The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks

by E. Lockhart

book data

2,018 ratings, 3.98 average rating, 754 reviews (more data...)

rating	frequency	%
5		31%
4		42%
3		21%
2		4%
1		1%

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published

March 25th 2008 by Hyperion

binding

Hardcover, 342 pages

characters

Frankie Landau-Banks, Matthew Livingston

literary awards

Printz Honor 2009, National Book Award Finalist 2008, Cybils Award in YA Fiction 2008

isbn

0786838183 (isbn13: 9780786838189)

description

Frankie Landau-Banks at age 14:Debate Club.Her father’s “bunny rabbit.”
A mildly geeky girl attending a highly competitive boarding school....more

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04/24/08

Kevin Fanning rated it:

I'm not even done with it yet, but stop what you're doing and start reading this book.

From an email to Sarah:

I am reading The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks. If the 2nd half is 1/3 as good as the first half has been, it'll be one of favorite books of all time. That's math right there. It's SO GOOD. It's about the battle between good and evil in a teenage girl's soul. I.e. the warring factions of "OMG that boy is so cute I can't believe he wants to kiss...more

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05/03/08

Emily rated it:

Read in August, 2008

Frankie Landau-Banks does for the patriarchy what Little Brother does for homeland security. It's a guide for the uninitiated (Michel Foucault with training wheels!), a call to arms, and a manual for taking action against it.

It also has some great pranks in it.

Frankie is a sophomore at Alabaster, one of the nation's best preparatory schools, which is filled mostly with people who are white, protestant, and richer than God. Over the course of the summer she suddenly beco...more Frankie Landau-Banks does for the patriarchy what Little Brother does for homeland security. It's a guide for the uninitiated (Michel Foucault with training wheels!), a call to arms, and a manual for taking action against it.

It also has some great pranks in it.

Frankie is a sophomore at Alabaster, one of the nation's best preparatory schools, which is filled mostly with people who are white, protestant, and richer than God. Over the course of the summer she suddenly becomes hot, and catches the eye of Matthew Livingston, who is cute, and powerful, and rich, and funny.

He also happens to be one of the Kings of Alabaster's secret (and all-male) Loyal Order of Basset Hounds. Frankie knows, vaguely, about the Hounds - her father was one - but when she comes to realize that she'll always just be a girl in Matthew's social circle, there to be adorable but never powerful, always underestimated, always disposable, always erasable, she decides to mastermind the Basset Hounds' return to their former pranking glory.

It's icing on the cake if she can finally get some decent vegetables in the salad bar.

This doesn't do justice to how well Lockhart writes about the social order. I couldn't get into Tamora Pierce because she is writing about the overt, out-loud sexism to which I've never really been exposed. But I've lived through what Lockhart is talking about: the way you pretend it's interesting to watch your guy friends play video games because you don't want to be relegated to the role of that girl who bakes crumbles while her guy friends are playing video games. The way that you get subtly ignored and underestimated.

And what's cool is that for all it's such a feminist book, Frankie is allowed to read gossip magazines, and paint her nails, and basically - she's allowed to be stereotypically feminine AND bring down the patriarchy. I don't do stereotypical femininity very well, but that only has so much to do with feminism. It's NOT about the big power structures that Frankie goes up against. And Frankie is also allowed to be prideful, and insecure, and way too much in love for her own good, and that never undermines who she is as a criminal mastermind.

One of the year's best YA books.(less)

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11/24/08

Becky rated it:

Read in November, 2008

I may get a few boos for this one. But I couldn't quite like it*. Blame it on the tense. Third person past tense (as far as I can reckon). Or blame it on the expostulating tone, purposefully pretentious and off-putting. A blend of intelligence and condescension. It's not like every page was of this style, but there were little asides by the narrator--I suppose it's the narrator--that just intruded in on the story. Created too much distance for my taste. Added in too much reflection.

...more I may get a few boos for this one. But I couldn't quite like it*. Blame it on the tense. Third person past tense (as far as I can reckon). Or blame it on the expostulating tone, purposefully pretentious and off-putting. A blend of intelligence and condescension. It's not like every page was of this style, but there were little asides by the narrator--I suppose it's the narrator--that just intruded in on the story. Created too much distance for my taste. Added in too much reflection.

How does a person become the person she is? What are the factors in her culture, her childhood, her education, her religion, her economic stature, her sexual orientation, her race, her everyday interactions--what stimuli lead her to make choices other people will despise her for?
This chronicle is an attempt to mark out the contributing elements in Frankie Landau-Banks's character. What led her to do what she did: things she would later view with a curious mixture of hubris and regret. Frankie's mental processes had been stimulated by Ms. Jensson's lectures on the panopticon , her encounters with Alpha, her mother's refusal to let her walk into town on the Jersey Shore, her observation of the joy Matthew took in rescuing her from her bicycle accident, and her anger at Dean for not remembering her. All these were factors in what happened next... (107)

I do like several things about it however. I just have a love-hate relationship with the narrative style. There are paragraphs that I love, and there are paragraphs that I hate. Phrases that I think are a bit too much, and phrases that I think are just right. I like how the first chapter begins, for example, "Though not, in hindsight, so startling as the misdeeds she would perpetrate when she returned to boarding school as a sophomore, what happened to Frankie Landau-Banks the summer after her freshman year was a shock." I think both the prologue and the first few chapters offer quite a hook or incentive to readers.

Frankie is a boarding school student whose sophomore year presents great opportunities for adventure and misadventure. She'll experience the ups and downs of having a relationship with a "popular" boy, a real somebody. Rich too. Her old friendships will be threatened by the aforementioned relationship and all that brings about. Frankie is smart. She's determined. She's got her own way of seeing the world. And none of those things are bad. All quite good actually.

It's not Frankie that I dislike but the meddling narrator who likes to tell instead of show.

*I'll qualify this statement. Based on the all the buzz, the hype, I couldn't "like" it as much as I "should". See, this is one that has been getting love all over the place. People saying it's the best of the best, one of the year's must-reads. A book people are just raving about. I didn't think it was that good, that deserving. But it's a good read. A solid read. I wouldn't put this one in my top ten of the year. I probably wouldn't even have it in the top twenty. But it is a good book all the same. In other words, I've read dozens and dozens that I disliked more than this one.

This is neither here nor there. But one of the things I found unbelievable was that Frankie's sister, Zada, took her under her wing. Zada's a senior. Frankie was a freshman. She let Frankie sit with her and her junior and senior friends at lunch. She allowed Frankie to tag along with her. To be a part of her "cool" set of friends. I have a hard time believing that even a good sister would do this. I shared two years of school with my sister, we overlapped two years I mean, and never once would I have been encouraged/allowed to sit with her at lunch. To hang out with her friends at school. It was one thing to be allowed to tag along after school (on occasion) or at home.

© Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews (less)

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01/08/09

Sara rated it:

bookshelves: 2009, did-not-finish, young-adult

Read in January, 2009

recommends it for: no one

Blah. Having heard so much good buzz about this book (and this author), I decided to check it out. Unfortunately, I couldn't even finish the book, and it makes me wonder why this book is on anyone's list of the best books of the year. The writing style irritated me, as it was trying overly hard to be cutesy and funny, with lots of paragraphs reading like, "She thought ____. Then ______. And then ____." Lame. Furthermore, I didn't even like any of the characters, and Frankie (the...more

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05/18/08

Meg rated it:

bookshelves: ya

Read in July, 2008

The library loaned me an ARC! Bad library! Reading it anyway.

Now that I'm finished:

I feel like someone poured my head out into a book. And then revised it for the consumption of myself, age 11. You guys I am seriously considering building a time machine for the sole purpose of bringing this book back to myself as a preteen. It would have soothed a lot of nerves, I can tell you that, and then about ten years later it would have served as a memory-beacon. E. Lockhart just t...more

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10/30/08

zan rated it:

bookshelves: recent-favorites

Read in March, 2009

Next time I see a 15-year-old girl reading Twilight, I will promptly yoink it from her hands and replace it with this. (As long as she's not already dressed as a vampire.)

Like this review? yes (6 people liked it)

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03/27/08

Rachael rated it:

Read in March, 2008

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

According to the back cover, Frankie Landau-Banks as a freshman in high school was a slightly geeky girl in the Debate Club. But when she comes back the next year, nobody recognizes her because now she fills out her shirt. And that grabs the attention of a certain senior boy named Matthew Livingston, who soon becomes Frankie’s boyfriend.

But Frankie isn’t content. Matthew often acts distant and doesn’t treat her like an intelligent human being. So one day when he cancels their d...more According to the back cover, Frankie Landau-Banks as a freshman in high school was a slightly geeky girl in the Debate Club. But when she comes back the next year, nobody recognizes her because now she fills out her shirt. And that grabs the attention of a certain senior boy named Matthew Livingston, who soon becomes Frankie’s boyfriend.

But Frankie isn’t content. Matthew often acts distant and doesn’t treat her like an intelligent human being. So one day when he cancels their date, she follows him and discovers that he’s a member of an all-male secret society. Frankie wants in, but there’s no way she can without him Matthew out that she lied to him. Frankie knows she has the brains to get in, so she creates a false email account through which she directs the secret society into performing various pranks.

Although these pranks have the desired effect of reforming some of the school’s practices, no one seems to understand the significance, and whenever Frankie tries to explain it, people write her off as thinking too hard. And of course, the pranks can’t last forever. Someone has to step up and take the blame.

The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks was an incredible novel and one that I won’t forget for a long time because it provided a lot of food for thought. It got me thinking about concepts I never would’ve thought of before. Frankie’s character is a mad genius and a work of art by E. Lockhart. I don’t think I’ve ever read a novel with such an amazing and unique character as Frankie is. It was kind of strange how fast Frankie thought, but that is just part of her character. The ending was only slightly surprising, but then it was foreshadowed.

I highly recommend this novel to everyone, and it has become one of my favorites. Those who like secret societies such as the one in Secret Society Girl by Diana Peterfreund will enjoy reading about the Loyal Order of the Basset Hound. Readers who like the boarding school setting will also enjoy this novel. I look forward to reading more novels by E. Lockhart, and all of you should look forward to when this novel comes out on the 25th of March.(less)

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01/05/09

Lizzie rated it:

bookshelves: young-adult

Read in January, 2009

Christmas present from Meg! Good job Meg!

So obviously the 5-star jaw-drop quality this one has for me was its ability to gel extremely well-thought arguments of gender expectations into an adorable story. There's usually so much footing around when fiction goes after social imbalances, like here with male privilege and regular privilege. Or like, they pick ONE RANT and do that one, as if it's easier to understand when it's simplified. I think it's actually so much easier to under...more

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10/21/08

Michael rated it:

bookshelves: all-time-favorites, childrens-lit

Read in October, 2008

So, so good. And about real, complicated issues.

This has been a year of important teen novels (I count Little Brother among those), stories that pick up the notion of civil disobedience and make it fresh, fun, and relevant for younger readers. This is one of those books. Happily, it's also about many other things: gender roles; power relationships; self-worth v. value assigned by position in society; the ability of smart acts of guerrilla art to provoke thought; how inclusion and ex...more So, so good. And about real, complicated issues.

This has been a year of important teen novels (I count Little Brother among those), stories that pick up the notion of civil disobedience and make it fresh, fun, and relevant for younger readers. This is one of those books. Happily, it's also about many other things: gender roles; power relationships; self-worth v. value assigned by position in society; the ability of smart acts of guerrilla art to provoke thought; how inclusion and exclusion affect people; language and how it controls our thinking; Foucault notions of discipline and punishment; the desire to be loved v. the desire to be recognized for who you are; how women are still pigeon-holed, diminished, made less by men's expectations and their own.

And there's more, much more, but listed this way makes the book sound like dry, heady stuff, and it is anything but. Lockhart's great achievement here is that she's talking about all of this material by telling us the story of a girl who longs to be more than is expected of her.
Frankie's story is told with real wit and grace and never loses sight of why we read in the first place: Because we want to know what happens to a person we're interested in.

I've a favorite line from an Alain de Botton book in which he's writing about Montaigne's essays: "We pick our friends not only because they are kind and enjoyable company, but also, perhaps more importantly, because they understand us for who we think we are." Or, in this case, who we want to be.

I'm not even going to discuss the plot, which has hijinks and romance (which guy will she choose? or will she choose either? etc.) and humor and other good things.

Anyway, a great teen novel.

(Bonus kvetch: A few readers I know found the opening pages cold and off-putting, and they stopped reading.

Fools.

Yes, initially, the tone of this novel may seem a bit distant—there's an almost clinical aspect to the voice that may rebuff readers who expect their teen lit to be whorishly easy to cozy up to—but that distance is illusory and quickly falls away. The voice here is what one should expect from a interested-but-superficially-dispassionate chronicler (who would pen a book entitled The Disreputable History of...), and that the reader warms up to Frankie as fast as we do is a sign of just how fantastically well put-together this novel is.)(less)

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08/21/08

Sonia rated it:

bookshelves: ya

Read in October, 2008

First of all, I agree with feminism and equal opportunities and all that, and I appreciate that this book had a "girl power" theme, but the main character was not a good representation of an admirable woman. She was intelligent and competative, but was also the worst stereotype of a jealous, conniving, sneaky bitch. I thought she made girls look totally bad. She was jealous that her boyfriend was in a secret all-male social club, and was somehow insulted that she wasn't invited and ...more First of all, I agree with feminism and equal opportunities and all that, and I appreciate that this book had a "girl power" theme, but the main character was not a good representation of an admirable woman. She was intelligent and competative, but was also the worst stereotype of a jealous, conniving, sneaky bitch. I thought she made girls look totally bad. She was jealous that her boyfriend was in a secret all-male social club, and was somehow insulted that she wasn't invited and that he wouldn't tell her about it. Frankie, it's a secret boys club! Start your own secret girls club! That's my opinion. She was so annoying. If a character said something like, for example, "boys are more agressive than girls because of their testosterone"—which is true, right? (I personally believe there wouldn't be any wars if there weren't any men) she jumped all over them with a smart rebuttal. Her boyfriend couldn't even call her "adorable" or give her his shirt to wear without arising the debate of: is he marking his territory or does he respect her for her mind? These are good questions to ask, but the problem I have is, I did not buy that Frankie was in love with Matthew at all, even though the book said she was. The book also did not acknowledge any such thing as chemistry between them. Frankie was all sore that Matthew's buddies had higher status than she did with him; how DARE he put them before HER when she has been going out with him for THREE WHOLE MONTHS! OMG! Maybe another reason I didn't connect with Frankie was the brisk tone of the book. Her story was chronicled with a hip, journalistic brevity. My last thoughts: guys love to do guy things; what's wrong with that? They will play video games and watch sports till the end of time, and ignore their women while doing it. Frankie, ironically, seemed so needy. I thought Frankie went about making her point in the wrong way (she basically broke a lot of rules) and ultimately, it was about getting the attention of the boys. (less)

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02/05/09

Lars rated it:

Read in February, 2009

Why are we as readers so drawn to tales of the prettier, richer and more privileged? Haven't answered that one, but I was certainly drawn to this highly entertaining example. Frankie is a timid, plain-Jane Jewish girl who blossoms (physically and intellectually) in her sophomore year at an exclusive and Waspy secondary boarding school. She finds herself accepted by the top layer of the high school social order and wins a boyfriend who represents the pinnacle of the old boy network. But she's...more

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07/01/08

Donalyn rated it:

bookshelves: ya--realistic-fiction

Read in January, 2009

Frankie Landau-Banks is a sweet girl with brains, looks, and more money than some. She goes to an exclusive prep school and has tons of friends. The problem is-- everyone underestimates her and Frankie is tired of it.

When Frankie discovers a secret all boys club, the Loyal Order of the Bassett Hounds, at her school (her father was a Bassett back in the 70's), she is determined to take over control of the club and prove that girls (particularly her) are every bit as ambitious, brainy,...more

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11/22/08

Ron rated it:

bookshelves: humor, prep-school, young-adult

Read in November, 2008

I wish I had been able to read more books like this when I was actually in high school. Like Cory Doctorow in Little Brother, E. Lockhart doesn't just write about adolescent rebellion, she makes a great philosophical argument for it, but hers is cultural rather than overtly political.

And, let's face it, how many other YA novels are going to cite P.G. Wodehouse and Michel Foucault?

But if The Disreputable History were purely didactic, it would be a tremendously boring book-...more

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10/31/08

Scott rated it:

bookshelves: favorites, older-teens, young-adult-books, younger-teens

Read in October, 2008

E. Lockhart is amazing. She took the gender-role of teenage girls and flipped it on it's ear. She gave us a smart character (mentally) who is still a teenage girl who wants and needs to be accepted socially. So when we see her making boneheaded choices, it makes sense and we feel bad for her and root for her because we know she can do better. And then, slowly, great pacing BTW, Lockhart and her protagonist Frankie Landau-Banks slam the reader with a joyful heaping of anarachy from Landau-Banks m...more

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08/25/08

Jordan rated it:

Read in September, 2008

What? The end of this book seriously confused me. A lot of this book confused me. It’s a fast-paced, fun story - reading it felt like watching tv - but throughout the book I kept catching myself having had completely misread main character Frankie’s intentions. By the end of the book, I had no sense of her at all. She just wants to be respected! Wait, noooo, she did it all for love! So she actually liked that guy? I thought she liked the other guy. Nope, nope, she doesn’t like anyone, beca...more

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02/13/09

Jackie "the Librarian" rated it:

bookshelves: awardwinners, youngadult

Read in February, 2009

This Printz Honor book is slyly humorous, and very subversive. Frankie goes to the same exclusive prep school her father attended, and she knows from his stories that it is part of the old boys' network. His connections have made him very successful in his career. And it all started with his membership in a secret society at school.
However, while the school now admits girls, the society does not. Which really torques Frankie, who is getting much more attention from the boys since she had a...more

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01/09/09

Angie rated it:

Read in January, 2009

I read The Boyfriend List awhile back and enjoyed it but somehow didn't make it on to its sequel, The Boy Book, or any of E. Lockhart's other titles. Then The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks came out and there was just so much buzz. And then it was named a finalist for the National Book Award. So I figured I'd better pick it up. Fortunately, Santa brought it to my home this year so I was able to jump right in.

Frankie is a sophomore at Alabaster Prep, super exclusive boar...more I read The Boyfriend List awhile back and enjoyed it but somehow didn't make it on to its sequel, The Boy Book, or any of E. Lockhart's other titles. Then The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks came out and there was just so much buzz. And then it was named a finalist for the National Book Award. So I figured I'd better pick it up. Fortunately, Santa brought it to my home this year so I was able to jump right in.

Frankie is a sophomore at Alabaster Prep, super exclusive boarding school for the children of the elite. Ever since she was a kid, Frankie had heard her father and his cronies go on about a mysterious secret society known as the Loyal Order of the Basset Hounds. Once she starts at Alabaster it becomes clear that the Order is alive and thriving and open only to males. When she suddenly gains a few curves in the right places and a snazzy new boyfriend to go with them, Frankie becomes aware in a way she hadn't been up to this point in her life. And when the darling boyfriend starts evading her all the time, haring off to locales unspecified with other guys she just knows are in the Order, she decides to follow him. What she discovers from following Matthew (and the subsequent actions she puts into motion) change Frankie (and the Order) permanently. For the better? That's up to the reader. I say yes, but the whole thing is still painful to watch.

I am a bit conflicted over this book. For a variety of reasons. I felt like it really wanted to be Secret Society Girl meets Looking for Alaska. Not the best combination, IMO. This wasn't helped by the fact that I kept picturing Alpha (my favorite character) as The Colonel in my head. I usually quite like third person present narration, but in this case it felt slightly contrived, particularly since Frankie never gelled into a tangible character for me. I laughed several times while reading and I liked Frankie but I didn't love her. I liked her for her dogged attempt to wade through the ever shifting waters of a rather assaultive adolescence and an unsympathetically exclusionary pack of boys who told her they liked her but clearly didn't know her at all, nor did they seem to care to. Despite these obstacles, or perhaps because of them, she managed to carve out a place where she could be herself, free from manipulation. I liked her combative and compelling relationship with Alpha. In fact, I wanted more of that and less mooning over lackluster Matthew. But the book ended just when things were getting interesting. I suspect I would really enjoy a sequel.(less)

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10/13/08

Virginia rated it:

Read in October, 2008

A story about a weak chick whose world revolves around what guys want her to do.

Like this review? yes (2 people liked it)

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11/03/08

Alisa rated it:

Read in October, 2008

I almost hated this book. The way it starts, the voice, the aggressively prep school setting, just turned me off, off, off. I was sorry I had even started it. But since a book has to be both very very bad and very very long for me to give up on it, I resigned myself to the slog.

When early on Frankie confesses an appreciation for Code of the Woosters,I was tempted to cut her some slack. And eventually the Righteousness of Wodehouse-Reading prevailed. This was actually a provoking and...more

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08/04/08

Rebecca rated it:

bookshelves: children---ya, mystery

Read in August, 2008

This book is like the Veronica Mars of boarding school genre - whip smart sophomore girl refuses to be underestimated by her older boyfriend & his friends by covertly infiltrating the old boys club secret society at their prestigious Massachusetts prep school.

"Most young women, when confronted with the peculiarly male nature of certain social events--usually those incorporating beer or other substances guaranteed to kill off a few brain cells and often involving either the free...more This book is like the Veronica Mars of boarding school genre - whip smart sophomore girl refuses to be underestimated by her older boyfriend & his friends by covertly infiltrating the old boys club secret society at their prestigious Massachusetts prep school.

"Most young women, when confronted with the peculiarly male nature of certain social events--usually those incorporating beer or other substances guaranteed to kill off a few brain cells and often involving either the freezing-cold outdoors or the near-suffocating heat of a filthy dorm room, but which can also, in more intellectual circles, include the watching of boring Russian films--will react in one of three ways.

Some...will wonder what the point is, figure there probably is no point and never was one and opt for typically feminine or domestic activities such as crumble-making, leaving whatever boyfriends they have to "hang with the guys."

Others...will be bored most of the time but will continue attending such events because they are the girlfriends or would-be girlfriends of said boys, and they don't want to seem like killjoys or harpies. If the boys are there playing games on the Xbox (indoors)or letting off cherry bombs to make a big noise for no reason (outdoors), the girls will chatter among themselves and generally make a quiet display of being interested in whatever the boys think is interesting.

The third group aggressively embraces the activities at hand. These girls dislike the marginalized position such events naturally put them in, and they are determined not to stay on those margins. They do what the boys do wholeheartedly, if sometimes a little falsely. They drink beer, play video games, light off the cherry bombs. They remain alert during obscure Russian films. They even buy beer, win the video games and show up with an M-80, just when the cherry bombs are beginning to get old. If required by their social circle, they read articles on Andrei Tarkovsky.

Whether their enthusiasm is forced or entirely genuine, these girls gain respect from the boys - who are not, after all, cavemen, but enlightened twenty-first-century males who are happy to let females into their inner circles if the females prove their mettle.

As I said, most girls will engage in one of these three behaviors, but Frankie Landau-Banks did none. Although she went home that night feeling happier than she had ever been in her short life, she did not confuse the golf course party with a good party, and she did not tell herself that she had had a pleasant time.

It had been, she felt, a dumb event preceded by excellent invitations.

What Frankie did that was unusual was to imagine herself in control. The drinks, the clothes, the invitations, the instructions, the food (there had been none), the location, everything. She asked herself: If I were in charge, how could I have done it better?"(less)

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Vote for the second book of the month for APRIL; category is Award Winners. Thanks for participating!

2009 Honor book, Printz Award: The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart

2 votes, 6.9%

2009 Newbery Medal: The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

6 votes, 20.7%

2009 Printz Award for Young Adult Literature: On The Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta

1 vote, 3.4%

2008 National Book Critics Circle Awards Nominee, Fiction: 2666 by Robert Bolano

0 votes, 0.0%

2008 National Book Critics Circle Awards Nominee, Fiction: Olive Kitteridge A Novel in Stories by Elizabeth Strout

0 votes, 0.0%

2008 Man Booker Prize: The White Tiger A Novel by Aravind Adiga

7 votes, 24.1%

2008 Pulitzer Prize, Fiction: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz

2 votes, 6.9%

2007 Honor book, Printz Award: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

11 votes, 37.9%

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quotes from this book

"There will be all these fifty-year-old women wearing hot pants and squeezing themselves into pretzel shapes and then there will be me. Just reaching for my toes like they're China. 'Hello there! You're so far away, I can't get to you! Can you even hear me?'" More quotes...