Frankie Landau-Banks at age 14: Debate Club. Her father's "Bunny Rabbit." A mildly geeky girl attending a highly competitive boarding school.
Frankie Landau-Banks at age 15: A knockout figure. A sharp tongue. A chip on her shoulder. And a gorgeous new senior boyfriend: the supremely goofy, word-obsessed Matthew Livingston.
Frankie Laundau-Banks. No longer the kind of girl to take "no" for an answer. Especially when "no" means she's excluded from her boyfriend's all-male secret society. Not when her ex boyfriend shows up in the strangest of places. Not when she knows she's smarter than any of them. When she knows Matthew is lying to her. And when there are so many, many pranks to be done.
Frankie Landau-Banks, at age 16: Possibly a criminal mastermind.
Here is a fun poke at fancy preparatory schools, their fancy-schmancy pedigrees, and the students who attend them. Tanya Eby Sirois is a great vocal match for the offbeat, unpretentious Frankie Landau-Banks, who takes on the status quo at her private school and proves to be the alpha-female of the old boy secret society The Bassett Hounds. As Sirois portrays Frankie's transformation from skinny, near-invisible kid sister to the ever-so-noticeable "it" girl, her inflections, especially of sarcasm, are just right. Characterizations are also well done for boyfriend Matt and the pretentious Alpha Dog. Although rich, spoiled, and pampered, these teens are the same as any other: impractical, daring, and fun to listen to while they pull pranks and cause commotion--simply to prove they can. D.L.M. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine
E. Lockhart is the author of The Boyfriend List, Fly on the Wall, and The Boy Book. She once portrayed both Peter Quince and a tree in a drama school production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, wearing an electric-blue unitard. Her theatrical career ended soon after.
