BookChick Recommends “Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks”
You know those hypothetical questions where someone asks “If you could be any character from a book who would it be?” I have my answer now that I’ve read E. Lockhart’s “The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks.” The answer is Frankie Landau Banks because she is a modern-day rabble-rouser, a provocateur, a troublemaker in the best, most playful sense of the word. Frankie Landau-Banks is a sophomore at the prestigious Alabaster Prep school in Massachusetts (think Exeter, Andover, etc.) when she learns about the Loyal Order of the Basset Hounds, an all-male secret society at her school. She’s fascinated with the camaraderie of the boys in it, their clubbiness, but also their exclusivity. She infiltrates the group and begins commanding them to commit a series of fantastic pranks across the school, all without them having a clue she’s the mastermind. And yet it keeps gnawing at her that the only reason she can’t be in this group is because she has boobs. Frankie is a feminist, a malcontent, someone who will always question the social order. And that’s something we need to see from time to time in young adult literature.
