Book talk: The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by e. lockhart

The following is a book talk I wrote for The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by e. lockhart. Book talks are like trailers for books, usually given to students while on a class visit. For more book talks, visit Booktalks Quick and Simple.

Frankie Landau-Banks is sick of being invisible. Luckily, she grew four inches and curves in all the right places over the summer before her sophomore year, attracting the attention of popular senior and her longtime crush, Matthew Livingston.

With her newfound status, Frankie eats at the senior table, has lots of friends and gets invited to late night parties thrown on the golf course. But, she still can’t help feeling invisible. Matthew corrects her grammar, instead of listening to her opinions, cancels dates when he gets texts from his best friend Alpha, and seems increasingly preoccupied.

After Matthew ditches Frankie yet again, she decides to take matters into her own hands and follows him late one Friday night. She ends up in the school’s abandoned theater, witnessing a secret meeting of the Loyal Order of the Basset Hounds — the infamous, all-male secret society at their boarding school. Overhearing plans for the group’s
Halloween prank, Frankie knows she can come up with something much more exciting and thought-provoking than Matthew and his friends. But with his reluctance to really let Frankie into his life, she knows she definitely won’t be welcome with this exclusive group.

So Frankie hatches a plan that allows her to secretly send the boys on increasingly complicated and harebrained schemes, launching the school administration into a frenzy trying to figure out who’s behind the bras adorning all the artwork on campus and the giant basset hounds in the windows of the old gymnasium. Frankie enjoys the rush she gets from planning the pranks, trying to outdo herself and disrupting the status quo of the old-fashioned boarding school rules. And of course, no one suspects the once invisible sophomore girl, even her seemingly perfect boyfriend.

How does a girl go from being a mildly geeky wallflower to a criminal mastermind overnight? And how long can she keep it up without getting caught? Read The Disreputable History of Frankie-Landau Banks by e. lockhart to find out.

January 12th, 2009  ♥  Book Talks, Books  ♥  1 Comment »