She gets herself a boyfriend, the charming Matthew Livingston, and as their relationship becomes more serious she realizes he’s lying to her. But once she reaches sophomore year, everything changes as Frankie starts to feel more sure and confident of herself. She attends her freshman year of school at Alabaster (a pristine boarding school her father attends), blending in like the bunny rabbit she is expected to be. I’m not bashing these reviews – these are real problems in YA lit today, that need to be solved, we need strong female role models.īut comparing and contrasting these books with whiny characters to a story like The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks shows how amazing strong female characters can be when done well.įrankie has always been considered the “bunny rabbit” of her family: sweet and kind and someone to pass over. The characters are whiny, needy, immature, childish, bratty, dumb, too stupid to live, too dependent on their boyfriends (who exhibit stalker-ish tendencies) or just plain boring to read about. And they have reasons, reasons that can be cited from examples in the text. Often times when I read book reviews, people complain about the main female characters. And when there are so many, many pranks to be done. Not when she knows she’s smarter than any of them.
Not when her ex boyfriend shows up in the strangest of places.
Especially when “no” means she’s excluded from her boyfriend’s all-male secret society. No longer the kind of girl to take “no” for an answer.
And a gorgeous new senior boyfriend: the supremely goofy, word-obsessed Matthew Livingston.įrankie Laundau-Banks. Frankie Landau-Banks at age 14: Debate Club.Her father’s “bunny rabbit.” A mildly geeky girl attending a highly competitive boarding school.įrankie Landau-Banks at age 15: A knockout figure.
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