The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks - E. Lockhart
Book Synopsis:
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.
Frankie is a real spit-fire; she’s clever, crafty, got moxie, but not that smart when it comes to creating her own words by taking out a few letters. Example, disgruntled becomes gruntled with the exact opposite definition from the first word.
I breezed through this book; it was 100% a page turner. There was only one thing that I didn’t understand about this book and was upset to find out that the author didn’t bother to tie up this loose end. The fact that Alpha did not remember Frankie from the beach boardwalk is so annoying. It more that miffed me, and E. Lockhart did not provide any explanation for the readers.
Matthew Livingston was another problem for me, I just did not understand why he was suddenly attracted to a sophomore like Frankie, and he was so dense that he couldn’t even figure out that his girlfriend was the real mastermind in the grand scheme of things. Seriously. I bet anything that Matthew could not even tell that he was on the verge of losing his girlfriend by lying straight to her face. What really bothered me though, was that Matthew was controlling and sort of a prick especially how he would tell Frankie to stop being so sensitive and correct her grammar like he was above her.
I wasn’t too pleased with the ending because I felt that Frankie should’ve gotten a better ending, but even so I thought that this book was great. The relationship between Frankie and Zada was perfect. At sixteen, Frankie acted in a way that was appropriate for her age, and having an older sister like Zada to look out for her was a nice touch. I felt that the lying, sneaking around, and scheming were essential parts of the book and brought dimension to the characters.
The Loyal Order of the Basset Hounds was the most interesting concept for a secret society of male students from Alabaster. If I were Frankie, I probably wouldn’t have gone so far and took things to the extreme by messing with Alpha and his dogs. Pun intended. She was a genius, and although Frankie didn’t get the typical happy ending you see in fairy-tales where she ends up with the guy of her dreams, she did learn more about herself and that she could be someone without a man by her side.
Rating: ★★★★☆