It's about power, not love

The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks E. Lockhart

A meditation on power, set in an elite boarding school, but not always in the way you'd think. There's Frankie, sick of being Bunny Rabbit, ready to step out of her sister's shadow. She knows all about the Order of the Basset Hounds but her boyfriend would rather keep her in the dark.

Matthew and Alpha are the top dogs in the school (in more sense than one), engaged in a subtle power struggle that Frankie can't stand.

She's going to take over.

I really liked this. I don't have much to say that hasn't been said already. I will say that it didn't grab me as much as I thought it would, but I think that's because I came late the party--it had been built up so much that there is no way it would be able to live up. I especially loved the end--I found that to be the most real and true part of the book.

UPDATE I totally forgot that Kim had asked me a question about this for Weekly Geeks:

I just recently read Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Bank. So, my question is whether or not the book ended the way you expected it to? That'll be hard without spoiling the ending, I suppose, but maybe you can just talk about it in code or something for everyone who has read the book.

Expected? Or Wanted? Not what I expected, but what I wanted. I thought it was real and in line with the rest of the book. I'm not a huge fan of super-tidy endings.

Recent Reads

Before I Die Jenny Downham

A few months ago, some friends and I were talking online, because Rachel had picked up this book in a bookstore and read the flap copy. She was slightly disgusted about a book whose premise was that a girl who was going to die of cancer had a list of things she wanted to do before she died like HAVE SEX!

And then everyone was all like, ack! promiscuous sex! maybe! but none of us had actually read the book.

Well, I finally did and it is absolutely amazing. And yes, there is sex, but it's a rather minor part of the overall story.

We're all going to die, but for Tessa Scott, it's going to happen soon rather than later. Before she dies, she has a list of the things she wants to accomplish. Travel. Fame. Love. And because she'll never see her seventeenth birthday, Sex. Drugs. A little law-breaking. A day where she has to says "yes" to everything.

Before I Die is a story about coming to grips, and maybe even peace, with your impending mortality. It's a story about dealing with your family and friends as they try to do the same thing. Tessa's narration through her final months is straight-forward. She's sometimes scared and sometimes brash, but she never veers into the melodramatic.

Heartbreaking and fantastic.

Dramarama E. Lockhart

Sadye and Demi are busting out of razzle-dazzle free Ohio to spend the summer at drama camp. At camp though, Demi is insta-star but Sadye has a much harder time of it. She gets stuck with the straight play (a disastrous production of A Midsummer's Night Dream) and, even thought she's a dancer in the 10-day wonder, she's told to lip-synch the singing bits. It doesn't help that she seems to stick her foot in her mouth whenever possible.

Drama camp was supposed to allow Sadye to be as big and fabulous as she wanted, but she ends up feeling small and worthless.

Lockhart perfectly captures the behind-the-scenes drama, tears, laughter, and glitter. Sadye and Demi's changing friendship is pitch-perfect. Reading it, I relived every horrible audition and spot-lit curtain-call. Wonderful.