Wordie Wednesday – The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks, by E. Lockhart

Hi all!  Today’s Wordie Wednesday was a reread– I read it a year or so back and loved everything about it– the fact it took place at a prep school, the headstrong and witty main character… it was just dreamy.  I was happy to find that the book didn’t lose its luster on the reread!

And now for the review….

The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks begins in common YA territory– Frankie, now a sophomore at Alabaster Prep, finds that her body has developed womanly curves over her summer break.  Having been taught feminist ideals by her sister over the summer, Frankie is wary, although intrigued, by the new-found attention she is getting from both boys and girls.  She is pleased when her longtime crush, Matthew, suddenly shows interest in her, but when she realizes he and his friends see her as not as up to par with their intelligence and wit, she’s disconcerted.  That disconcerted feeling turns to annoyance when she realizes they are a part of a top-secret all-male secret society that she (obviously) does not have admittance to.  Instead of telling Matthew she knows about the society or ask for admittance, she decides to instead show the Loyal Order of the Basset Hounds that she’s smarter than they all realize via a series of intelligent and awesome stunts.

To say more would ruin the novel, but Frankie is everything you want in a modern female narrator.  She’s funny, intelligent, incredibly witty– someone I know I’d die to be friends with.  More, Frankie is self aware of her position in society and reacts in the only way she knows how to react against it– by raging against the injustice with the use of wit and strategy.  As someone who studied feminism during my undergraduate and graduate degree, I geeked out most about how she created her own words in order to express her own experience.  Called neglected positives, she uses the word maculate (from the word immaculate) to indicate someone morally blemished, or turbed (disturbed), to indicate someone who is relaxed and comfortable.  Many feminists argue that language is a patriarchal construction that constrict the way women can communicate or express themselves, so it seemed like a perhaps purposeful move by Lockhart to have Frankie use her new vocabulary, despite the protests of her friends and family.

If you love strong female narrators and coming of age novels, this is for you.  Let me know what you think of it!