Banning is particularly awful, especially to Alice but also to Frank and she never goes through any growth or change in the novel. In fact, everyone in this book is pretty unlikeable. (The word autism is never used but it’s pretty clear that Frank falls somewhere on the spectrum.) I didn’t find Frank that funny or charming and I felt hyper aware of how difficult a child like Frank can be to care for day in and day out. I find I am not generally won over by precocious children in literature. Alice is quickly charmed by him and I’m pretty sure the reader is supposed to be too. Frank is super smart, has a great memory for facts, and dresses like an old Hollywood film star. Alice Whitley, our narrator, thinks she will be typing and performing light household duties but her main job turns out to be to take care of Frank and neither Frank nor his mother really want her there. When Banning is tasked to finally write a second novel to follow her hit debut, the publisher sends her an assistant. Banning (a sort of female version of J.D. Frank is an eccentric ten-year-old, only child of the reclusive writer M.M. It is the kind of innocuous read that I find hard to review there isn’t anything here offensive or extremely unlikeable but I also have nothing to rave over.įor me, a large part of that is the character of Frank himself. It had been recommended to me by an acquaintance when it first came out and so I was happy to find a secondhand copy recently. It was a fine vacation read – easy and entertaining.

I read Be Frank With Me in a couple of days while away on the island. Be Frank With Me – Julia Claiborne Johnson (William Morrow, 2016)

Be frank with me