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Summary
Summary
The hilarious and razor-sharp story of how one girl went from geek to patriarchy-smashing criminal mastermind in two short years, from the New York Times bestselling author of We Were Liars and Genuine Fraud .
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.
* National Book Award finalist * * Printz Honor * --
Author Notes
E. Lockhart is the author of We Were Liars, Fly on the Wall, Dramarama, The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks and the Ruby Oliver quartet: The Boyfriend List, The Boy Book, The Treasure Map of Boys, and Real Live Boyfriends. She also co-authored How to Be Bad with Lauren Myracle and Sarah Mlynowski.
Lockhart's Disreputable History was a Printz Award honor book, a finalist for the National Book Award, and recipient of the Cybils Award for best young adult novel.
Lockhart has a doctorate in English literature from Columbia University and currently teaches creative writing at Hamline University's MFA program in Writing for Children. In 2015 the title We Were Liars made the Silver Inky Awards shortlist.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (6)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Big ideas are an essential part of the fun in this sparkling tour de force. Back at her elite boarding school after a summer vacation in which she has grown from duckling to swan, sophomore Frankie starts dating cool, gorgeous senior Matthew and instantly becomes a part of his charmed social circle. Hanging with Matthew and his crowd is a thrill, but Frankie begins to chafe as she realizes that the boys are all members of the secret society to which her own father belonged, the Loyal Order of the Basset Hound, and that not only will they never let her join, Matthew will not even tell her about it. Lockhart (Dramarama; The Boyfriend List) dexterously juggles a number of smart and tantalizing themes-class and privilege, feminism and romance, wordplay and thought, friendship and loyalty-and combines the pacing of a mystery with writing that realizes settings and characters, large and small, with an artist's sure hand. Inspired by a class called Cities, Art and Protest, Frankie concocts a brilliant plan to infiltrate the Bassets and has them carry out a series of pranks that wittily challenge the politics of the school. Girls especially will be interested in this unusual portrait of a heroine who falls in love without blurring her sense of self, even if none of her friends understands her, and in Lockhart's fresh approach to gender politics. An exuberant, mischievous story, it scores its points memorably and lastingly. Ages 12-up. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
(High School) Alabaster Preparatory Academy sophomore Frankie Landau-Banks is cute, clever, and dating one of the most popular boys in school -- who also happens to be the co-leader of an all-male secret society on campus called the Loyal Order of the Basset Hounds. At first Frankie is content just to be Matthew Livingston's arm candy, but the more he keeps secrets from her -- seriously underestimating her intelligence -- the more restless she becomes. By impersonating Matthew's co-leader over e-mail, Frankie takes control of the Bassets, secretly engineering campus-wide pranks such as fastening bras on paintings of the school's founding fathers. Over the course of the story, Frankie transforms from being her family's "Bunny Rabbit" into "a person who liked to be notorious" -- a change that comes as a shock to her friends, family, school administration, and, most of all, to Frankie herself. Throughout the story, a clinical-sounding narrator addresses readers directly, giving the book a case-study vibe and presenting Frankie's struggles in a dispassionate way ("How does a person become the person she is?"; "she might, in fact, go crazy, as has happened to a lot of people who break rules"). Readers are left to make up their own minds about this unique, multifaceted individual while giving her the space -- and the attention -- she so craves. From HORN BOOK, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* In the summer between her freshman and sophomore years, Frankie Landau-Banks transforms from a scrawny, awkward child with frizzy hair to a curvy beauty, all while sitting quietly in a suburban hammock, reading the short stories of Dorothy Parker and drinking lemonade. On her return to Alabaster Prep, her elite boarding school, she attracts the attention of gorgeous Matthew, who draws her into his circle of popular seniors. Then Frankie learns that Matthew is a member of the Loyal Order of the Basset Hounds, an all-male Alabaster secret society to which Frankie's dad had once belonged. Excluded from belonging to or even discussing the Bassets, Frankie engineers her own guerilla membership by assuming a false online identity. Frankie is a fan of P. G. Wodehouse's books, and Lockhart's wholly engaging narrative, filled with wordplay, often reads like a clever satire about the capers of the entitled, interwoven with elements of a mystery. But the story's expertly timed comedy also has deep undercurrents. Lockhart creates a unique, indelible character in Frankie, whose oddities only make her more realistic, and teens will be galvanized by her brazen action and her passionate, immediate questions about gender and power, individuals and institutions, and how to fall in love without losing herself.--Engberg, Gillian Copyright 2008 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
LIFE in Mao Zedong's China is so exciting for little Moying Li. The grown-ups talk of a Great Leap Forward that will allow China to overtake Britain. Her family even gives over their lovely courtyard to a belching, smoky furnace so that the neighborhood can supply steel for the Great Leap. Neighbors contribute their cooking pots and cutlery for the cause. When Li's grandmother asks if anyone has seen her cleaver, the little girl proudly responds, "Yes, I helped our country with it." The family retrieves the big kettle and some spoons from the pile, but the cleaver, as she recalls, "had joined its comrades in the burning fire, doing its share for China." Everyone has a good laugh over that one. Then there is the war on the sparrows, a crusade to eliminate the accused scourge of crops. Li and her brother, Di Di, cheer lustily as her father's pellet gun fells one feathered threat after another. But things do not go as hoped. Making good steel, it turns out, is more difficult than it looks, and the government rejects the lot, leaving the neighbors downhearted and decidedly less' well equipped in their kitchens. As for the sparrows, well, the government had not considered the fact that sparrows eat insects. Crops are ravaged. In coming years, as a result of natural and man-made disasters, millions die. And then things really begin to get bad. Small tragedies are the prelude to great ones in "Snow Falling in Spring: Coming of Age in China During the Cultural Revolution," a memoir of the wrenching years of Mao. With the Olympics bringing renewed attention to China, it can be easy to forget the pain that went before, pain that occurred in living memory. But this memoir makes those times unforgettable. Simply and hauntingly told, the book is written for young readers, but adults can learn a great deal from it as well. Li is a child of privilege, from a family that values education. Her father is a screenwriter at a movie studio that makes state propaganda films. Yet this does not protect them once the Cultural Revolution begins, with its anti-intellectualism and its brutal cycles of denunciation and pain. Her father is arrested and sent to a labor camp, his precious books and records destroyed. "'Blue Danube'?" a soldier says, picking up an album from the turntable. "Don't you know all bourgeois music has been banned?" In fact, no one is safe. At school, her headmaster is beaten and later commits suicide. The deputy headmaster is humiliated as well; his 7-year-old daughter is forced to denounce him and beat him in front of the assembled students. Li describes a memory that captures her feelings: a storm. "Thunder crashed while lightning flashed in the distance." She runs in the rain and wind to a pavilion for shelter, but soon the storm strengthens even more, and the cold rain slashes sideways through the open pavilion, soaking her through. "I realized there was no safety here - the storm had engulfed everything." Even at the worst, however, something unbreakable is retained. From his labor camp, and at great risk, her father sends a reading list, and the names of the people he believes will still have the books he recommends. Li secretly ferrets out the books and reads them, relishing the humor in Mark Twain and feeling deeply the tragic betrayals and chaos in "King Lear." She reads as if her life depends on it and shares the books with her closest friends. She continues to practice English and even finds a friendly tutor to sharpen her writing skills. When the Cultural Revolution dies out and its planners, the Gang of Four, are tried, opportunities reopen. Because she has kept the flame of learning alive, Li is prepared to seize the opportunities that await; she passes college entrance exams and is one of the first students to be allowed to study in the West. She now lives in Boston, where she works at an investment management firm. After living 26 years in the United States - as many years as she had lived in China before leaving - she goes back to visit her homeland. The courtyard, home of her childhood games and the forge, has been bulldozed. "It was like discovering that a dear friend had died and realizing I had been robbed of the last chance to say goodbye." The world of young adult literature is rife with shallow troubles and what the singer Ben Folds calls "unearned unhappiness." Here is the real thing, a world up-ended and filled with horrors and viciousness. And yet the story is told without melodrama or pathos; instead, the even tone allows the terror to stand on its own. For many readers a little outside reading would help to place the story in its historical context, but they will be gripped by it either way. At its essence, this is a book about the value of reading - to escape, to learn, to be sustained and to grow. Young readers who take "Snow Falling in Spring" to heart will know more about China when they are done. But they just might pull down a volume of Twain as well. '"Blue Danube"?' a soldier says. 'Don't you know all bourgeois music has been banned?' John Schwartz, a reporter at The Times, writes about science and technology.
School Library Journal Review
Gr 7 Up-Frankie Landau-Banks has always been underestimated. After spending her childhood as a bright but sheltered ugly duckling, she begins sophomore year at her elite boarding school as a swan, catching the attention of senior Matthew Livingston. Frankie is ecstatic, particularly when she learns that he is the leader of the Loyal Order of the Basset Hounds, an all-male secret society. She spends most of her time with Matthew and his friends but soon realizes that no matter how smart or funny she may be, she will never truly be a part of the group, simply because she is a girl. This frustrates her to no end. In a remarkable turn of events, Frankie takes control and begins to direct the Bassets, through email, in a series of elaborate school pranks, revitalizing the Order and the student body as well. These ingenious pranks embody the vigor of Frankie's personality, making social commentary on everything from the school's lack of female leadership to its disgusting cafeteria salad bar. Lockhart has created a layered and engrossing story that is as smart and quick as Frankie, combining the thrilling prospect of how she will get caught with her earnest attempts to understand what it means to be an outsider, an underdog, and in love. An empowered female hero like Frankie is a rare and refreshing find. She is the ultimate feminist role model for teens: a girl with guts and imagination who's brave enough to take on the "old boy's club."-Emily Anne Valente, New York Public Library (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
This cerebral and offbeat comedy of manners will appeal to fans of John Green's An Abundance of Katherines (2006). Spunky boarding-school sophomore Frances "Frankie" Landau-Banks is tired of being underestimated by the men in her life, including her upperclassman boyfriend Matthew and his wittier-than-thou friends. Inspired by P.G. Wodehouse's Code of the Woosters, she infiltrates Matthew's secret and exclusive male club--The Loyal Order of the Basset Hounds--and, unbeknownst to them, begins orchestrating their elaborate pranks. She hopes the boys will be awed by her ingenuity and finally acknowledge her brains as well as her recently developed body. But Matthew & Co. are less than pleased to discover Frankie's deception, and she learns the hard way that "it's better to be alone . . . than to be with someone who can't see who you are." Lockhart has transcended the chick-lit genre with this adroit, insightful examination of the eternal adolescent push-pull between meekly fitting in and being liked or speaking out and risking disdain. A funny feminist manifesto that will delight the anti-Gossip Girl gang. (Fiction. YA) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
