I picked up the Young Adult literature book The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart at the library this summer after hearing about it on NPR.
The story’s protagonist is Frankie, a sophomore at the prestigious Alabaster 
Preparatory Academy, who has grown curves over the summer and has thus secured Matthew Livingston, a popular senior, as her new boyfriend. Frankie soon finds out that Matthew is a member of the Loyal Order of the Basset Hounds, an all-male secret society that has been a tradition at the school since 1951. Frankie is annoyed that 1) Matthew keeps ditching her for the society 2) the society is gender exclusive and 3) the current members of the society are not clever enough to plan any good pranks, so she takes to spying on the society and eventually infiltrating it. We know from the beginning that she gets caught, but have to read all the way through to find out the specifics of the pranks she references at the beginning (“the Library Lady,” “the Doggies in the Window,” and “the abduction of the Guppy” to name a few.)
Frankie’s character is smart, creative, and self-aware, while still holding some of the insecurities of the typical teenage girl. For example, she acknowledges early on that her boyfriend does not appreciate her for who she really is, but still revels in the security and popularity that her boyfriend brings. Frankie is a good YA lit heroine, but because of the narration of the book, you don’t feel like you know her incredibly well. She is a bit too unflappable for my tastes.
One feature of YA books that I often enjoy is when the author takes a little time out of the story to teach the reader something that is relevant to the plot. The Series of Unfortunate Events books do this all the time–the narrator will use a word that is perhaps a bit above the level of the children reading it and will then cleverly define it. In The Disreputable History,Frankie learns (and thus the narrator gets to tell us) about the panopticon, a French prison design by a philosopher which allowed the guard to look at all the prisoners at once, without the the prisoner knowing whether or not they actually were being watched, thus minimizing the amount of watching that actually needed to happen. The author then connects this to how we often self-govern as a result of a societal norms, creating a sort of social panopticon. This all connects to the plot a Frankie decides to break the panopticon “rules” of both Alabaster security and of her social group. Interesting.
The other cute “learning” element of this book is Frankie’s clever and humorous use of what she calls the “neglected positive.” I’ll let the book explain it:
The neglected positive of immaculate is maculate, meaning morally blemished or stained. The neglected positive of insufferable is sufferable–meaning bearable–though no one ever uses it.
Other times, the neglected positive is nota word. It is then an imaginary neglected positive, or INP (inpea)…Some inpeas:…Petuous, meaning careful. Ept, meaning competent, from inept. Turbed, meaning relaxed and comfortable, from disturbed.
After the narrator takes the time to explain this to us, Frankie uses these terms without further comment, and sometimes you have to look twice to figure out what she means. While I have to laugh at how the author clearly adds stuff like this because she loves words a little too much, it is a nice addition for both style and character.
This book has a very clear social message–more so than many YA Lit books. But, like much YA Lit, it is not subtle in its communication of said message. From the book’s last page:
It is better to be alone, she figures, than to be with someone who can’t see who you are. It is better to lead than to follow. It is better to speak up than stay silent. It is better to open doors than to shut them on people.
In context, that quote is not quite as cloying as it sounds, but it is still a little much. Throughout the book, Frankie points out not only blatant sexism, but also a problem that is probably much more common among the tween and teenage girls who might read this book–having a boyfriend or a social group that underestimates your worth and appreciates you for “eye candy” value only. While this message is overly obvious in the book, it is a solid and uniquely presented one. Overall, this is a light and entertaining book and certainly worth the short amount of time it takes to read.
