The Kissing Booth by Beth Reekles

Rating: WARTY!

This author's story is another one like those told about Amanda Hocking. The story in the novel was begun by Beth Reeks when she was fifteen, and published on a website named Wattpad when she was seventeen, where it quickly became popular. A representative from Random House saw it there, decided it was worth publishing (that tells us a lot about standards at Random House - the publisher evidently isn't named random for nothing!), and offered her a contract, so the novel got published under her school nickname Reekles.

The problem is that the representative apparently paid attention only to the numbers of views Reeks was getting rather than the quality of the writing or the content of the novel which by all accounts sucked. I listened to the standard two disks and decided this was not only not for me, it was not for anyone in their right mind. It's essentially another Hush Hush where a girl actively seeks out and adheres herself a guy who is openly disrespectful and abusive to her.

When I picked this up and read the blurb, I wrongly got he impression that that this was set in the past and was written by a mature author (i.e. mature in the sense of being a competent writer), but it was not. The writing quality was exactly what you'd expect from a fifteen to seventeen year old writer, and the issues with it were many. There are some young writers who can do it, but most cannot, and Beth Reekles is one of those. The novel isn't set in a more innocent time, it's contemporary, which made it inexplicable. Another problem was that the novel was written as an English novel, but it's set in California, a place to which the author has never been and evidently not even researched. Consequently all the Californian high-schoolers speak as though they're in England. Nonsensical.

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Given that it's not set in the past, the whole kissing booth idea fails. Reeks explained in an interview that that she moved it to to California because they don't have kissing booths in high school carnivals in Britain. They do in the US with the rise of orally transmitted diseases such as HPV and AIDS? No!!!! The sad thing is that none of this - the risk of transmission of disease - is raised. No one objects to it, and that's another issue with the novel - the complete lack of adult or parental supervision. There is none in this novel, not in any of it that I read.

This novel failed on so many levels that it's a joke, and the fact that Random House ran with it serves only to underline the problems I have with Big Publishing. All the more power to Reeks if she can rip-off the rubes with a crappy novel, but what does it say about young readers that they consider something like this to be perfectly acceptable reading material?

Saving Francesca by Melina Marchetta

Rating: WARTY!

I think it's time to take a vow never to read another novel which has a character's name in the title, and never to read another novel with the word 'saving' in the title! This means that Saving Francesca is a double no, or a no-no for short!

Initially, I thought that all the women in Francesca's family carried the 'a' suffix to pigeon-hole them as female: her mom is Mia, her kid sister Luca. Only the male has a rugged name: Bob. I was right about that last one, but wrong about Luca. It turned out hat she was a he! The thing is though, that the alpha (there's that 'a' again) male in the family is Mia. She's evidently maintained this position until she has a break-down at the start of this story, which sets the family adrift for reason which aren't well explained.

There was nothing in this story, no in the portion that I managed to stomach, to place it time-wise. It seemed like it was from last century as judged by the attitudes and schooling system, but other than that it could have been set today. Francesca attended St. Stella's, but that school has no year eleven or twelve, so she had to transfer to St Sebastian's, and thus we have the trope of a new kid in school. The trope of her being alone is enhanced by the fact that this is a boys school which has just opened itself up to co-ed. The level of misogyny here is truly startling, and the fact that no one seems to find it appalling is what made me think that the story is historical. I'd hate to think that Australian education system is this anachronistic; then again, maybe it's a sly comment on the Catholic church, which has been misogynistic since its inception, what with Eve being the downfall of mankind, you know.

All Francesca's friends now attend a school to which Mia refused to send Francesca under the belief that the other school would limit her options. As is typical with this kind of blinkered story, not only have her friends gone to a different school, they've also apparently gone to a different planet, or been expunged from history because there seems to be no way she can maintain contact with them - neither by text nor by phone call, neither by email nor by taking a walk over to their house. This is truly a blind and pathetic way to start a story. It's not remotely realistic.

But then this novel was one of caricatures. The boys are all stereotypical obnoxious boys no matter who they are or what their age. Francesca's friends are caricatures, too; one of them, Tina, is a 'feminist' so we're told, but she sounds far more like a radical communist than ever she does a feminist, and completely anachronistic to boot. Francesca herself is so emotional that she comes across more as a twelve-year-old than ever she does as someone in the latter half of her teens. She has a male love interest who she naturally detests at first sight, which confirms with a crystal clarity that she will be in love with him in short order an that this novel would be hide-bound by cliché and trope. Barf. Trite? They name is Melina Marchetta (there are those suffixes again!).

I couldn't continue reading this and I can't recommend it based on what I did read. This novel merely conformed my growing conviction that traditional publishers (like book award committees) pin the names of novel submissions (or nominations) to a large wall, blindfold themselves, and randomly toss darts at the wall. The novel titles which managed to garner for themselves a dart which sticks are the ones which are published (or awarded a medal) and the rest are recycled as material with which to stuff dartboards.

Murderess by Daya Marnin

Title: Murderess
Author/Illustrator: Daya Marnin
Publisher: Morphus VC
Rating: WARTY!

DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this book nor borrowed it from the library. This is a "galley" copy ebook, supplied by Net Galley. I'm not receiving (nor will I expect to receive or accept) remuneration for this review.

p27 "The following days passed by surprisingly smooth." should be "The following days passed by surprisingly smoothly."
p28 "The teachers began to disliker..." should be "The teachers began to dislike..."
P31 "...largeer" should be "larger" (I gave up after this!)

I did not like the typeface used in this novel; it made it hard to read, which quite defeats the purpose of a book, doesn't it?! That aside, the main character, Lu Killer, started out as a rather intriguing person as she kicks off The Exiles of Greywall'd saga, but she soon grew to be tiresome with her endless pretence at indifference.

This book was begun by a thirteen year old and published three years later, so as far as it goes it's a decent achievement, but I don't think we do anyone any favors by grading a novel as an inverse function of the author's age, any more than we would because we like the author's name (Daya is the name of one of my characters in Tears in Time which is currently in writer's block!). That's why I have to say that I did not find this novel a worthy read.

Lu starts a new school - so standard YA trope beginning, and since this is a fantasy story, it's not long before strange events begin. Lu is inexplicably given a make-over by the 'Essex' girls - a name which is supposed to mean something, I guess, but which didn't mean a thing to me. During this attention, Lu begins to feel a white fog spreading through her brain, but something inside her, something very dark, repels it, and the windows in the room all shatter.

After that, things rather went downhill. The book was initially written in Hebrew and was translated to English by NL Lumi, who presumably had an English (as opposed to an American) education, because the novel reads like it's an English novel. This was endearing to me, but I did find some odd phrasing here and there. I resolved initially that I wasn't about to mark it down for that, but after starting out fairly decently, the writing became very poor, and it was very hard to keep on reading this because of the quality of the writing, and the choppy and sparse story-telling.

It's hard to tell if this poor quality was because of the translation or if the original was just as bad. One problem, for example, was that the novel begins in third person then unaccountably switches to first person on page 43, then back to third person again on page fifty-two! On page 35, a lance in one paragraph changes to a halberd in the very next paragraph, and then to a spear in that same paragraph! These three weapons are not the same, they're not interchangeable, and they're not confusable!

On top of this the writing was honestly juvenile in places. Again, it's hard to tell how much of this was original and how much came out in translation, but the plotting was also poor, with events not flowing smoothly, and with odd, out-of-left field conflicts erupting which ceased just as abruptly as they began. These took place right in the high school, but without any repercussions, or anyone thinking anything weird was happening! Then suddenly, we're no longer in high-school but in some sort of medieval fantasy-land. At that point I gave up on this novel because I couldn't stand to read any more of it.

I think that the translator probably did the best job they could, but that the original material was not well-written to begin with. It's very confusing and little is explained about what's really going on, so I went from being intrigued to being frustrated very quickly. The poor writing, poor grammar, and spelling errors didn't help win me over, either.

This is not an era where books have to be typeset laboriously with metal characters laid rank and file in trays. It's an era of electronics and spell-checkers, and there is no excuse for spelling errors, not even in a "galley" proof (so called). I cannot recommend this novel, not even for the younger end of the YA scale, because they deserve better. Maybe with a lot of re-writing and some decent editing, it would work. It certainly doesn't as is.

I wish I could offer more to a young writer whom I would like to see persevere and succeed, but she needs to really get on top of her story-telling, editing, and pacing, otherwise I cannot see this rising to the top.

The Boyfriend List by E Lockhart

Title: The Boyfriend List
Author: E Lockhart
Publisher: Audible
Rating: WARTY!

When I first looked at this, I decided that I sincerely hoped the female depicted on the cover was the therapist because she looks way too old to be the subject of the novel. If she is the subject of the novel, Ruby Oliver, then the therapist has way more serious issues to address than a list of people who aren't even boyfriends. I can't think of a worse or a more inauthentic approach to a novel than the one taken here. Or more accurately, I probably can. but I can't imagine one which would have a chance of becoming published. I can't believe this one was.

It took only the first disk of this audio book turn my stomach. The reading by Mandy Siegfried was acceptable, but the content was not. This was the most tedious and boring of characters, completely self-obsessed, blind to reality, effectively abused by her parents (sent for medical care for one panic attack? Seriously? Way to screw-up your daughter, numb-nuts. If you'd raised her properly she wouldn't be having these attacks to begin with - and I'll bet if she'd been a boy she wouldn't have been raised that way, either! If she's having a full-blown panic attack now, then she needed help long before this.

But given how appallingly lousy her parents are, a psychiatrist, child psychologist, or some other sort of therapist might be what's called for, but if that's the case, and all she's focused on is a list of fictional boyfriends, the the medical practitioner needs to be struck off (or bumped off) for malpractice! So no matter how you come into this novel it's just wrong, wrong, wrong, and one more time, WRONG!

Supposedly her psychiatrist/therapist/whatever told her to create a list of her "boyfriends" which includes people who she never even dated - so that they can be discussed at the next session. To what end? The problem isn't boyfriends, fictitious or otherwise! It's her lack of self confidence caused by the fact that she's been raised like far too many girls: taught that she needs validation and that beauty is everything, by her lousy parents who are actually the real problem here.

It took hardly any time at all to decide that I had much better things to do with my time than to listen to a spoiled-rotten fifteen-year-old self-obsess about boyfriends she never even had, as though without a boy in her life she's completely worthless, useless, hopeless and incomplete at best. Why do female YA authors treat females so appallingly badly?

I fell in love with Frankie Landau-Banks, and I adored Sadye, but after dealing with We Were Liars and now this mess, I'mm done with E Lockhart/Emily Jenkins (now there's a case of schizophrenia waiting to be diagnosed: adopt a new persona so you can deceive readers by writing books under a false name? Whoa!). Check please! I'm outta here. Clear the pilates from the table and next time bring me a bigger cup size for my coffee. I'm done.

Curtsies & Conspiracies by Gail Carriger

Title: Curtsies & Conspiracies
Author: Gail Carriger
Publisher: Little Brown
Rating: WORTHY!

I read this novel some time ago and was quite thrilled with the opportunity to read it in ebook form. The ebook version (epub format) for Adobe Digital Editions was beautifully laid out and eminently readable, which was a pleasant experience, and it's only some 200 pages, so it's a really quick read.

This novel is the first in a series:

Etiquette & Espionage
Curtsies & Conspiracies
Waistcoats & Weaponry
Manners & Mutiny

Fourteen year old Sophronia is sent to a finishing school, where finishing means exactly that: finishing off people, as in assassination! It's also a school for spies. I'm completely in love with Gail Carriger's sense of humor, if not Carriger herself (And I reserve judgment there!). How can you argue with a line like: "Who wouldn't want an exploding wicker chicken?"?!

The author spent some time in Britain, where this novel is set, and it shows very commendably. She has an amazing eye for the absurd, for the quirks of British life, and for the square peg in a round hole kind of person which Sophronia inescapably is. This novel is Harry Potter on steroids, but minus the too-cute and the magic, that being replaced with a liberal helping of steam-punk and intrigue, along with a sneaky and hilarious sense of humor.

In leading her main character on a merry dance in pursuit of her objective, the author goes through a humbling (for other writers like me!) repertoire of exquisitely-drawn characters, all of whom have quirks and foibles to both hate and love. The adventure begins with Sophronia's escapades at home, which lead directly to her being consigned (some might say exiled) to a finishing school suited to her disposition and talents.

I adore the playfulness of these stories, and the names which the author invents for her characters are exquisite: Bumbersnoot, Lord Dingleproops, Madame Spetunia, Sophronia Angelina Temminick, Dimity Ann Plumleigh-Teignmott, Pillover, Preshea, Bunson's, Duke Hematol, Mrs Barnaclegoose, Frowbritcher. They alone are worth reading the novel for, but the writing is exquisite, the plotting very well done, and the execution remarkable.

After saving herself, the girl who is to become her best friend, her best friend-to-be's younger brother (who is going to a different school to train as an evil genius) and the schoolmate who is in disguise as an older woman and who is highly suspicious, from flywaymen, life at school seems like it will be a let-down for Soph, but she discovers that an associate of the school, who helps them get aboard, is a werewolf, and one of their teachers is a vampire. Oh, and the topics at school are entirely to do with spying. Indeed, when Soph is called to the office after being reported climbing around on the exterior of the airship during one of her snooping forays, she isn't punished at all; she's merely dressed-down for allowing herself to be seen!

So Sophronia has to find her way in this finishing school to which she did not expect to go, and to which she was dispatched with unladylike speed, and find it she certainly does, and quite literally, too. The school is aboard a gigantic airship, which is subject to raids by flywaymen (sky pirates who are seeking something very specific from the school, and Soph is determined to discover what it is they're after).

During one of the sky pirate assaults, Soph actually ends up accidentally acquiring a brass steam dog from the pirates, which she promptly names Bumbersnoot, illicitly secreting him in her room, and feeding him coal! This is much to the disgust of her worst enemy (with whom she's forced to room along with her now best friend Dimity, a rather shy, retiring sort (but who's game for anything, it turns out), and a lanky Scots lass who also joins her troublesome trio. Along with aid from a precocious and amusing child of one of the teachers, and a likely lad from the engine room, as well as some assistance from Dimity's brother, Soph begins making herself very much at home - and very much a handful - on the airship.

In the end she saves the day of course, and I adored this novel. I was immediately, and very much looking forward to the sequel, Curtsies & Conspiracies which I also reviewed favorably. Carriger also has a series set twenty five years after this time period called "The Parasol Protectorate" which, rest assured, I shall be tracking down post-haste (at least, tracking down the first four volumes. I already have the fifth.

Etiquette & Espionage by Gail Carriger

Title: Etiquette & Espionage
Author: Gail Carriger
Publisher: Hachette
Rating: WORTHY!

DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this book nor borrowed it from the library. This is a "galley" copy ebook, supplied by Net Galley. I'm not receiving (nor will I expect to receive or accept) remuneration for this review.

I read this novel some time ago and was quite thrilled with the opportunity to read it in ebook form. The ebook version (epub format) for Adobe Digital Editions was beautifully laid out and eminently readable, which was a pleasant experience, and it's only some 200 pages, so it's a fast read.

This novel is the first in a series:

Etiquette & Espionage
Curtsies & Conspiracies
Waistcoats & Weaponry
Manners & Mutiny

Fourteen year old Sophronia is sent to a finishing school, where finishing means exactly that: finishing off people, as in assassination! It's also a school for spies. I'm completely in love with Gail Carriger's sense of humor, if not Carriger herself (And I reserve judgment there!). How can you argue with a line like: "Who wouldn't want an exploding wicker chicken?"?!

The author spent some time in Britain, where this novel is set, and it shows very commendably. She has an amazing eye for the absurd, for the quirks of British life, and for the square peg in a round hole kind of person which Sophronia inescapably is. This novel is Harry Potter on steroids, but minus the too-cute and the magic, that being replaced with a liberal helping of steam-punk and intrigue, along with a sneaky and hilarious sense of humor.

In leading her main character on a merry dance in pursuit of her objective, the author goes through a humbling (for other writers like me!) repertoire of exquisitely-drawn characters, all of whom have quirks and foibles to both hate and love. The adventure begins with Sophronia's escapades at home, which lead directly to her being consigned (some might say exiled) to a finishing school suited to her disposition and talents.

I adore the playfulness of these stories, and the names which the author invents for her characters are exquisite: Bumbersnoot, Lord Dingleproops, Madame Spetunia, Sophronia Angelina Temminick, Dimity Ann Plumleigh-Teignmott, Pillover, Preshea, Bunson's, Duke Hematol, Mrs Barnaclegoose, Frowbritcher. They alone are worth reading the novel for,but the writing is exquisite, the plotting very well done, and the execution remarkable.

After saving herself, the girl who is to become her best friend, her best friend-to-be's younger brother (who is going to a different school to train as an evil genius) and the schoolmate who is in disguise as an older woman and who is highly suspicious, from flywaymen, life at school seems like it will be a let-down for Soph, but she discovers that an associate of the school, who helps them get aboard, is a werewolf, and one of their teachers is a vampire. Oh, and the topics at school are entirely to do with spying. Indeed, when Soph is called to the office after being reported climbing around on the exterior of the airship during one of her snooping forays, she isn't punished at all; she's merely dressed-down for allowing herself to be seen!

So Sophronia has to find her way in this finishing school to which she did not expect to go, and to which she was dispatched with unladylike speed, and find it she certainly does, and quite literally, too. The school is aboard a gigantic airship, which is subject to raids by flywaymen (sky pirates who are seeking something very specific from the school, and Soph is determined to discover what it is they're after).

During one of the sky pirate assaults, Soph actually ends up accidentally acquiring a brass steam dog from the pirates, which she promptly names Bumbersnoot, illicitly secreting him in her room, and feeding him coal! This is much to the disgust of her worst enemy (with whom she's forced to room along with her now best friend Dimity, a rather shy, retiring sort (but who's game for anything, it turns out), and a lanky Scots lass who also joins her troublesome trio. Along with aid from a precocious and amusing child of one of the teachers, and a likely lad from the engine room, as well as some assistance from Dimity's brother, Soph begins making herself very much at home - and very much a handful - on the airship.

In the end she saves the day of course, and I adored this novel. I was immediately, and very much looking forward to the sequel, Curtsies & Conspiracies which I also reviewed favorably. Carriger also has a series set twenty five years after this time period called "The Parasol Protectorate" which, rest assured, I shall be tracking down post-haste.

The Perpetual Motion Club by Sue Lange

Title: The Perpetual Motion Club
Author: Sue Lange
Publisher: Perpetual Motion Machine Publishing
Rating: WORTHY!

DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this book nor borrowed it from the library. This is a "galley" copy ebook, supplied by Net Galley. I'm not receiving (nor will I expect to receive or accept) remuneration of any kind for this review. Since this is a new novel, this review is less detailed so as not to rob the writer of their story, but even so, it will probably still be more in-depth than you'll typically find elsewhere!

This novel is a real oddity, or maybe this oddity is a real novelty, but it entertained me. Elsa Webb is a sophomore in high school where students sport sponsorship logos on their clothing and backpacks, from assorted corporations. Elsa carries no such sponsorship; she's quiet and reserved and very smart, as indeed is her best friend May. But neither of them could be remotely described as popular. Elsa doesn’t seem to know where she's going in life, and becomes completely derailed at times even from the routine life she does have, such as when the new basketball player bumps into her in the hallway, knocking her flat on her ass, and doesn’t even stop to say sorry or help her up. She falls hopelessly for him such that he figures powerfully in her fantasy life and in her plans.

She even attends a meeting of the Science Society, dragging poor May along with her in forlorn hope of seeing him there. This society is supposed to be a feather in the cap of those who want to get along successfully in this high-tech futuristic society, where the sink, closet, garbage chute, and microwave speak back to you, and most everyone has an RFID chip in their head. But although Elsa is offered membership in the society, Jason, the basketball player, was not at the meeting and she decides against joining, coming off the rails yet again, but in a different direction this time.

Elsa develops a fascination with perpetual motion after the meeting and decides to create her own club - The Perpetual Motion club - of which she and May are the only two members and in the first few months hold only one meeting. The name of the club is ironic because it's precisely at that moment that life seems to come to a screeching halt for Elsa, who can't seem to get close to anything she wants. How she deals with this and in the end triumphs, although not quite in the way she anticipated, is the subject of this novel.

The club was started almost as a knee-jerk response to her mother's nagging about the science club. Lainie Webb is another entertaining character and Elsa has a difficult but loving relationship with her. She tries to lure Jason out on a trip to a perpetual motion meeting hosted by larger than life people who really believe such a thing is possible, but she's devastated when Jason appears to agree to go, but then stands her up without a word of warning or apology.

This rejection triggers an obsession with perpetual motion, and Elsa starts missing sleep as she lies awake pondering possibilities. Her school work suffers in all classes save geometry, which is again ironic because Elsa can't seem to work out the geometry of her life! Her relationships and a piece of work, and if this novel were only about that it would have been a worthy read, but it has much more to serve up that just relationships. Elsa's thought processes are a journey in and of themselves. This novel flouts the YA tropes and runs along it's own path, not one which is beaten, but one which is triumphant. This is a warm, fascinating and engrossing novel which I could not stop reading. Until I came to my own screeching halt at the end, that is. I wanted more! Highly recommended, but only if you're tired of trope and want something new, original, and well put together.

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

Title: The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks
Author: E. Lockhart aka Emily Jenkins
Publisher: Hyperion Books
Rating: WORTHY

E(mily) Lockhart is the writer behind The Boy Book, The Boyfriend List, Dramarama, and Fly on the Wall. It would be unfair to start this review without quoting Frankie's bizarre (until you've read the novel, that is!) letter.

December 14, 2007
To: Headmaster Richmond and the Board of Directors,
Alabaster Preparatory Academy

I, Frankie Landau-Banks, hereby confess that I was the sole mastermind behind the mal-doings of the Loyal Order of the Basset Hounds. I take full responsibility for the disruptions caused by the Order—including the Library Lady, the Doggies in the Window, the Night of a Thousand Dogs, the Canned Beet Rebellion, and the abduction of the Guppy.

That is, I wrote the directives telling everyone what to do.

I. And I alone.

No matter what Porter Welsch told you in his statement...

Of course, the dogs of the Order are human beings with free will. They contributed their labor under no explicit compunction. I did not threaten them or coerce them in any way, and if they chose to follow my instructions, it was not because they feared retribution.

You have requested that I provide you with their names. I respectfully decline to do so. It’s not for me to pugn or impugn their characters.

I would like to point out that many of the Order’s escapades were intended as social criticism. And that many of the Order’s members were probably diverted from more self-destructive behaviors by the activities prescribed them by me. So maybe my actions contributed to a larger good, despite the inconveniences you, no doubt, suffered.

I do understand the administration’s disgruntlement over the incidents. I see that my behavior disrupted the smooth running of your patriarchal establishment. And yet I would like to suggest that you view each of the Loyal Order’s projects with the gruntlement that should attend the creative civil disobedience of students who are politically aware and artistically expressive.

I am not asking that you indulge my behavior; merely that you do not dulge it without considering its context.

Yours sincerely,
[Signature]
Frances Rose Landau-Banks,
class of 2010

This novel begins, as you saw, with a letter of confession from Frances Rose Landau-Banks regarding certain disreputable activities which take place during the first semester of her sophomore high school year. She owns up to being the ring-leader for a reputable reason. Frankie fell afoul of reputability despite advice from her best friend is Trish, who is the daughter of a psychiatrist and who does a pretty darned amazing job of psychoanalyzing people's behaviors herself. Why is it, in these novels, that all-too-often, I find myself preferring the best friend over the main character?! In this case, however, it's a tough call.

So Frankie is now a sophomore at Alabaster prep school, but none of the more senior boys even remember her from her freshman year; they think she's a new student. There seems to be a significant memory loss problem at this school. If it were a paranormal novel I’d be suspicious that some supernatural evil was at work here, but since it isn’t, I have to assume that we’re being telegraphed here that Frankie is going to shoot to super stardom before long, which will render her unforgettable.

The guy "Alpha", whom she met while at the beach just a couple of weeks before, claims he doesn’t remember her. Dean, who is annoyed that he first encountered her with the real alpha, Matthew, lies that he doesn’t know her just because of that. Matthew Livingston (I presume) denies that he knows her and is probably the only one of the three who is telling the truth. But the guys are amusing so Frankie isn’t angry with them. I agree with Frankie - the guys are amusing, but rather snotty. There are also some snotty girls hanging around, whom she meets at a depressing party on the golf links, and who don’t remember her either. Nor do they seem to have any wish for her acquaintanceship.

Frankie has learned of a society - the Basset Society - at the school, which is secret and open only to men. Matthew Livingston is apparently a member of this club. Frankie has a huge crush on him, which is a bit pathetic. It’s easy to condemn that, of course, but since Frankie is only a sophomore (~15 years old), I'm willing to allow her a bit more latitude than if she were your standard YA girl of 17, but you would think that, even at that age and especially in 2008, that she would realize that Matthew's future in his father's newspaper business is at best problematical when newspapers are going out of business at a phenomenal rate. Hasn’t Frankie heard of Internet media?!

Okay, it's confessional time. I'm hopelessly in love with Emily Lockhart/Jenkins/Whatever. Yes, I know it will do me absolutely no good whatsoever because she's having a riotous affair with the English language, which is, ironically, why I love her so much. I’d also be in love with Frankie Landau-Banks, but she's way too young for me! I do know that I want to read Lockhart/Jenkins's Dramarama ASAP. This novel, the one I'm currently reviewing The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks is a tour de force. I'm recommending it right now even before I've finished it because, as I said recently about another joyous novel, I don’t care if the ending sucks stinking rotten green wieners, it’s eminently worth reading just for what it offers this far.

Frankie is a very curious person; not curious as in peculiar, but curious as in curiosity killed the cat (I wonder, was that Schrödinger's cat - and what if it’s still alive?). Frankie is also rather insecure, which is understandable, given her age. She loves being a part of Matthew's elite school group, and is constantly in some fear of losing his favor, which leads her to testing his commitment, both surreptitiously and quite often.

She's also a bit curious about Alpha, and why he so often seems to call Matthew away when the latter is supposed to be spending time with Frankie. Is he jealous of her hogging Matthew, or of Matthew hogging her? And why does Matthew always go, choosing Alpha over her? Her insecurity isn’t helped by the fact that one of the elite, Dean, dumps his girlfriend Sarah - someone whom Frankie doesn’t even like that much - and it becomes painfully apparent that no-one in the elite will even speak to Sarah after that. Frankie wonders if the same thing would happen to her - that the guys are only friendly towards her because she's with Matthew, not because they actually like her and enjoy her company in her own right.

On one of these occasions, she tails Matthew and finds that he's meeting secretly in the old arts theater, with a dozen or so guys, some of whom Frankie knows from sitting at the elite table in the cafeteria. She knows this group is the secret order of the basset hounds, because her father was a member. He would never tell Frankie a thing about it - except the one time he did reveal that there was a 'Disreputable History' diary squirreled away somewhere, which details the nefarious exploits of the order.

Frankie begins routinely spying on the order's meetings, and she discovers that they do not even know that there is such a diary. She realizes, at the same time, that the loyalty oath which they repeat at the start of each meeting is actually a riddle pointing to where the history is hidden. She turns detective and actually discovers the secret hiding place of the diary, whereupon she retrieves it and reads it shamelessly, learning all the secrets of this men's club! The secrets pretty much amount to nothing more than carrying on some college-student style pranks, although they did seem to be a bit more wild and inventive, and to have more fun than the current members do. The group started in 1951 and appears to have lost the location of the diary in the mid seventies. Things seems to have rather fizzled since then. Ultimately, though, Frankie realizes that the real value of the group is not the pranks they pull but the camaraderie engendered amongst them, and the enduring friendships which are spawned between them. She notes that this is something which is sorely lacking in her own life.

This novel makes Sloppy Firsts look like sloppy seconds. It's the novel which that one ought to have been but failed.

Having finished this now I can confirm my earlier decision to fully recommend this excellent novel. No, the ending wasn't a disaster, though I have to admit to some surprise and a bit of dismay engendered from reading it. Things don’t turn out peachy and commendably, which is fine, and Lockhart/Jenkins doesn't neatly pair off Frankie with anyone (not even Trish!). That was a warm and welcome surprise, but the dismay came from the ending being so bleak! I didn’t expect, and indeed didn’t hope for a sunny, happy, joy-joy ending, but I was a bit discomfited by Frankie being left in so stark a position, shunned and treated with suspicion in so many quarters, although in some ways I guess I do concur that this is exactly where she needed to be.

I loved Lockhart/Jenkins's pursuit of English language's 'missing inversions', such as there not being a word 'maculate' to pair with immaculate, and there not being an 'advertant' to pair with inadvertent (actually, both of these cases there is such a word!). She has this amazing section where she launches into this, inspired by PG Wodehouse (I've never read any Wodehouse. The closest I came was watching Hugh Laurie's and Stephen Fry's TV series which I recommend). Wodehouse at one point apparently uses the word 'gruntled' as opposed to disgruntled, and this really catches Frankie's imagination. She starts using these fake inverted words routinely, causing amusement and confusion amongst her fellow students. That part really caught my imagination because it’s well within the range of the kind of thing I like to do when I'm writing.

In the end, I think The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks is the most feminist and rebellious novel I've ever read. The way she takes charge and dives into this so expertly and so deviously is, I'm afraid to say (because in some ways it’s so insulting) masterful! She kicks ass and doesn’t even bother taking names. Instead she takes liberties. Her story and her behavior are wonderful. In many ways, a sequel to this would be a crime, because it’s hard to imagine any sequel ever being capable of recapturing the charm and skill of the original, but I can't prevent myself from feeling that I want to see Frankie in college, or if not there, then in business after she graduates, surreptitiously taking charge and undermining the male patriarchy! She's wonderful!

Sloppy Firsts by Megan McCafferty

Title: Sloppy Firsts
Author: Megan McCafferty
Publisher: Broadway Books
Rating: warty

At some seventy pages in (of some 300) I have to say I'm wondering what the point of this novel is! Not that I'm nauseated or repulsed by it or anything - it's a decent read as far as it goes, but it isn't really going anywhere! If what I've read so far is a measure of what's to come, I really don't feel up for another 230 or so pages of this, especially since the female protagonist uses the non-word "bizillion" every other page. Usually something happens in the first few pages of a story to give the reader an idea of what's going on - what the obstacle is which the hero must overcome, where the adventure will lead - but that never happens in this one. Oh, and you'll have to wait for p250 before you ever learn why the novel is titled Sloppy Firsts, and even then the 'explanation' makes zero sense unless McCafferty has some weird-ass interpretion of what the term 'sloppy seconds' means....

This novel is nothing more than the diary of a sixteen-year-old who is significantly out of touch with the real world, and as interesting as that premise could be, it isn't anywhere near enough for me to offer my regard as it's written. Not with this diary! Although it did give me a great idea of a novel of my own! That's the problem with reading both good and bad novels - I get all kinds of ideas which I'm never, ever going to get the chance to bring to publication - not all of them!

The Jessica diary is split into sections by month and consists of random days described by our hero. Each chapter has the date for a header. Between the monthly sections is a letter which Jessica has written to her friend Hope, but we're never treated to Hope's responses. Now are we to conclude that Hope doesn't respond, and Jessica merely thinks she does? Or is Hope nothing but a complete fiction to begin with?

The darling of this tale is Jessica, a highly intelligent and quite athletic girl who has (so we're given to understand) lost her best friend not to death or to an irretrievable breakdown of friendship, but to her friend moving away from the area. Jessica was pretty much addicted to Hope and now she's hopeless. There was nothing other than friendship between them (at least as far as I can tell) but Jessica is rendered aimless by her departure. She's reduced to hanging out with the sorry threesome with which Jessica used to hang, yet Jessica largely detests them. She's being pressured to date the school jock, Scotty, especially with her older sister's wedding rapidly approaching, but she detests him, too. It seems highly likely she will date him at least for a time, but she's doubtlessly going to end up dating the school drug addict Marcus (yes, it's that obvious), someone who she claims to detest.

A new girl to the school, named Hy, seems set to replace Hope as Jessica's best (on site) friend, but she feels guilty about even thinking of replacing Hope. Both of her parents are in situ, but she feels alienated from them and from her sister. Indeed, she sees no difference between her big sister and her mom! She has amusing takes on life at school and on her fellow students, but these are not nearly as funny as I'd hoped they would be; however, since I'm not totally turned off by this, I decided to stay with it and see where it leads. I have to confess that I'm already looking forward to getting through this so I can move on to the next novel on my reading list. That's not a good sign!

Jessica does date Scotty, but not quite how I'd envisioned it: it's really a virtual date, whereby he agrees to go to her sister's wedding, but then he starts having sex with a younger student and ditches Jessica. Later he decides it was a mistake, but Jessica won't have any more to do with him. So she is capable of making smart decisions.

One day at school, she fakes "feminine troubles" to get out of watching a school film, and is approached on the sly in the nurses's office by Marcus who wants her urine so he can pass a drug test. Like a moron she complies after he manipulates her into doing it. When the truth comes out, as it inevitably does, Marcus is busted for using someone else's urine, and some young female student - who wants to be a rebel, evidently - confesses to supplying the urine. So Jessica gets off Scot-free (so to speak!) and Marcus is hauled off and sent to some other facility, but I have no doubt he'll be back.

Jessica is taken for a medical check-up because she's tired all the time and hasn't had a period in six months. She has trouble sleeping and is stressed out, especially now that Hy seems to be hanging with the "Clueless Crew" (the threesome of the Hope era) and Jessica is slowly but surely being elbowed out - which doesn't bother her at all. I told you she was smart! This medical visit doesn't result in anything and is quickly forgotten even by the author.

The wedding arrives and Jessica hooks up with some guy who is the best man's younger brother, but though she plans on getting him alone and kissing him, she freaks out when he brings up the subject of sex, and she freaks out in a way which isn't commensurate at all with the approach he took towards raising the topic, especially since he was far too drunk by then to actually proceed with his suggestion! But then Jessica has shown herself to be severely unforgiving - first with Scotty, now with Cal, later with Hy.

Eventually, school is out and Jessica spends the summer working on the local board-walk. I guess Pineville is a lame kinda seaside resort, which had never really registered with me. Nor did it register - if indeed it had ever been mentioned - that Jessica was the third child in this family! The second, Matthew, died in infancy. Jessica sees herself as a "mistake". She spends her entire summer working on the boardwalk to save money while fantasizing about her upcoming visit to Hope for her birthday, but that's dashed when Hope gets a scholarship and starts her new school two weeks early. Jessica never does go to see her - not so far, anyway. I had thought that this impending visit had dashed my view that Hope actually doesn't exist, but that view now remains a possibility since the visit is canceled. She hears nothing from Hy - and neither do the Clueless Crew. The assumption is that she's gone back to NYC. Neither does she hear anything about Marcus, although she does think about him with an unhealthy frequency.

I was lying in bed reading this and realizing that I probably won't get it finished tonight when I also realized that for the first time I really don't care if I finish it or not. When I had only ~65 pages to go - roughly an hour's easy reading - I felt reasonably sure that I would rate this as a low-level worthy, but I was equally sure that I would never have any desire to read any more of this series - of which McCafferty has milked five volumes so far.

On a positive note, Jessica has realized how self-centered and shallow she is, which is a first for a YA novel in my experience. That alone would have rated it as worthy, all other things beign equal, which they enver are. It;s not so much that the novel is bad, it's just that it isn't good, and it comes off very poorly in a road test against a really well-written novel such as, for example, Sea of Tranquility, which was truly excellent, and You Against Me, which was remarkable.

So the crew comes back to school after the summer is over to find that Marcus is back (no surprise at all there) and that Hy was only at Pineville High school in the first place to do research for an article which got her a six figure novel deal and an entry into Harvard. Hy tries to contact Jessica, but Jessica refuses, foolishly, to deal with her, yet she lusts shamelessly after Marcus. That's what turned me off her completely. He abuses her to a large extent, and not in a physical way, but in a way which is just as harmful. This does inspire her to write an article for her school newspaper which wins her fans and notoriety, and which precipitates the clueless crew breaking up in a literal fight which gets all three of them suspended for a week. When she and Marcus begin talking at night (he can't sleep either; what a wonderful nightcap he makes) it's always Jessica who calls him - never the other way around.

If I hadn't read the last forty pages of this I would not have hesitated to continue with my plan to rate it as just worthy. But after reading those pages I honestly can't rate it that highly. I had to put up with a throw-away gay slur, with Jessica saying "bizillion" a "bizillion" times, with her endlessly depressive self-image, with her sad love affair with the ostensibly non-existent Hope, with Mccafferty thinking that the big muscle in your upper arm is a singular "bicep", with jessica's total, blind self-absoption, and with her fatuous instadore with Marcus.

It suddenly occurred to me that I'd been more than tolerant enough of McCafferty's masturbation only to get nothing in return for my patience and faith. You know you can behave that way and it can be seen as unconditional love, the love a parent has for their child(ren), but it can also been seen as a complete and utter waste of a life! I do not have sufficient love for McCafferty's writing to put up with this waste of my time and be as passive about it as Jessica is about her life!

Maybe if you're close to Jessica's age, you'll get more from this than I did, but please be warned that it goes so far downhill in the last forty pages that it ain't ever comin' back. Anything that starts with Marcus renaming Jessica as Darlene, and her passive acceptance, as ever, of that even as she agrees, for all practical purposes, to do with Marcus what Manda did to Bridget with Burke (an aptly-named character if there ever was one) can not be salvaged, not even by as frantic last minute effort by McCafferty. it was too little too late and it was just too much in a long line of not enough. I'm sorry, but worthy it ain't.