Fabulous Finds: The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks

This Fabulous Find was on the list of books given to me by my professor in my YA Literature class. I have to be honest that I didn't even read the title when I saw the list. This particular title didn't scream "I'M AWESOME! READ ME!!!"  After reading a review on this book on a classmate's blog, I was intrigued and decided that I needed it on my Kindle at once.

 

The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart

 

 

Book Description of The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by Amazon.com:

 

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. 

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This is my book review for The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks:

 

Frankie is not your average teenage girl. She belongs to a good family and attends a prestigious boarding school. Somehow between the end of her freshman year and the start of her sophomore year, she blossomed into a real beauty with brains. The result of this is a senior classman being surprisingly interested in Frankie. She wins him over along with his buddies but is frequently irritated when he dismisses her as being adorable and not admiring her intellect. Frankie quickly discovers that her boyfriend and his friends are a part of a secret society equal to the likes of the mysterious brotherhoods of Harvard and Yale. (Of course they are.) She is vehemently upset that her boyfriend doesn't want to share any of that part of his life with her, and decides to go behind his back to integrate herself into his secret society.

 

That is the basic review. Now here is my opinions, when I read the synopsis I was eager to dive into this book. I was just as desperate to know what was going on with this secret society as Frankie was. (Just so you know, nothing much is going on.) However, I decided early on that Frankie is a bit more than I can handle. She's smart and apparently a knock-out overnight. She uses words that are bizarre and even other characters are asking her what she is talking about. She's dating Matthew for about a minute when she decides she doesn't like him having a life separate from her and decides she needs to be deeply involved in his secret society. Not to mention that every high school student at the boarding school has got to have super grades in vocabulary. Who talks like that with their friends, seriously? I don't care if you do belong to this awesomely expensive school. Teenagers don't typically use that type of vocabulary in the cafeteria.

 

I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone under the 7th grade. I don't really even have any books to compare it to at this point. I did find the book fabulous because it's an original idea and I like the storyline. I just wish I fell in love with it.

 

Until next time....Happy Reading!!

-CM (reading "The Maze Runner" by J. Dashner...again)