"The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks" (which shall, for purposes of brevity, be hereafter referred to simply as "Frankie Landau-Banks") starts off with a confession letter signed by the titular character. She takes the blame for a slew of pranks and infractions that have been pulled on the campus of her boarding school and exonerates everyone who has been wrongly accused of her misdeeds. The rest of the book is a story revealing the details of those various crimes.
Frankie has just entered her sophomore year at a prestigious prep school in New England, Alabaster Preparatory Academy, one of those schools that is really just a funnel for future students at Harvard or Yale. Her father attended when he was a kid and is living vicariously through his daughter. Frankie physically blossomed over the last summer and has become quite the head-turner, but she is still emotionally immature. Her family members still call her "Bunny Rabbit." They see her as a delicate thing in need of protection.
Soon after the novel starts, Frankie begins dating Matthew Livingston, who is a gorgeous senior and undeniably one of the coolest kids at the school. She falls madly in love with him and revels in her new found ability to banter with funny, quick-witted, self-deprecating people. She likes Matthew's friends and likes her new status in the school as his girlfriend, but all is not perfect in her new relationship. After a while, Frankie realizes that Matthew makes her feel like she is in a box, contained by his expectations of her. Instead of allowing her to feel more free to be herself, he makes her feel less free. He's not a bad guy, he's never abusive or mean to her. He's just part of a larger system that keeps Frankie ( and many others) in her place. He wants to protect her and take care of her, even as she is realizing that she wants to take chances and push boundaries, to be more than anyone expects from her. What's worse for her is that she feels that Matthew is willing to be a part of Frankie's world, but he is never willing to let her be a part of his.
Soon, it becomes clear that Matthew and his best friend, Alpha, are members of a secret, all male society at Alabaster called The Bassets. Frankie's father was a member too, and the fact that she is not allowed to join and that Matthew won't even admit to her that the club exists at all doesn't sit well with Frankie. She is compelled to be a part of this club and goes on a treasure hunt for the Bassets' secret history. She finds a book hidden away, called "The Disreputable History." After reading of the exploits of former members of the society, she begins to understand the roots of the club in a way that Matthew and Alpha never have. For decades, it has been a club that has been dedicated to civil disobedience and committed to shaking up the status quo. Inspired, Frankie secretly takes over the Bassets.
She creates a fake email account, pretends she is Alpha, the leader of the Bassets, and begins giving out clandestine orders for the rest of the boys to pull off legendary pranks, stunts, and petty crimes. The entire student body, as well as the rest of the Bassets, are so impressed by Frankie's ideas that Alpha can't admit that they were not his. He'd look like a chump. Frankie continues sending the Bassets out on covert missions, each one intended to shake up the rules of the school, of society. Each one pushing the boundaries further and further.
Eventually, Alpha is caught in the act and is about to be expelled for his crimes. Matthew finds out that Alpha is innocent and that Frankie is the real mastermind, and he turns her in. She does the right thing and writes her confession, the one that started the book. And the plot wraps up nicely there.
But you were still left wondering what you had just read. This wasn't a Young Adult "Girl Crushes On Guy. Girl Gets Guy" stereotype (if such a thing even exists), this was a more complicated and nuanced story. The entire adventure is sparked by Frankie's reaction to being underestimated by everyone: her boyfriend, her family, her school, her society. Or rather, it is all her reaction to her realization that she is underestimated while other people (mostly the well connected boys at the Academy) are grossly overestimated. Frankie is the one who solves the novel's big puzzle and who sets the attention grabbing agenda for the secret society, yet she receives no credit for it.
Frankie is realizing that there is a double standard in the world that is perfectly arbitrary. Who you are expected to be, how you are expected to behave, what you are expected to accomplish is already set by the cultural enforcement of gender roles. If Alpha does it, it's genius, if Frankie does it, it's dangerous and psychotic. These roles are more than just arbitrary. They are limiting and they can be destructive. As a girl, Frankie is expected to be a passive participant in her world. A beautiful and smart participant, one who might even add value to the world, but always only ever a passive participant. Never someone who leads. Never someone who changes the world to suit her own vision. That role is left exclusively for the boys.
Frankie realizes that she has no desire to be limited by other people's urge to look after her or to take care of her. She doesn't want to be seen as cute or adorable. She wants to be more than the "Bunny Rabbit" her family thinks of her as being... because she is more than that. She is as capable of being an alpha dog as any of the boys on campus. Actually, she proves herself to be even more capable than they. But her efforts to become the adult she is destined to become are pushed back by her society.
Frankie is a sympatheitc character, but she is not exactly likeable. She possesses many of the qualities regularly praised in male lead characters. She is driven and brilliant, independent and determined. But she is the protagonist. In women, these qualities are usually reserved for the antagonists; your Cruella DeVille, your Wicked Witch of the West, or whatever Meryl Streep's name is in "The Devil Wears Prada." Frankie's ambition, her knack for strategy, her charisma as a leader are all seen as dangerous by the boys at her school, but they are seen (even more disappointingly) as easily forgettable by her school faculty. Whereas Alpha was on the verge of being expelled when it was believed he was the ringleader, Frankie's confession brings nothing but a reprimand. She's not seen as a threat, even though she is guilty of the exact same crimes that would have gotten a boy expelled.
Frankie sees the world as a place that she can change, a place where she can become famous or even infamous. She is energetic and optimistic, but her energy and optimism are stymied when they meet the reality of the society we too often find ourselves in today. The curious thing about this book is that, even after you realized that it was aimed at society, you weren't exactly motivated to go out and keep fighting the good fight to change other people's expectations or challenge the way they limited certain people. It didn't make you want to change society.
It made you want to change yourself.
You have long prided yourself on your feminist ideals (Murphy Brown and Ellen Ripley were early childhood heroes of yours), but "The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks" forced you to examine your ideas of the women in your life women, and your expectations of what a main character in a novel is supposed to look like. It made you ask yourself, "How are you limiting the women in your everyday life? How are you limiting everyone you interact with in your everyday life? How many of your friends are only that because you like the preconceived notions of your relationship?"
"The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks" inspired you to work to change your ideas of how the world is supposed to work. This world needs to be a place where all people are encouraged to reach their full potential regardless of their race or their sexual orientation or their gender. You can be a part of changing the world to make it the kind of place where women are not marginalized, where girls are not taught to be passive participants in their own lives.
God, you want to have a daughter!
On to the next book!
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