The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks

The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks, by E. Lockhart

Frankie Landau-Banks at age 14:
Debate Club.
Her father's "bunny rabbit."
A mildly geeky girl attending a highly competitive boarding school.

Frankie Landau-Banks at age 15:
A knockout figure.
A sharp tongue.
A chip on her shoulder.
And a gorgeous new senior boyfriend: the supremely goofy, word-obsessed Matthew Livingston.

Frankie Landau-Banks.
No longer the kind of girl to take "no" for an answer.
Especially when "no" means she's excluded from her boyfriend's all-male secret society.
Not when her ex-boyfriend shows up in the strangest of places.
Not when she knows she's smarter than any of them.
When she knows Matthew's lying to her.
And when there are so many, many pranks to be done.

Frankie Landau-Banks, at age 16:
Possibly a criminal mastermind.

This is the story of how she got that way.

This is not your average coming of age story - initially, I was a bit thrown by how bland the heroine was - she's basically this petulant adolescent, kinda whiny, completely focused on boys. And that's sort of how she stays - the whole book is one long look at boys. But then you begin to realize that that's the whole point - Frankie is doing all this looking, but it's not the kind of looking most girls are doing, it's the kind of looking that's taking stock and making plans. There's a point early on in the book that won me over - Frankie is at a party, invited by her upper-classman almost boyfriend, and it's just terrible, a bunch of guys doing dumb things and thinking they're funny. The narrator says that there are there are two types of reactions in this situation - pretend you're having a great time and fit in with the boys, or get out and stick with what you like doing - and Frankie chooses neither option. That statement rang so true to me, I couldn't help but enjoy Frankie's unique solution to the problem. That, and her thoughts about the Old Boys Club seemed very realistic, the anger from being excluded for such silly reasons. And of course, you can't protest without being labeled as lame or whiny or so on.

The pace picks up after a slow beginning, and you really begin to appreciate Frankie's imagination (even if I don't really empathize with the extent of her burning desire to be a part of the boys club, I do understand it). There were a lot of scenes which came across so vividly, I felt like I was really there - the action really kicks up the pace of the plot. Luckily there was a lot of humor in it, thanks to Frankie's plans and her own inner thoughts. DHoFLB is almost entirely from her point of view (although we do have an omniscient watcher commenting sometimes), which is good, because the scenes between Frankie and her boyfriend are so terrible that they could only be forgiven by hearing Frankie's unusual (and sane) take on things. I have to say that I was pleased by the ending, because one of the things I hated most about Frankie was that she was putting all this effort into, basically, trying to impress these guys, and I didn't think that there was any way for it to be worth it. So I was pleasantly surprised by the ending, which was fairly realistic, I think, and gave me (and Frankie) more to think about in terms of what she was trying to accomplish, and the worthwhile-ness of it.

So all in all, a fun read, and a thoughtful treatment of a topic which isn't normally discussed in teen books. There are very few things that Frankie and I have in common, but I still felt sympathetic to her, which is impressive. I can only hope that we may someday be treated to another Frankie story, possibly when she's grown up some, and in charge of her own criminal organization.