Buy this book. do it. Right now. Do not question me!
Go now!
Ok fine. I’ll give my review so you understand why I love this book so much. However, it still isn’t 5 out of 5, rather 4 out of 5. The point was taken off because in the last 3 chapters I ended up hating the main character. She confused me so much and I wasn’t even sure whether I truly enjoyed the ending because of the events that took place and the characters motivations.
Set in the school of Alabaster, an affluent college, the author takes us on the journey of Frankie Landau-Banks’ life at school. The author’s writing style is just wonderful, as she speaks in the 2nd person. A style which I haven’t really read before, but enjoyed so much more than the more popular choice of the 1st person or 3rd person writing style for fiction. (Prove me wrong that there aren’t many 3rd person fiction stories out there by giving me titles!)
Set in the future of the events that happened at Alabaster College, the reader is told about this character Frankie. What is stressed throughout the first at least half of the story is how ordinary she is. No one notices her and no one cares about her. She’s not emo, she’s not a freak either...she’s just Frankie. Or Bunny Rabbit to her parents. When she meets Matthew Livingston, her world is changed around when she starts hanging out with him and his friends. Their life seems perfect, until she finds that Matthew is lying to her and keeps ditching her to hang with his best friend Alpha. So she follows him one night to find out what he’s up to. Because yanno it’s what everyone does!
What really intrigued me with this book is its fantastic language. The slang used by the kids in the school (particular Alpha’s language) was so clever and funny, yet stuck with you. It was the perfect slanguage. You actually wanted to be a part of this group of people, you wanted to BE these people, which I guess was the point E. Lockhart was making. Everyone wanted to be a part of this group for the pure fact that they had this wonderful sense of togetherness. They were a tight group, who stuck together and were always this joyous group to be around, especially the boys.
Another thing that intrigued me was the amount of feminist comments. Both genders can read this book, don’t get me wrong! but honestly speaking I think it’s more suited to females for the pure fact that females would understand the main characters motivations more, and because it was full of feminism (Helsinki look into this book!) Frankie was the main feminist and focused on issues surrounding the school and the people in it. Even her language and the way she spoke to males was very clever, and something I think we can all learn from.
The thing that annoyed me about this book was the main character. By the end of the book, I suddenly became annoyed with her. I thought about it some more after I read the ending and I figured I was mostly annoyed at the fact that she destroyed the lives of many others around her, yet still kept to her believe that what she did was right. Well in my opinion, it was not right. It was interesting and a fantastic story but she could have gone about things differently, which would have made the story change and be uninteresting. Therefore, making the events of the story unrealistic in a way. Another thing that made it unrealistic is Frankie’s age. She is 15 years old, however, the way she speaks, the way she thinks about how she addresses boys and her way of dealing with things thrown at her are not things that are usually thought by 15 year old girls. Especially when it is stressed that she is quite ordinary. She, in my opinion, is not ordinary. She is too unrealistic for me, she should have whined about her boyfriend more, she should have confided in more girls rather than dealing with everything herself. In fact the only person she told was her sister. And her sister is not normal either. Her name is Zada. Enough said.
For anyone that has read this story please please tell me so I can discuss it with you. I would very much like to discuss this in more detail.
Go now!
Ok fine. I’ll give my review so you understand why I love this book so much. However, it still isn’t 5 out of 5, rather 4 out of 5. The point was taken off because in the last 3 chapters I ended up hating the main character. She confused me so much and I wasn’t even sure whether I truly enjoyed the ending because of the events that took place and the characters motivations.
Set in the school of Alabaster, an affluent college, the author takes us on the journey of Frankie Landau-Banks’ life at school. The author’s writing style is just wonderful, as she speaks in the 2nd person. A style which I haven’t really read before, but enjoyed so much more than the more popular choice of the 1st person or 3rd person writing style for fiction. (Prove me wrong that there aren’t many 3rd person fiction stories out there by giving me titles!)
Set in the future of the events that happened at Alabaster College, the reader is told about this character Frankie. What is stressed throughout the first at least half of the story is how ordinary she is. No one notices her and no one cares about her. She’s not emo, she’s not a freak either...she’s just Frankie. Or Bunny Rabbit to her parents. When she meets Matthew Livingston, her world is changed around when she starts hanging out with him and his friends. Their life seems perfect, until she finds that Matthew is lying to her and keeps ditching her to hang with his best friend Alpha. So she follows him one night to find out what he’s up to. Because yanno it’s what everyone does!
What really intrigued me with this book is its fantastic language. The slang used by the kids in the school (particular Alpha’s language) was so clever and funny, yet stuck with you. It was the perfect slanguage. You actually wanted to be a part of this group of people, you wanted to BE these people, which I guess was the point E. Lockhart was making. Everyone wanted to be a part of this group for the pure fact that they had this wonderful sense of togetherness. They were a tight group, who stuck together and were always this joyous group to be around, especially the boys.
Another thing that intrigued me was the amount of feminist comments. Both genders can read this book, don’t get me wrong! but honestly speaking I think it’s more suited to females for the pure fact that females would understand the main characters motivations more, and because it was full of feminism (Helsinki look into this book!) Frankie was the main feminist and focused on issues surrounding the school and the people in it. Even her language and the way she spoke to males was very clever, and something I think we can all learn from.
The thing that annoyed me about this book was the main character. By the end of the book, I suddenly became annoyed with her. I thought about it some more after I read the ending and I figured I was mostly annoyed at the fact that she destroyed the lives of many others around her, yet still kept to her believe that what she did was right. Well in my opinion, it was not right. It was interesting and a fantastic story but she could have gone about things differently, which would have made the story change and be uninteresting. Therefore, making the events of the story unrealistic in a way. Another thing that made it unrealistic is Frankie’s age. She is 15 years old, however, the way she speaks, the way she thinks about how she addresses boys and her way of dealing with things thrown at her are not things that are usually thought by 15 year old girls. Especially when it is stressed that she is quite ordinary. She, in my opinion, is not ordinary. She is too unrealistic for me, she should have whined about her boyfriend more, she should have confided in more girls rather than dealing with everything herself. In fact the only person she told was her sister. And her sister is not normal either. Her name is Zada. Enough said.
For anyone that has read this story please please tell me so I can discuss it with you. I would very much like to discuss this in more detail.
One more thing. I’d like to think that this Frankie chick ended up going mad. Even if it’s only implied in the story, I would very much like to think that she drove herself completely crazy. I think she deserves to have a mind of mush by the end when the author designed her to be unbelievably clever, sassy, funny and overconfident...all at the age of 15
Disreputably yours
Jinx xx
P.S BUY IT!
u mean its a BAD thing that she didnt whine about boys and she took care of herself? thats flippin' awesome of her! i like her already!
ReplyDeletehmmm 3rd (did u mean 2nd person..?) person books... lemme think...
Eragon series, Rangers Apprentice series, all Meg Cabot books, Spooksville (these awesome books i used to read as a kid n tat i found in the library here!) and Nancy Drew to name a few.
Love you!
Helsinki
eragon doesnt address the reader though. 3rd person does the whole "you did this and you would do this" like your attending the school many years later and frankie was a past student they're talking about "you must understand that frankie was quite ordinary"
ReplyDeleteand i think its a bad thing that she was 15. terribly underestimated so therefore classed as ordinary. however unrealistic and hard to like when she was only 15 years old. a female hero that was too young for me! she should have been 18 in my opinion.
love you mooore
oh!! I LOVE 2nd person pov!! By far my favourite 2nd pov book would have to be John Marsden's "Creep Street" and "Cool School" to which were my favourite books in my childhood and still hold a small space in my heart! They're fantastic!! YOU are the main character and YOU control the story! For instance, instead of it being 'you must understand that frankie was quite ordinary" it is "you make your way down the stairs and you turn a corner." All the events happen to you - it's great!
ReplyDeletei think many people don't write in 2nd person pov because it is WAY harder to describe things and people... in my personal opinion. i tried writing in 2nd person pov once... i couldn't do it.
As for unrealistic 15 year olds, i think that a lot of characters are unrealistic... Harry Potter being a prime example. I LOVE harry potter... but to be so couragious at 11 years old is just unfathomable... i mean, think about it. He faces a serial killer in nothing but courage in the first book. One on one. With no help whatsoever. Keep in mind he is new to the wizarding world and barely knows any spells. Any normal 11 year old kid would be freaking out... but Harry keeps his cool.... which i could never completely understand...
I think writers do that sometimes because (sometimes - not in all cases, but sometimes) we end up looking up to these fictional characters. It makes the reader admire them, regardless of it being a realistic representation or not. We would like to THINK that a person could be like that, and hence, we respect the character.
Thats just my two cents :)
you know your so right tor i think that we're definately supposed to admire frankie in many ways. her feminist behaviour inspired me so much. she is described as being a knockout figure and i realy agree with that in many ways. but i think what annoyed me about her most is her reasoning was of a 15 year old, but her language and the way she thought things out was of an 18 year old. confuzling material!
ReplyDeletei shall look into those books thanks tor tor!
xoxox looove