This is why I LOVE summer - I read outside on my deck for a few hours last night while the kids were out at baseball practice and hanging with their friends (love/hate that I have a child old enough to roam the neighborhood by himself, but at least I can track him down because of the new cell phone we bought him!)
Last night my book of choice was the newest by E. Lockhart (author of one of my fave's Dramarama), The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks
This is the story of Frankie, geek, debate club member one year, babe the next. Frankie Landau-Banks is a girl in transition. When she goes a back to her elite Massachusetts boarding school for her sophomore year, she comes back as a babe - and gets noticed by a SENIOR! As she struggles to combine who she is with what she looks like, she falls in love and in the process realizes who she truly is. After realizing that she is being excluded from her boyfriends "secret society" she sets out to topple the "boys club" and she does so without thinking about the consequences, not only with school but also with what might happen if she is caught by her boyfriend.
I love the dialogue that Lockhart writes and I also love how she makes the characters a little quirky (like Matthew's obsession with correcting grammar). The secret society she writes about reminds me of a Gilmore Girls episode when Rory sets out to write a story about (future) boyfriend Logan's association with the Life and Death brigade at Yale. This would have been a book I would have "eaten up" as a teenager - in my early teens I had wanted to live the "preppy" life and go to a boarding school - the closest I got was Catholic school- but I also remember trying to balance who I was with wanting to make an impression on guys - and as my daughter gets older (she is 10) I am starting to think about how I can help her go through these transitions too.
This was a great summer read and a book I know that a lot of teenage girls will relate to.
other reviews:
check out an interview with E. Lockhart at YaYa's
and also E. Lockhart's blog
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