Book Review - The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks

Who loves getting a big reward with only a little investment?  I do!  That's how I felt after reading The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart.  On its shiny teenybopper romance quartz surface, the book appears to be a fairly short young adult fictional novel about a prestigious prep school and the cliques and social hierarchy that exist there.  But, underneath its surface, there is an impressive amount of philosophical gold.

Frankie Landau-Banks starts off her sophomore year at Alabaster with the same mindset she had from her freshman year.  She has a nice group of friends, but not too many, she gets good grades, has a crush on a cute senior and obeys her overprotective mother.   Over the summer, however, she morphed from an awkward fourteen year-old into a stunning young woman,  and the changes in her physical appearance are quickly noticed and appreciated by the rich, beautiful and powerful crowd at her school.   As she is drawn into a world where opportunities seem endless and consequences invisible, Frankie develops an appetite for that lifestyle and begins to challenge the unwritten rules that threaten to keep her away from it.  

I suppose one can think of this as a pro-feminism rah-rah tale, but I think it's more about personal agency and empowerment than gender.  Certainly, Frankie is female therefore most of her why-can't-I's had to do with the exclusion she felt from not being allowed into the all-male secret Basset Hound society, but the scope of the novel goes far beyond what girls can and cannot do.  The idea of the panopticon - or the idea that people follow rules because they never know who may be watching - is such a delightfully profound concept cleverly disguised as teenage peer pressure.  Of course, there are a lot more rules to follow  and a lot more angst about what people think about you if you don't follow certain rules when you're a teenager, but that ponopticon doesn't go away upon completion of high school.  Most of our lives are controlled by it - for good and bad.  Without it, there would be anarchy and with it there is integrity, but, as our young protagonist points out, it usually brings fear, limits and status quos too.

Should you desire, when you finish thinking about what you do when no one is watching, there are a lot of ideas about feminism to consider, not to mention nepotism, reverse psychology and the possibility we are all puppets being controlled by secret societies.

Or, you can simply enjoy Frankie's delightfully fresh coming-of-age story.  I loved cheering for her.  And jeering too.