The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt

When I tell people what I do for a living they immediately think I sit in an office all day and read books.  Uh, no.  What I do is read a mother-lode of book reviews.  Then once I do that, I go to places where your average non-librarian citizen hears about books.  Let's face it - they aren't pouring over Publisher's Weekly every week.  They just aren't.  They're watching the Today Show, reading People magazine, and trolling around on Entertainment Weekly's web site.  That's how they hear about books - and that's how I heard about The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt - by reading Oprah's (::shudder::) magazine.

Once I tweeted (yeah, I did) the publisher to confirm that Caroline Preston's scrapbook-style novel didn't have any dreaded pull out ephemera (no little letters tucked in envelopes for example), I happily forked over library funds to buy several copies.  Because, you know, our customers read Oprah.  It generated a modest waiting list, and when I noticed a copy sitting on the New Books shelves before I left work for the holiday weekend, I thought "What the heck?"  Ladies and gentleman, I present to you the book I zipped through in a couple of hours on Christmas Eve.

The best way I can describe this novel is that it's a picture book for grown-ups.  Or better yet, like going to a cocktail party and poking around in your host's medicine cabinet.  We meet Frances "Frankie" Pratt when she graduates high school in 1920.  She's a young lady with big dreams stuck in a tiny New England town.  Over the course of reading her scrapbook, we follow her from Connecticut, to Vassar, to New York City, to Paris, back to Connecticut.  It's a bit like uncovering an old photo album while playing in Grandma's attic and discovering the old lady had a really cool life before shackling herself to Grandpa.

It is a charming little book, with a wonderful "hook" and a nice attention to historical detail.  It also makes me weep bitter, copious tears that this era tends to be flat-out ignored in romance genre circles (yeah, yeah World War I and the Great Depression are major downers, but it's such an interesting time for women!).  That being said, readers shouldn't go into this book expecting serious amounts of depth.  It's a story told in scrapbook form, so we're not talking oodles of text here.  We also really only get Frankie's point of view, so if you're a reader not wild about first-person?  This one isn't likely to change your mind.

But it is an enjoyable little read that has a lot to recommend it to the right person.  I can totally see scrapbooking crafty-types going ga-ga over this.  Also, if you're a bit of a social history nut, like I am, this is a real treasure trove.  I suspect some romance readers will find Frankie's romantic entanglements less than fulfilling, but I found them remarkably refreshing in a "true to life" sort of way.  There are boys, then men, and all of this leads to Frankie being the woman she is by the final chapter.

Like I said, it's a bit like finding out that Grandma was pretty kick ass before she settled down, had babies, and baked cookies for the grandkids.  It is what it is - that is to say somewhat of a novelty.  But it's a charming, breathtaking novelty that I didn't want to put down.

Final Grade = B+