The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks

This fun read was on display in the adult section of the library and it was only after I was zipping along in it that I noticed it was labeled a "teen" book and even had a sticker claiming it an honor book for the Printz Award (young adult). I guess I should have guessed from the title, but all I can say is this is a great cross-over novel by E. Lockhart, a fun summer read (though I can't help thinking of the Lockhart from Harry Potter when I hear the author's name)

Frankie Landau-Banks is a precocious girl at boarding school in the present day, but boarding school always gives a sense of being a throw back in time and Frankie is really into PG Wodehouse which also gives it an old-fashioned feel. Any book that quotes Wodehouse is going to appeal to me anyway, and Frankie so admires his wordplay that she starts to use what she calls "the neglected positive" of words. That is, if you can be disgruntled, than why not use "gruntled" to mean the opposite. If you can be inept, than at times you must be "ept." That's one of the things I love about Wodehouse, and how cute to see a teenager doing the same thing. But yeah, that makes her a bit of a geek. She makes up for her intelligence and skewed sense of humor by being beautiful, but she's still not appreciated by all. Frankie's okay with that. She wasn't a person who needed to be liked so much as she was a person who liked to be notorious.

Here's what Frankie does that ends up making her notorious (and not very well-liked): She infiltrates the somewhat silly and not entirely effectual "old boy" network known as the Loyal Order of the Bassett Hounds. Her boyfriend is the co-king of the secret order and at first she is a bit envious of his secret-from-her role, and later she is annoyed by how lame the group is and how much better she could run it. Stealthily she takes it over, pranks and all. Her best pranks cause the headmaster to give a "tedious speech...explaining that there were appropriate and inappropriate ways to express a desire for change in one's community, and there were appropriate and innappropriate ways to express artistic inclination; and the two were different kinds of expression with different appropriate contexts. However, neither one should involve the infiltration of abandoned buildings, playing with electricity, the mockery of invited guest lecturers, or the delivery of perishable food to public spaces at inopportune times."
Frankie is both the kind of girl I would have loved to be and realistically dumb in some of her desires and actions.

It's mostly gentle pranking she initiates, though there are some deep consequences for her and those around her. The book is a realistic portrayal of late high school age without being dully normal. I love Lockhart's description of one of the characters: He was "Alpha in the morning," unshaven and scraggle-haired, taking up space just in the way he loaded his tray with breakfast--dashing across the room for butter, calling to the caf lady to please yelp at him when the new bacon came out, drinking his tea while he waited for his toast to pop, balancing his tray under one arm like a football." I didn't know this kind of character until college, but I recognize him. Frankie's a teen in many ways, and I'd be curious to hear feedback from an actual young adult who read this, but E. Lockhart writes a book that any age can enjoy.