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

You can hardly open Google Reader these days without seeing someone loving The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks, and this will be no exception. Frankie is brilliant. Tired of being overlooked and underestimated, Frankie makes it her goal to infiltrate and undermine a secret, all-male society at her boarding school. She is often torn between being the girl people want her to be and being the girl she wants to be, but she does it all with flair. I really enjoyed the book a lot. I loved the wordplay and the smartness of it (I think Lockhart might do it better than John Green!) I enjoyed Frankie and was a wee bit in love with Alpha (the nemesis, if there were one.) I'm always a big fan of the boarding school setting and invariably end up comparing it to my boarding school experience. (My school had a lot more rules than Frankie's or Alaska's!)

The last chapter takes a turn towards introspection and trying to add something meaningful to the book and was totally unnecesary, but it didn't ruin the book for me. The book is quite a lot of fun with the planning and execution of the pranks, and the overall smartness of it all. I would have loved to read more about Frankie and think it would have made a great little series.

Here's the summary from the flap, if you're on the fence:

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.

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

Hyperion Books

2008

352 pages

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The Boyfriend List by E. Lockhart

As we have already established, I really enjoy Brotherhood 2.0. Several weeks ago for John's birthday, several YA author friends of his made him a birthday video. Yesterday I took the Monkey to the library, and while I was there picked up books by most of those writers- Maureen Johnson (though I already read 13 Little Blue Envelopes), E. Lockhart, Libby Bray, and I already own (but have not read) a Scott Westerfield. I read a David Levithan a few weeks ago. I also had An Abundance of Katherines by John Green waiting on hold for me.

I started with The Boyfriend List because it looked fast and I was feeling the need to boost my stats. It does turn out to be a quick little book. The cover says "(15 guys, 11 shrink appointments, 4 ceramic frogs and me, ruby oliver") and that's pretty much the premise. After an exceptionally tough week, Ruby starts seeing a shrink who has her make a list of every boyfriend, or near boyfriend, or rumored boyfriend, or boy she kinda liked, ever. The book is about what she learns about herself while talking about the list to the shrink. It's a cute book, but definately not the best YA I've read this year. There are footnotes from Ruby to the reader all through the book, and I found them really distracting. It looks like there is a sequel to it called The Boy Book, which is a book mentioned in The Boyfriend List. If it's on the shelf at the library I'll probably check it out, but I don't know that I'd pay for it.