The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks (review)

Kate DelVecchio, president of the Future Business Leaders of America and a determined disciple of the Donald, is always on the lookout for an Ideal Opportunity. One lands in her lap when Brandon, the school's most popular guy, asks her out, and girls immediately want to know her secret for hooking a hottie. Although she has no idea why Brandon is interested in her (she's incredibly put off by him, but she can't seem to give him a firm brush-off), she senses that this is a potential cash cow. By researching hookup tips on the Web and contracting some subterfuge and communication duties out to her best guy friend, Dal, she soon has a going business, but, since she really doesn't know anything about matters of the heart, she has mixed success. Meanwhile, she is trying to sort out her newfound feelings for Dal, who already has a girlfriend, and to cope with her anger over her mother's abandonment of the family to pursue her own dreams of PhD glory. Kate is convincingly drawn as a savvy entrepreneur who understands the S & P Index much better than she understands herself and other people; she is endearingly vulnerable as she careens toward her inevitable crisis of the heart as well as the crash of her business. Her conflict with her mother follows its own well-crafted narrative arc as she consciously sets herself up to avoid the trap of selfishness for which she condemns her mom even as she fears she is like her at every turn. Dal's sensitive articulation of the differences he sees allows her to come to terms with how she might benefit from the traits she's inherited while not collapsing into wholesale forgiveness for the pain her mom has dealt around to her family. Readers whose emotions haven't yet caught up to their intellects will sense a kindred spirit in Kate.