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A review by carlisajc
The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart
3.0
E. LOCKHART AND PRINTZ HONOR REQUIREMENT
This is a story of a girl—Frankie Landau Banks—trying to make her way through her boarding school. She starts her sophomore year and the boy of her dreams, Matthew Livingston, suddenly notices her and they start dating. She soon finds out that he's part of a secret, all-male society...that she isn't allowed to be a part of, or even know about. So she tries to take it down from the outside in.
I liked this book well enough, but overall I was kind of let down by it. To me, Frankie was in the same place she was in the end. She didn't really change at all. I kind of just felt like this book was 300+ pages of Frankie preaching feminism to me. Which sure, I'm all about the feminist movement...but that was her entire character. And her feminism didn't even seem legitimate, as every time she had a feminist thought, she'd attribute it to her older sister. Bah. Also, her boyfriend was a jerk, and treated her awfully...but she never really noticed?
The only things I still remember about her is this extreme-feminism and her weird word-building. She makes up words by adding or taking off prefixes, and it's probably supposed to be endearing or quirky...but honestly, I was just annoyed by it and thought it was rather pretentious. Like, for example, she takes off the prefix of "impetuous" (meaning hot-headed or impulsive) and says "petuous," which according to Frankie means careful. But she says these things and knows that whoever she's talking to has to ask, giving her that supremely triumphant feeling.
So, overall, I just was kind of annoyed by Frankie. Despite this, it's well-written and has an interesting concept. Also it's won a lot of awards, so don't take my annoyance as absolute truth.
This is a story of a girl—Frankie Landau Banks—trying to make her way through her boarding school. She starts her sophomore year and the boy of her dreams, Matthew Livingston, suddenly notices her and they start dating. She soon finds out that he's part of a secret, all-male society...that she isn't allowed to be a part of, or even know about. So she tries to take it down from the outside in.
I liked this book well enough, but overall I was kind of let down by it. To me, Frankie was in the same place she was in the end. She didn't really change at all. I kind of just felt like this book was 300+ pages of Frankie preaching feminism to me. Which sure, I'm all about the feminist movement...but that was her entire character. And her feminism didn't even seem legitimate, as every time she had a feminist thought, she'd attribute it to her older sister. Bah. Also, her boyfriend was a jerk, and treated her awfully...but she never really noticed?
The only things I still remember about her is this extreme-feminism and her weird word-building. She makes up words by adding or taking off prefixes, and it's probably supposed to be endearing or quirky...but honestly, I was just annoyed by it and thought it was rather pretentious. Like, for example, she takes off the prefix of "impetuous" (meaning hot-headed or impulsive) and says "petuous," which according to Frankie means careful. But she says these things and knows that whoever she's talking to has to ask, giving her that supremely triumphant feeling.
So, overall, I just was kind of annoyed by Frankie. Despite this, it's well-written and has an interesting concept. Also it's won a lot of awards, so don't take my annoyance as absolute truth.