From Product Description:

12 and up.

I've only read one other book by E. Lockhart, and I hate to say it, but I wasn't overly impressed. In the fall I attended a Y.A. conference and the speaker took some time to talk about The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks. He said nothing but good things about it, but what sparked my attention is when he said it pairs well with The Chocolate War. In the spring when I put together my Donors Choose fundraiser I made sure to include this book. I'm so very happy that I did! <br /> <br />First of all, if you haven't figured it out already, I'm a character junkie. If a character is developed well, it's almost a guarantee that I'll love the book. Frankie is absolutely wonderful; I'd go so far to say she's one of my favorite Y.A. characters. She's at a private school trying to escape the shadow of her older, more popular sister. She has a great vocabulary (I especially love her made up words) and she's unsure of herself, but not in an annoying way. Frankie doesn't want to be her family's "Bunny Rabbit" anymore. She needs to prove everyone wrong and show what she's made of. Everyone will know that she's smarter than the rest. Frankie starts proving this when she and Matthew Livingston begin dating and he won't let her be a part of the secret society he's joined called The Loyal Order of the Basset Hounds. <br /> <br />E. Lockhart has written a true "girl power" book, but it isn't overly girly. I definitely would compare this to The Chocolate War because of the setting and the secret society, but it also reminds of John Green's Looking for Alaska because of the pranks Frankie pulls. This book is witty, intelligent and fun. Frankie bends over backwards infiltrating The Loyal Order and secretly masterminding their pranks, but she can't truly take credit for her work. She is forced to learn the hard way how to prove herself properly. <br /> <br />I highly recommend reading The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks. It is a 2009 Michael L. Printz Honor Book and a 2008 National Book Award Finalist in the Young People's Literature category. <br />

I hate reviews that tell the whole story so I will simply say, I wish there was a Book Two. I hated seeing the end of the story. This has to be the best teen read I have come across in the last year...and yes, that includes certain more popular books. Lockhart doesn't take the obvious road and she allows Frankie to do her own thing. Sometimes writers twist events and characters to fit into a mold that will make their work more marketable or more appealing to how they themselves would want things to be. Not E. Lockhart, she allows her story to take the path that's weeded over and largely unpleasant. It was a fantastic read that I will be reading again..since it is sadly not a series.

I picked this book up at the library and wasn't 100% sure if it would be my type of book. I got it anyway and after reading the books I was really interested in, I picked up this one. I'm glad I read it because it really is a good book. <br /> <br /> <br />The story centers around Frankie Landau-Banks, a newly blossomed sophomore who is attending Alabaster Preparatory Academy, the same boarding school attended by her father and sister. During her freshman year, Frankie's sister was still in school to guide her around and watch out for her. Therefore Frankie was able to hang out with a more popular crowd but was not actually part of the group. Now that her sister has graduated, Frankie will have to navigate through school on her own. Although she's an underclassman member of the debate team (and the Geek Club Conglomerate, by pure accident Frankie manages to intrigue and become the girlfriend of Matthew, one of the most popular seniors. While in most YA books this would cause the main character to be overjoyed, Frankie is unsettled by Matthew and his group of friends (including Alpha, someone she had met before yet he pretends not to have remembered the meeting). Frankie is unsettled by Matthew's devotion to his friends and how no matter how much Matthew involves her in his life, he is never a part of hers. Frankie soon discovers that Matthew and his friends are members of the school's secret society, The Loyal Order of the Basset Hounds, the same secret society her father was a member of when he was at Alabaster. Upon discovery of this, Frankie decides that she wants in and she embarks on her mission to infiltrate the Loyal Order. <br /> <br /> <br />I believe this book offers a fresh twist on prep school life and a teen girl's interactions and relationships with guys. Unlike Gossip Girl, there are no immature cat fights, purposely teasing and belittling one specific person, desperate and mindless swooning over boys, and obsessive tendencies towards gossip and fashion. Also, the book is much much much more intellectual then it's other teen prep school counterparts. It's also pretty mild when it comes to relationships. While it is suggested that two characters have had sex, the main character and her boyfriend don't do much besides kissing. I don't recall any particular use of profanity or questionable language. However, the boys in the story were keen on drinking beer and pot is referenced to by Frankie's fathers recollection of his time at Alabaster. The only other content problem was the blatant disregard for rules. The story is pretty much based on pranks and the breaking of both written and unspoken rules. While the pranks pose no harm to people, it shows disrespect for the institution. <br /> <br /> <br />I personally found this to be a really interesting story. I was eager to learn the secrets of the Bassets as much as Frankie was. The plot was a great one and a welcome new perspective on the prep school trend. The plot was engaging and fresh and seems like a very new concept to me. Based on the plot alone I would give this book 5 stars. <br /> <br />My problem with the story is mainly Frankie and the writing. <br />From a technical point of view, some parts of the book flew way over my head. Although the chapters are not long, the author did take up about half a chapter discussing a grammatical concept of "neglected positives" that I am still unsure of whether this concept exists or does not exist. The author seemed to be hinting that Frankie invented this concept. Neglected positives are described as words that are apart of a traditionally negative word but that have had the negative prefix removed. Examples of this would be "gruntled" stemming from "disgruntled" or "maculate" as opposed to "immaculate." Now although this is an obscure and very possibly made up form of vocabulary, I did not need more then one page to fully understand the concept. It's pretty self explanatory for something that may not even exist. I thought multiple pages on a fake grammar lesson was totally unnecessary. <br />Another thing that readers might find obscure is that for the rest of the book, Frankie proceeds to use words like "gruntled" and "turbed" (the neglected positive of disturbed). Not only is it slightly annoying to have these maybe fictional words thrown at you, but her use of them results in the other character questioning her vocabulary and Frankie having to explain it to them. While staying on the same subject, I also would like to note that Frankie's boyfriend Matthew is the son of a newspaper tycoon who got his start as a copy-editor. This means that Matthew also donates some grammar lessons to the dialogue. Not only do I not want to hear grammar lessons as I read a book for fun, the plot can totally make do without them. These grammar corrections just slow down the plot. I understand that they help explain why Frankie tries to infiltrate the boys club, but the rest of the plot can do that without discussions of grammar. <br />Another thing that broke up the plot was Frankie's essays for one of her classes. Although the essays on (real) groups of people who intentionally go out and break the unspoken rules of society are related to the pranks the Basset's play on the school, I could have really gone without 4 pages about the Suicide Club of San Francisco and another 4 on the Cocophony Society. I feel that the story just had too much unnecessary lessons on the most random things and it really hurt the plot. <br /> <br /> <br />I also wasn't pleased with how at the end *SPOILER* although the regular punishment for her pranks would be expulsion, Frankie got away with probation because the school didn't want to lose her fathers donations. While the book wasn't cliche, the ending obviously played upon the cliche that money can buy your way out of trouble. <br /> <br /> <br />My last problem is with Frankie herself. Although the plot is about a girl trying to fit in with boys who were their own secret society, I find her infiltration of the boys group more then just curiosity and low self esteem. In my eyes the distance she feels from the boys while being a part of her group is natural of boys of that age. Frankie tells of how when one of the boys broke up with his girlfriend (who would always sit with the boys at lunch and be included in the group), the next day no one said hello to her or acknowledged her. Frankie perceives this to be because she is no longer in their world so she no longer exists. Because she was just a girlfriend, she wasn't a real group member and is easily expendable. <br />Frankie also makes a point at sitting at the boys' senior table although the boys have not arrived to the dining hall yet. Frankie sees this as an act of rebellion against the group structure yet when everyone comes to the table, no one really cares that Frankie sat there prior to the senior boys arriving. While most people would be relieved that they could get away with doing that, Frankie seems annoyed that no one was offended by her action. I gathered the sense that she wanted them to be shocked and that she was offended that they didn't notice her being there first. It felt that because they didn't make a big deal about her sitting there, she had to retaliate. <br />Frankie's reasoning can be so immature and juvenile at times all while being overly deep. She thinks she is outwitting the boys but in reality she is just being jealous and manipulative because in her mind the boys are practically discriminating against her and she is trying to defeat them over something that has never happened yet. While the boys have a more sophisticated method of being high school boys, in reality they are just that and they are acting no different then other boys their ages except they have a club name to call themselves. I admire Frankie's roommate though because she didn't care whether or not boys had a secret club. She was just content in the life she was living. Overall I just thought Frankie was too obsessed with "the man" being out to get her and she went beyond curiosity. I felt like she wasn't trying to figure out why her boyfriend was sometimes distant as much as she was trying to make sense of the conspiracy theory in her head. I actually felt bad for Matthew because sometimes it seemed as if Frankie was more invested in making a point and fighting "the man" then in having a boyfriend. <br /> <br /> <br />While this was very interesting and I really loved it (I even shed a couple of tears at the end) not matter how much I criticize Frankie's motives, it got very intellectual a times. Not only was there grammar lessons, but Frankie's motives can be seen as very sophisticated and cerebral all while being juvenile. But, I do recommend this book. As long as you can deal with some grammatical references, this is a really great book with a fresh new perspective. The plot is a good one and I really appreciated the fact that this wasn't a normal cliche prep school book. While I thought Frankie did over analyze the situation sometimes, I would rather take that over the shallow clothes, boys, and money topics of prep school books such as Gossip Girl. It's better to think about the story and have a reaction then it is to just read about the superficial. So if you're ok with thinking about what happened, I recommend this book.

What a surprising and refreshing young adult, feminist novel! I was not expecting the feminist slant and when it was raised, I slightly cringed knowing the path YA feminist themes usually follow - smart outspoken girl falls for typical popular guy who both end up truly learning about themselves and life and love and coming out better people for it. Thank GOODNESS this book did not take that path. Frankie is a character women and girls can relate with in her struggle to deal with boobs, smarts, and the longing to be one of the guys while being LOVED dnd desired.

Frankie, a sophomore a Alabaster Prep, a prestigious boarding school, is surprised when the hot and popular senior Matthew takes an interest in her. But Frankie soon realizes that she doesn't just want to be Matthew's girlfriend; she wants to be a part of his group of friends and their all-male secret society. However, in their eyes, no matter how smart or interesting she is, Frankie is just a girl who can never be one of the guys. Frankie's awareness leads to infiltration of the society and social protest as she aims to prove she should not be underestimated. <br /> <br />The Disreputable History is an excellent read for people who love strong characters but might be wary of stereotypical "prep school" fiction. Frankie is a feminist hero who actively rebels against the unwritten codes of behavior, specifically those that govern men and women's actions, and more broadly those that govern how people act within society. Not that Frankie doesn't experience moments of doubt along the way--after all, she likes Matthew and wants to be his girlfriend--but that won't stop her from doing all she can to prove she's more than others expect her to be. <br /> <br />Frankie's great at breaking down gendered standards that guide relationships. She has an awesome rebuttal to an ex-boyfriend's paternalistic attempt to warn her against Matthew, and she has a similarly independent response to her sister when her sister says she is a toy of Matthew for wearing a shirt he gave her. Lockhart does an excellent job capturing the dynamics of boys' and girls' relationships in high schools that I thought was very true to life. <br /> <br />Disreputable History also spends a considerable time on the panopticon (idea comes from a prison design): the concept that people feel as if they are being watched and judged at all times, thus causing people to obey standards of behavior even when alone. In this way Lockhart explores how many of our behaviors and interactions are guided by fear of societal reprisal. It's heavy stuff for a young adult book, but it doesn't feel heavy at all in the novel. <br /> <br />Lockhart keeps an active and conspiratorial tone in the book which, although told in third person, conveys Frankie's attitude and voice perfectly. The social commentary is worked into snappy dialogue and the genius mechanism of Frankie's mind, so the book never feels dogmatic. <br /> <br />There's perhaps a bit too much time spent on imaginary neglected positives (INPs). For example, "Impetuous means hotheaded, unthinking, impulsive. The positive of it doesn't exist, so you can make a new, illegitimate word. Petuous, meaning careful" (111). It's cute and funny, but the joke drags on some. <br /> <br />Otherwise, the book is fabulous. Frankie is the awesome girl everyone wishes he/she knew, and the ending is satisfying and realistic. I think it would be an excellent way to jump-start discussions on gendered expectations within the classroom.