{"id":1225,"date":"2008-05-15T00:01:40","date_gmt":"2008-05-15T06:01:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=1225"},"modified":"2009-02-27T09:59:14","modified_gmt":"2009-02-27T15:59:14","slug":"ya-co-review-the-frankie-mystique","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=1225","title":{"rendered":"YA Co-Review: The Frankie Mystique"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jules:<\/font><\/strong> It’s been a little while since Eisha and I have done a straight-up co-review—just the two of us—of a YA title, but here’s one — E. Lockhart’s<\/strong><\/a> latest, at that: The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks<\/strong><\/em><\/a> (Hyperion, March 2008). <\/p>\n

Fifteen-year old Frances Rose Landau-Banks—class of 2010 and otherwise known as “Bunny Rabbit” to her family—has just returned from summer vacation to Alabaster Prepatory Academy, the elite, competitive boarding school her father himself once attended. “Mildly geeky” before, she gained twenty pounds over the summer, “all in the right places,” and now has a figure that turns heads, the same brilliant mind and quick tongue she always did, and—this year—a new boyfriend, Matthew Livingston, a senior at Alabaster (though, as far as Frankie can figure out, “{t}he only thing {she} herself had done to facilitate the change was to invest in some leave-in conditioner to tame the frizz”). <\/p>\n

Matthew’s circle of friends and social world, one of camaraderie, self-confidence, privilege, and ease, is one Frankie finds fascinating and non-existent amongst her female friends. While finding intriguing similarities between life on campus and Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon<\/strong><\/a> she’s studying about in her Cities, Art, and Protest course, Frankie has her own internal struggles about being attracted to Matthew, who is smart, handsome, and often endearing but who also refuses to let her into his inner circle of friends. (Matthew even loves words like Frankie, who likes to play with what she calls her own imaginary neglected positives, or INPs, meaning you take a negative word or expression whose positive is almost never used, and you use it. Or<\/em> “you impose a new meaning on a word that exists but, through the convolutions of grammar, doesn’t technically mean what you are deciding it means.” Think turbed<\/em> from disturbed<\/em> or criminate<\/em>—from incriminate<\/em>—which she uses to mean “give someone an alibi.” The latter example is a fitting one, indeed, since Frankie herself becomes somewhat of a criminal mastermind herself during the course of the story.)<\/p>\n

When she finds out that Matthew and his friends all belong to the Loyal Order of the Basset Hound, a secret society to which her own father belonged when he was a student years ago, Frankie’s interest is piqued. However, not only will Matthew and his friends not let her join; Matthew avoids the subject altogether, never once telling her about it. Thus challenged, she formulates a plan to anonymously work her way into the Bassets and convince them to perform a series of pranks on the school, ones which challenge the status quo socio-political atmosphere on campus. And she does this for many reasons — but primarily because she was tired of being Bunny Rabbit:<\/p>\n

Not a person with intelligence, a sense of direction, and the ability to use a cell phone. Not a person who could solve a problem . . . <\/p>\n

To them, she was Bunny Rabbit.<\/p>\n

Innocent.<\/p>\n

In need of protection.<\/p>\n

Inconsequential.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

* * * * * * *<\/center><\/p>\n

So, Eisha. This was my first E. Lockhart<\/strong><\/a> book. Gasp! I really liked it. I did not expect the teen-feminist underpinnings (is she known for such things, and I’m just really<\/em> slow?), and I really liked it. What’d you think? To say we have nui<\/em> for this book (the neglected positive of ennui<\/em>) doesn’t really follow Frankie’s grammatical rules for such creations, I suppose. <\/p>\n

I guess I should quickly warn first: Some plot spoilers below.<\/p>\n

Carry on, then.<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

eisha:<\/font><\/strong> I liked it too. I’m afraid I don’t know if feminism is a big theme in Lockhart’s other works, either. But it made for some thought-provoking subject matter in this one, for sure. I thought it was fascinating the way she depicted the whole “old boy” syndrome: privileged young guys forming these tight friendhips in school, then going on to be each other’s business connections in adulthood. It’s a charmed and charming existence, one that Frankie is drawn to when she starts dating Matthew and hanging with his crowd:<\/p>\n

…Frankie adored not only Matthew — she also adored his world. He and his friends seemed… better than her and hers.
\nNot because of money.
\nNot because of popularity.
\nNot because they were older. Expensive clothes and high status had little effect on Frankie. But their money, and popularity made life extremely easy for Matthew, Dean, Alpha and Callum. They did not need to impress anyone and were therefore remarkably free from snarkiness, anxiety, and irksome aspirational behaviors, such as competition over grades and evaluation of one another’s clothing. They were not afraid to break the rules, because consequences rarely applied to them. They were free. They were silly. They were secure.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Frankie’s desire to be accepted by them as an equal<\/em> is palpable; and it makes sense that, when she keeps running up against that glass ceiling, her desire to take the whole system down becomes just as powerful.<\/p>\n

Actually, this ties into another really interesting feature of the novel for me. The book is written from an outsider\/observer perspective (although one with the ability to read her thoughts), as though they were writing a psychological profile of Frankie to attempt to explain why she did what she did. I thought that was an unusual approach. It gives the narrative an intellectual, analytical feel that I think will appeal to teens who are thinking of becoming psych majors. And it ties in beautifully with the Panopticon theme that appears throughout the text. But I wonder if it creates too much of a distance between the reader and Frankie to make any kind of deep emotional connection to the story possible. It kind of felt that way to me. What do you think?<\/p>\n

Jules:<\/font><\/strong> I remember liking that description of the boys, too, and when Frankie noticed Matthew’s “seeming immunity to embarrassment,” which she felt came from their popularity and money, as you said (rather, the confidence those things gave them). And then there was the moment she realized that she wasn’t worried about losing Matthew’s affection so much as losing her status with his friends. <\/p>\n

Yes, Frankie did a lot of bumping into glass ceilings. But I also liked how Lockhart shines a light on the gender roles in your typical teen relationship today—romantic, that is—and gender roles in social settings. There was Frankie’s struggle to prove her worth in taking the system down, as you put it. But there was also the shock she experienced in realizing that her boyfriend expected her to be entirely more passive than she was. I kept dog-ear’ing those pages: <\/p>\n