I didn’t much like Curtis Sittenfeld’s novel, “Prep.” I found Sittenfeld’s protagonist tedious and self-involved and humorless and devoid of growth through three hundred-plus pages. But thousands and thousands of people disagreed with me, connecting, I suppose, with the sense of alienation felt by Lee Fiora, an outsider at a prep school for rich kids. I’m glad for Sittenfeld, whom I know slightly, that her book did so well…but I couldn’t quite understand why.

Which is why I kind of enjoyed this Times review of Sittenfeld’s new book, “The Man of My Dreams”—because what Janet Maslin writes about this book pretty much what I thought of Prep. (Always nice to have your opinions validated.)

Let me quote:

Ms. Sittenfeld’s embrace of the unremarkable is even clingier the second time around. In “The Man of My Dreams” her drab heroine is made special mainly by endless reserves of myopia and self-pity. An amazing number of episodes involve pizza, despite the limited range of pizza as a literary device.

Nothing is too dull to be scrutinized by Hannah, whose passive-aggressive blahs are at the book’s mopey heart. Does Hannah think a manicure will lift her gloom? “She does have a fingernail clipper — that’s not festive, but it’s something. She returns to her desk chair, pulls the trash can in front of her, and sticks the tip of a nail into the jaw of the clipper. This doesn’t take long.” Oh no? It feels like forever.

I’m sure that somewhere the karma train will come back to run me over on this subject. (Though I’ve certainly had my share of bad reviews…or so I’m told. I try not to read them.)

But Prep seemed so dour and joyless…prose for the angry, sulky misfit wallowing in self-pity. I’d love to see Sittenfeld apply her considerable talent to something more ambitious.