Another independent minded girl

The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
This book just won a Printz Honor Award from the American Library Association, and it well deserves it. Frankie is one terrific fifteen-year-old -- smart, brave and mind-bogglingly independent. As brilliant a strategist as she is, however, I loved that glimpses of being 15 shone through. Her world as she has known it has just ended, and she wonders for a few minutes if she could be the mindless, adorable arm candy that her boyfriend loved (past tense very important!), and then rejects that choice. She knows herself, but is young enough to yearn.

But that's not all: along with the excellent main character and the suspenseful, clever plot, there is very astute social commentary on boy-girl relationships, power and rebellion, surveillance, and language. Another title (and the best so far) for the indie-girl list!

Meanwhile, I just finished Interworld by Neil Gaiman and Michael Reaves, a fun romp through alternate worlds, fighting bad guys and getting lost. Yes, I admit it, I'm throwing a bone to you boys out there.


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Winter Reading

Here in Seattle we were snowed in for several days around Christmas. It was divine! Especially after Christmas (and all the sewing and baking and cooking fun) I probably read a book a day. I noticed two trends: as mentioned before, the girl who falls in love but realizes that allowing a boy to save her is probably a bad thing, that she may need to grow and mature before acting on her love. The Revolution of Sabine is one and Climbing the Stairs (by Padma Venkatraman) is the second I've read recently. Both were surprising and thoughtful historical novels. In Climbing the Stairs, 15-year-old Vidya and her family move in with her father's more traditional family. It is the eve of World War II and all over India people are responding to Gandhi's call for civil disobedience in the face of British rule. The title comes from the traditional Brahmin house in which women live on the first floor and men live on the second -- with the books, which is what Vidya is after. Following up on this theme of independent young women, I think I need to read Tamora Pierce's Beka Cooper novel, Terrier.

The second trend was of people getting unexpected windfalls. In Lottery, by local author Patricia Wood, a slow-witted man wins the lottery and has to fend off his unscrupulous family. I occasionally laughed out loud at Perry's different way of looking at the world, and was charmed and surprised by the ending, including how he copes with said unscrupulous family. In Everything You Want, by Barbara Shoup, 18-year-old Emma is unhappy her freshman year in college. She has no social life, her former best friend is acting like she's poisonous, and she spends all her evenings with her science project, a goose she's named Freud. When her parents win the state lottery, she can have everything she wants, but money can't buy happiness, can it? Now I'm anxious to read The Fortunes of Indigo Skye, by Deb Caletti, another YA novel about unexpected windfalls. I wasn't able to finish Caletti's Honey, Baby, Sweetheart, so we'll see.