Lockhart, E. - The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks
Finally I read something that is not a romance! Oh brain, I missed you so!
The book opens with Frankie Landau-Banks' letter to the administration of the exclusive Alabaster Prep, admitting to being the brains behind various deeds of wreaking havoc. But the Frankie we're introduced to is a fairly normal girl, not someone who seems like a criminal mastermind, and the book is largely the story of how she gets to be that way.
Lockhart's narrative voice is a wonderful and snarky omniscient third person (first?), and it notes down things such as how Frankie's reaction to being excluded from the guys' world is different from the normal reactions most girls have-eschew it all together and have girls' nights out, go but then stay on the sidelines, or go to events and out-guy the guys. Frankie, on the other hand, wants to take over. And this captures most of my ambivalence about the book; I am very much one of the women who decides to have my own, majority-female version of an activity rather than battle with the guys, and although I understand Frankie's desire to rule over the guys, it's an understanding that's more intellectual than emotional for me.
This is coupled by the fact that Frankie's most important relationships in the book are with the guys-her ex, her boyfriend, and Alpha. Although she talks with both her sister and her roommate a lot, I felt they were much less central to the plot of the book and they were more confidantes, rather than the people Frankie was most influenced by. I also thought some of Frankie's attitude toward the girlfriends of the Order of the Basset Hound were rather similar to that of people who dislike female characters on shows.
Spoilers
What made this most obvious to me was that the one person to finally acknowledge Frankie's awesomeness is Alpha. The narrator clearly notes that Frankie's mother and sister both think she should be in therapy, and her roommate tries to not see the manipulative scary side of Frankie. I think Frankie respects Elizabeth a bit more than most of the other girls, but her focus is still primarily on getting acknowledgment from the guys that she's their equal.
All that said, I think this is an extremely thought-provoking book about activism and feminism. While I don't necessarily agree with Frankie's focus, the narration is such that I don't think I'm meant to. What I like best is how Frankie's quest costs her, how isolating it is, how even when she succeeds, she doesn't. It reminds me of the stories of people becoming more aware of social justice and how it often serves to alienate them from relationships, how all of a sudden the ground beneath your feet is more stable and completely upside down at the same time. It reminds me of how efforts toward social justice are so easily explained away by people so that even when you've tried to overturn the establishment, the establishment just swallows you right back up. And the way Frankie is casually dismissed and ignored and subtly told she's great as long as she needs her boyfriend and isn't better than him, all of that rings too, too true.
There's sadly very little about race in the book; Frankie is Jewish and although that's not the center of the book, it's also not forgotten. My main impression is that Alabaster is (unsurprisingly, given the name) very, very White. I'd like to think that Frankie outside Alabaster would be anti-racist as well, but sadly, I know too well how social justice on one axis doesn't always transfer to another. There's also quite a bit of class commentary in the book, given the exclusive prep school setting, and I especially love how Lockhart knows that the same action can be rebellion for one person and just a prank for another, depending on how much privilege they have and how much they have to lose.
In conclusion: very thoughtful and layered, and it does so while being extremely funny as well. Recommended.
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The book opens with Frankie Landau-Banks' letter to the administration of the exclusive Alabaster Prep, admitting to being the brains behind various deeds of wreaking havoc. But the Frankie we're introduced to is a fairly normal girl, not someone who seems like a criminal mastermind, and the book is largely the story of how she gets to be that way.
Lockhart's narrative voice is a wonderful and snarky omniscient third person (first?), and it notes down things such as how Frankie's reaction to being excluded from the guys' world is different from the normal reactions most girls have-eschew it all together and have girls' nights out, go but then stay on the sidelines, or go to events and out-guy the guys. Frankie, on the other hand, wants to take over. And this captures most of my ambivalence about the book; I am very much one of the women who decides to have my own, majority-female version of an activity rather than battle with the guys, and although I understand Frankie's desire to rule over the guys, it's an understanding that's more intellectual than emotional for me.
This is coupled by the fact that Frankie's most important relationships in the book are with the guys-her ex, her boyfriend, and Alpha. Although she talks with both her sister and her roommate a lot, I felt they were much less central to the plot of the book and they were more confidantes, rather than the people Frankie was most influenced by. I also thought some of Frankie's attitude toward the girlfriends of the Order of the Basset Hound were rather similar to that of people who dislike female characters on shows.
Spoilers
What made this most obvious to me was that the one person to finally acknowledge Frankie's awesomeness is Alpha. The narrator clearly notes that Frankie's mother and sister both think she should be in therapy, and her roommate tries to not see the manipulative scary side of Frankie. I think Frankie respects Elizabeth a bit more than most of the other girls, but her focus is still primarily on getting acknowledgment from the guys that she's their equal.
All that said, I think this is an extremely thought-provoking book about activism and feminism. While I don't necessarily agree with Frankie's focus, the narration is such that I don't think I'm meant to. What I like best is how Frankie's quest costs her, how isolating it is, how even when she succeeds, she doesn't. It reminds me of the stories of people becoming more aware of social justice and how it often serves to alienate them from relationships, how all of a sudden the ground beneath your feet is more stable and completely upside down at the same time. It reminds me of how efforts toward social justice are so easily explained away by people so that even when you've tried to overturn the establishment, the establishment just swallows you right back up. And the way Frankie is casually dismissed and ignored and subtly told she's great as long as she needs her boyfriend and isn't better than him, all of that rings too, too true.
There's sadly very little about race in the book; Frankie is Jewish and although that's not the center of the book, it's also not forgotten. My main impression is that Alabaster is (unsurprisingly, given the name) very, very White. I'd like to think that Frankie outside Alabaster would be anti-racist as well, but sadly, I know too well how social justice on one axis doesn't always transfer to another. There's also quite a bit of class commentary in the book, given the exclusive prep school setting, and I especially love how Lockhart knows that the same action can be rebellion for one person and just a prank for another, depending on how much privilege they have and how much they have to lose.
In conclusion: very thoughtful and layered, and it does so while being extremely funny as well. Recommended.
Comment | Read Comments (
) | Link