if not most, teens are going to have sex. This isn't exactly news. Why not spark a conversation, as I've described above, about how the dynamics of it work? Why do older guys have to prey on younger girls? What are they so afraid of from girls their own age? That they'll say no? That they'll actually ask for something in return instead of just sating boys' sexual needs and moving on? Why are girls -- both older and younger -- afraid to speak up about their own needs? What can they do to take care of themselves? Why do we have the stigma of the slut versus the pleasures of being a player, and why is this dichotomy so persistent?

Instead, we get basically what amounts to a gossipy, prep school-focused YA novel, complete with the requisite babes, brands, and booze, plus the addition of an enormous variety of sex acts. (Come to think, this was actually pretty similar to the Hotchkiss-based series The Upper Class, which actually does feature a fair amount of sexual vulgarity.) Obviously for me this made it pretty readable -- heck, if you ever read my reviews, you know I love gossipy, prep-school-focused YA novels! -- but as this was a work of non-fiction (complete with the inevitable "the story you are about to read is true" opening) I couldn't stop reading this as a sociologist, and also as someone who believes that individuals are all entitled to genuine sexual pleasure.

[Hubert · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's unfortunate that teenagers seem to get caught up on things that ultimately are so irrelevant to the larger scope of their lives later on; then again, they're teenagers.

From its salacious dust jacket to its incessant narration about hookup culture, the publisher's motivations and authors' writings come off as particularly tiresome. The need for peer validation runs so through through members of both genders it blinds them from being able to enjoy the things that might give them more meaning in life. Ironically, the sections that were not on the topic of sex, relationships, hookups were more interesting.

The authors could have situated their stories with more sociological and historical reflection --- to what extent are these behaviors time invariant, and to what extent are they specific to this coterie of kids? The authors also don't explore the role of personal or social responsibility (of the students or of the parents) in determining how adolescent social behavior plays out, or is to be rgulated.

One thing I didn't get: that somehow, the authors kept mentioning that the female victim in the main centerpiece saga got off more lightly than the perpetrators and that she was equally culpable. Maybe the term 'rape culture' wasn't as predominant as it is now. As such, the authors didn't seem to call out the victim blaming that ensued after the event.

By the end of the book one might actually feel heartbreak for all the characters. It's as if they're running on autopilot, removed from their inner selves, blindly coasting on the waves that their wits, upbringing, and privilege provide.

[Emma · Rating 1 out of 5]

Two main problems with this book:

1. The authors take a position that normalizes the rape-culture of prep schools. The title "Restless Virgins" reflects the premise that these young girls engage in sex acts by choice, to push the boundaries, and then later regret it. It doesn't examine the kinds of pressure that exist that would make a 14 or 15 year old girl "choose" to service multiple guys at once in someone's basement while others watch. I was a junior at a neighboring prep school when "the Incident" went down. There's nothing in this book that wasn't also happening at my school, including that victim-blaming attitude. But it's still problematic.

2. I never expected a book with this much sex to be SO BORING. This book had maybe 100 pages worth of content, if I'm being generous, and stretched it to 300 with a lot of inanity. Even with the bias I disagree with, they could still have had a fascinating book here, but finishing it was a slog. Like, it violated my feminist sensibilities, but I couldn't even enjoy hate-reading it, it was that boring.

[Greg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Undecided about this book. It was frank in its descriptions of what teenagers do and their terminology (at least in the time period it is written) but I was left questioning the accuracy of the descriptions/thoughts of the individuals. The incident the scandal is based on is true but the supporting information of how it came to be seems to be lacking.

[Ellison · Rating 4 out of 5]

About students at a New England private high school who preen, obsess about clothes and physical relationships. When a young gal services FIVE hockey players in the locker room word gets out and there is...CONCERN! OH NO! ALOT of bad behavior. Too bad these students could not focus on learning something OTHER than anatomy and drinking. Swearing. surreal.

[sammi_reads · Rating 1 out of 5]

More of a 1.5..... This was just poorly written. I was excited to read a book that was based around the real students and written by/with them in a true way (with details changed only for privacy reasons). It was very disappointing and wasn't a full glimpse at student life.
The heavy focus on oral sex made it fall rather flat. It had students who had other interests and focuses, but barely talked about those. Yes, I know it was leading up to the big oral sex locked room scandal, but it should have presented more of their lives in a less shallow way. I can guess their biggest dreams and aspirations in life were not to lose their virginity or give so and so head at this or that party. So why did we hear almost nothing else?! It almost presented the exact opposite message than what they hoped to send. Unless they were hoping to say, "Oh no all anyone thought about was sex. Quite literally and now literatureally." People hoping to get an insight into the Milton students shouldn't bother with this.

Also, please note none of the student focuses were actually involved in the incident

[N · Rating 3 out of 5]

Restless Virgins is a soapy, compelling read about a number of prep school seniors. It’s basically the literary equivalent of MTV’s “Laguna Beach”, but it nonetheless captures something relevant about the high school experience in the 21st century.

Restless has been pitched quite obviously as the “real life” version of Curtis Sittenfeld’s best-selling Prep. The difference between the two books is immense, however. Sittenfeld conjures a narrative that cuts much deeper than the usual high school drama, revealing wider truths about life. Abigail Jones and Marissa Miley, by contrast, stay firmly on the surface. It is, ultimately, just not about very much. Some days I would pick it up and think, “gee, there are wars going on, people are living in poverty, governments are taking away our civil liberties – why should I care about a bunch of spoiled rich kids in New England?”

But, the fact is, teen lit is something that does mean a lot to me. I read YA novels as a teenager and simply never stopped. I’ve found it exciting to watch a niche section of the market blow up over the last ten years, and I’m always interested in how authors portray teenagers. What’s more, the criticism I most often level against teen fiction is a failure to capture the claustrophobia of high school. Teen characters are invariably far more well-adjusted than I was at their age. Restless, more than any other teen book I can recall reading recently, evokes the everyday trauma of trying and failing to fit in at high school; the feeling of constantly being judged by your peers, until, finally, you internalize that judgement and the watching eyes follow you wherever you go.

Where Restless falls down is in its lack of analysis. As a text, it draws immediate comparisons with Guyland, Dude You’re A Fag, Women Without Class, etc. The difference is, those are academic works that draw sociological conclusions about teens’ behaviour. The narrative of Restless is content to be “a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking” (sorry, gratuitous Isherwood reference). Ironically, if you were to remix the soapy action of this book with the rather dry sociological theory of, say, Deborah Tolman’s Dilemmas of Desire, you might have a meaningful text.

Read Restless to remember that, in spite of the gloss of Gossip Girl, high school is still a wretched place, but don’t expect to find anything too revelatory within its pages.

[Sara · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was looking forward to a thought-provoking, fascinating book. Instead what I read was a tasteless "expose". It was boring. And sex scandals are rarely boring. (Then again I didn't find the Milton scandal, altogether that scandalous...)
I would have enjoyed it more had they chosen to explore the story from the perspective of 'Zoe' (she was the fifteen year old Milton student, who brought statutory rape charges against five other Milton boys).
The student body seemed to believe that there should have been repercussions for her actions (the five boys were expelled, yet she was treated as a victim, and was allowed to return to school)-- as she had given head to large groups of boys, two other previous times directly before the infamous 'incident'-- and I thought the topic should have been pursued.

It remains uncertain as to whether or not she was pressured into it (I personally don't believe so, as it was implied that she did things like that quite a lot and continued to do them after returning to Milton)--but one thing is for sure: the Milton girls had no respect for themselves and the Milton boys had no respect for the girls there, either.

It was somewhat appalling to read about them. I'm a high school student, and I guess I'm blessed with the ability to say no to things I'm uncomfortable with. I talked to my brother after reading this book, as he graduated from a 'prestigious' prep school and I was curious as to whether this sort of thing was a normal occurrence. From what he said, they have sex, drink, and smoke whatever they can get... but none of them seem as hopelessly lost, as the girls and boys at Milton Academy seemed to be. And none of them get quite as crazy.

The book wasn't very well written, and it was boring. The author's seemed to be out of touch with the subject matter and teenagers. I finished it for the sake of finishing it; it was un-monumental and bland.

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

centerpiece incident, which I only very dimly remember but apparently was in the national news at the time, is 2005 case in which 5 boys from Milton Academy in Massachusetts (part boarding, part day student prep school) received oral sex from one underage girl. Authors are young women who graduated from Milton, though not in the same class as the kids focused on here.

They don't actually have new info on the main incident and apparently didn't get to interview in any depth any of the kids involved, so it serves as a slightly awkward hook for what the book ends up mainly being, an exceptionally detailed recap of senior year through the eyes of a half-dozen or so boys and girls in the class.

The focus is approximately 60% sexual relations among the classmates, actual or desired-but-not-happening, 30% binge drinking, 7% fretting about admissions to elite colleges, 2% cliques/"dumb hockey jocks"/"airhead pretty girls who like to shop" sociology, and 1% academics/activities (e.g., one of the principal characters writes for the school paper and seemed into it).

Not a lot of commentary from the authors. The one theme they touch on (repeatedly) is young girls' feeling pressured to have sex in the [mostly vain] hope that it will lead to romantic relationships. Important point, but one that could be made with 10% of the material rehashed (or maybe hashed for the first time -- any possibility some of these boys are exaggerating when recounting their h.s. sexual exploits?) here.

[Sara Parker · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this book up a couple times at bookstores because of the intriguing title..but always put it back thinking, "eh...its about high school kids and I've been out of high school for a little while now." This last time i decided, what the hell, and bought it. I was pleasantly surprised, it was pretty good. I suppose some things have changed since I graduated in 01...I don't remember sex being so casual among the majority, but I suppose I went to a small town type of high school. I wonder if it is still the same mentality today.....
I read this book over two or three days. Some of the characters got blurred in my head and I found myself asking, "who is this one? when did they hook up again? what was their story?" Aside from that, I could identify with many of the characters, reminding me of who I was back in high school and who I am today. I thought the "big scandal" was a little bit of a let down, I expected something a little more shocking, it was little different from much of the other stories..just resulting in a different outcome. Other than that, I greatly enjoyed the book.

Oh, I was mildly confused by the "discussion questions" in the back of the book...is this a course requirement somewhere to read and discuss? Are parents and children supposed to read this together and chat about sex? Oh well.

[Alex]

From the moment I checked this book out under the raised eyebrow of the librarian, I was challenged to recall those socially-obsessive years of high school. I heard an interview of the authors on a podcast and thought I might want to learn more. At first it seems this book presents a very sad dilemma for girls- be promiscuous and buoy your self-esteem with social acceptance or be virginal and filled with self-doubt and isolation. Towards the end it moves away from such a simple dichotomy, but it's a wonder girls survive this high school experience with their mental and physical health intact. The authors profiled girls and boys from the senior class of an elite private boarding and day school in MA that experienced a sex scandal involving one girl giving oral sex to five hockey players in the locker room. It was interesting to see how the school handled the situation- in response to the argument that the girl had consented, they said the number of boys created a pressurized environment. And while inherently the motive of social acceptance for sexual activity is the same across gender lines at least in this study, without being too prudish, I wonder how such an intimate act became so personally removed.