Reviews: 'Frankie Landau-Banks,' 'She's So Money'

BY KRISTIN KLOBERDANZ | Chicago Tribune

May 4, 2008

THE DISREPUTABLE HISTORY OF FRANKIE LANDAU-BANKS, by

E. Lockhart. Hyperion, 352 pp., $16.99. Ages 12 and older.

Frankie Landau-Banks changed during the summer between her freshman and sophomore years. The geeky girl who was invisible at Alabaster, an exclusive boarding school, has become a sharp-tongued beauty. She starts dating the most handsome guy on campus, Matthew, and hangs out with his magnetic, popular friends who throw midnight parties on the golf course and host boisterous discussions at their dining table.

It soon becomes apparent that these boys are involved in a secret society, and Frankie wants in. When Matthew refuses, she follows the boys and listens in on their private meetings. Angry at being left out, Frankie hatches a devious plan that will have the boys jumping at her every command.

"The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks" is a smart study of a complicated and defiant girl coming of age in the era of post-feminism.

SHE'S SO MONEY, by Cherry Cheva. HarperTeen, 304 pp., $16.99. Ages 12 and older.

Maya Naravadee gets straight A's, works nights in her parents' Thai restaurant and has never been kissed. She has a small group of nerdy friends, and they're just fine with not being popular. Who wants to hang out with gross, oversexed guys like Camden King, anyway?

When Maya's parents leave her in charge of the restaurant for a few days, she messes up, big time. Now she needs to get her hands on $10,000 in about a month, or her dreams of attending Stanford University will go up in smoke.

Suddenly, Camden looks like the perfect partner in a moneymaking scheme: He's lazy, rich and wants his homework completed - and he's not the only one. Soon the two have mapped out a "homework ring" that extends beyond their public school.

Maya starts to shine in the attention that the popular boy is lavishing upon her. She's going shopping with his friends, getting invited to all the cool bashes, wearing sexier clothes. She knows Camden is a misogynistic jerk, but he's really cute and has been intriguingly sweet to her.

When another student tries to blackmail Maya, it seems her moment in the sun is getting a little too hot for comfort. "She's So Money," the debut novel from a writer of TV's "Family Guy," is hilarious and genuinely climactic. Best of all, Maya is a refreshingly smart hero.

SKIM, by Mariko Tamaki, drawings by Jillian Tamaki. Groundwood, $18.95, 140 pp. Ages 14 and older.

This graphic novel is infused with all the delicious longing and angst for which high school is known. Kimberly Keiko Cameron, known as "Skim," is a student at a private Toronto girls' school in the early 1990s. As this is her diary, readers get to know her intimately: She is fascinated by Wicca, considers herself a Goth and is depressed by a friend's boyfriend's suicide, even as she is bemused by how her classmates melodramatically react to his death.

As news circulates about the dead boy's sexual orientation, Skim finds herself falling in love with her English teacher, Ms. Archer. When Archer disappears, Skim is more bewildered than ever and starts to look at her life and friendships in a new light.

Mariko Tamaki's words are biting, funny and heartbreaking all at once ("I saw this movie on TV about this woman who was in mourning because her whole family died and she cut off all her hair. I thought of doing that but then I thought maybe I'm not skinny enough. And then I would look crazy instead of mournful"), and cousin Jillian Tamaki's illustrations are flat-out gorgeous.

THIRTEEN REASONS WHY, by Jay Asher. Razorbill/Penguin, 304 pp., $16.99. Ages 12 and older.

Two weeks after a girl from his high school committed suicide, Clay Jensen receives a package of cassette tapes with no return address. The tapes were recorded by Hannah Baker just before she killed herself. She says she has 13 reasons for ending her life, and Clay is one of them. Every person who betrayed her has listened to the tapes, then mailed them on to the next offender. Clay, who cannot imagine why he is on the list, must listen to most of the tapes before learning how he contributed to her death. The unhinged boy spends the evening wandering through town with a Walkman strapped to his head and the dead girl's voice a ghostly tour guide in his ear, visiting pivotal locations where Hannah was wronged.

"Thirteen Reasons Why," Jay Asher's first novel, is eerie, beautiful and ultimately devastating.