by E. Lockhart
ages: 12+
First sentence: “I, Frankie Landau-Banks, hereby confess that I was the sole mastermind behind the mal-doings of the Loyal Order of the Basset Hounds.”

When I picked this book up Monday, I was totally enthralled with Frankie. Totally loved her, the narrator, the references to Wodehouse, the neglected positives. (Gruntled. Mayed. Ept. Cracked me up.) I got about halfway through (right after she discovered the Loyal Order of the Bassett Hounds) before life got in the way, but I thought a lot about the issues it was addressing: of feeling valued, not for something people impose upon you, but for something inherent in yourself. Or, the need to feel accepted and part of a group. Or the stupid hierarchies of boarding schools. (Or high school for that matter.) And I adored the voice of the narrator; it felt like a defense lawyer was patiently taking us through the evidence of Frankie’s character, explaining, so we, at least, will understand, will get what Frankie is about. And that she’s not a mere misanthrope. (Does that mean an anthrope is someone who is respectable in society?)

But, when I picked it up yestrday, it had lost a bit of its luster. Maybe all the fun is in the anticipation of the planning, but not the execution. Either that, or if you keep reading it in one sitting, the momentum builds and keeps you in the world that Lockhart has spun. In its defens: I did love the pranks. So very Drones Club. So very brilliant of Frankie (what a mastermind). I liked the social commentary aspect of them. But it was, in many ways, anticlimatic. Sure, she could show up the boys, but the actual act of showing them up wasn’t important. It was that she could.

I think, in the end, what I really liked was that Frankie felt familiar. If I were at a boarding school, and my mind tended just a little more that way, yeah, I could see myself doing what she did. I always thought that boys were more interesting than girls, anway. I can understand why it wasn’t enough to just start a secret girls’ club, why Frankie needed to prove herself good — no, better — than the boys. And I can understand why she did it for a guy, to try to prove to him that she was better than he assumed he was. And that it all backfired on her in the end was quite, well, understandable.

So, yeah, I thought the book was uneven, and the ending just kind of ended. (I do think the ending fits the book, even though Frankie doesn’t go out and do anything spectacular; that’s not the point.) I liked it, though, mostly for Frankie, and the ideas that Lockhart was addressing (whether she intended to, or not). Frankie did something big; she proved something to herself — and to her family — that she can do something. Sure, they reacted badly, but then, most people react badly to people who think outside the box. Even if that box is something as simple and silly as a secret boys’ club at a posh boarding school.

So, here’s to the Frankie’s of the world: the girls who think outside of the box. Who invent neglected positives, and need people to understand (not just talk at) them. And here’s to the books that celebrate them.