-
Access Our
Most Anticipated
Books of 2025!
Summary | Excerpt | Reading Guide | Reviews | Beyond the book | Read-Alikes | Genres & Themes | Author Bio
Book Reviewed by:Frankie Landau-Banks, at age 16: No longer the kind of girl to take "no" for an answer and possibly a criminal mastermind. This is the story of how she got that way.
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 Landau-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's lying to her. And when there are so many, many pranks to be done.
Frankie Landau-Banks, at age 16: Possibly a criminal mastermind.
This is the story of how she got that way.
Lockhart has a sensitive ear for her characters' young voices; the dialogue is funny and real. Young women will savor this subversive cautionary tale of a girl geek's exhilarating pursuit of power -- sexual, intellectual, and social -- within the retrograde, male-dominated world of an elite boarding school...continued
Full Review
(529 words)
This review is available to non-members for a limited time. For full access,
become a member today.
(Reviewed by Jo Perry).
The Panopticon was proposed as a model prison by Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), a Utilitarian philosopher and theorist of British legal reform.
The Panopticon ("all-seeing") functioned as a round-the-clock surveillance
machine. Its design ensured that no prisoner could ever see the 'inspector' who
conducted surveillance from the privileged central location within the radial
configuration. The prisoner could never know when he was being surveilled.
Instead of traditional 'cellblock' designs, many modern prisons are built in a 'podular' design influenced by Bentham's Panopticon. Instead of rectangular buildings with tiers of cells and walkways, modern prisons are often constructed in
triangular or trapezoidal-shapes with the cells...
This "beyond the book" feature is available to non-members for a limited time. Join today for full access.
If you liked The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks, try these:
by Tommy Wallach
Published 2017
Tommy Wallach, the New York Times bestselling author of the "stunning debut" (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) We All Looked Up, delivers a brilliant new novel about a young man who overcomes a crippling loss and finds the courage to live after meeting an enigmatic girl.
by Andrew A. Smith
Published 2015
Destiny takes a detour in this heartbreakingly hilarious novel from the acclaimed author of Winger, which Kirkus Reviews called "smart" and "wickedly funny."
