The plot itself doesn’t have a huge amount going on. In a nutshell, Frankie attends a very white, very exclusive boarding school for the kids of parents who are richer than the Queen. Over the course of a summer she develops boobs and grows taller so that when she goes back to school in September, she bags herself a boyfriend. She discovers he belongs to this all-male secret society and decides she wants in. Trouble is, she’s a girl and Mr Boyfriend and his pals keep treating her like a dopey little girlie, so to prove herself, she decides to play a whole bunch of pretty amusing pranks on the school administration.
Despite the simplicity, I actually found the plot okay. It reminded me of Con Academy (although this book was written earlier) and some of the pranks were pretty ingenious.
The pacing is a little bit wonky - there’s pages and pages of internal monologue, followed by about two pages (or so it seemed) of events and pranks spanning the period between thanksgiving and Christmas (about four weeks?) It was never off-putting, but seemed a little rushed at the time.
Frankie herself is a pretty awesome character. Yes, she’s a little bit Mary-Sue-ish (pretty, nice figure, intelligent, sporty) but she’s well-adjusted so she doesn’t come across as too annoying. I thought the author did a decent job of portraying a girl who has definite feminist beliefs and also has a massive girly crush on her boyfriend. Her internal dialogue (and there’s lots) was interesting and I was pleased about the resolution to her relationships both with Matthew and with Alpha. Frankie’s relationship with her sister Zada was also interesting. Zada has some firmly entrenched feminist ideals and doesn’t hesitate to lecture Frankie on what she ought to be doing, seeing Frankie as someone who can’t think for herself and in this respect she’s not all that different to Frankie’s boyfriend. It was interesting to see Frankie navigate feminist beliefs for herself and work out what they mean to her.
All in all, this was a pretty good book. Recommended.
4 stars