very excited to have been given a hard copy for review. this book is right up my daughter's alley so I already know that she is going to enjoy it so much.

This was a YA Fiction title with severe Crime Fiction undertones, but together they worked their magic. Frankie was an interesting character, and, despite having not read any of the other works in the series, I still felt quite at home. She has a sordid past, and, quite frankly a sordid present, but she's trying to be a little more straight and narrow since her dad has been put away. What's that? Oh, he was a master thief, and she was his protégé...and the one that wasn't fingered in any of the charges currently standing. Pretty good for a kid, right? Except at her age, she should be worried about school bullies (still is), class assignments (still does), and who she's going to hang out with on the weekend (her only bestie, it's a given, provided she hasn't labeled him a sidekick again because THAT was a blowup!)...not stolen inventions (she's on the case), parental plotting (something is amiss!), and taking down the powers that be that are trying to control the who's in and who's out of the best schools in the country (yeah, she's totally got this worked out...mostly). How's a girl to balance everything with that amount of crazy on her plate? That would be with the grounding power of her bestie (love his character!), her new technologically advanced friend (such cool devices!), and her newly formed family. Hey, family isn't all blood, though it can help, and sometimes the help we actually need isn't what we thought in the first place. Gotta hand it to her uncle...he's a good guy, and definitely has her best intentions at heart. Who said a criminal mastermind and a cop can't be friends?

A great adventure filled with danger, high stakes, friendship problems, and life challenges...but it's nothing our girl Frankie can't overcome.

I love Frankie and Ollie. A modern day Robin Hood. She would be great on the small screen. I hope we are getting more adventures

No Admissions by Brittany Geragotelis is the third book in her series The Infamous Frankie Lorde which features a preteen girl with some unusual extracurricular activities. Frankie Lorde is the daughter of a famous criminal, living with her police office uncle, and attempting to turn over a new leaf. In this installment, Frankie uses the skills she learned from her father to take down a group of parents who are scamming the system to get their kids into elite private schools.

I really enjoyed this story. Frankie is an interesting character who will make readers questions their own morals. There are several good discussion points as Frankie breaks rule after rule all for a good cause. I personally love morally gray characters, and Frankie fits that description perfectly. It’s the whole Robin Hood conundrum: steal from the rich to give to the poor. BUT who is rich? Who is poor? Why steal from this one to give to that one? Frankie confronts these issues head on as she gets to know her fellow students and the parents who are cheating their way to the top. It causes Frankie to question what she’s doing, even if it is just to pause her own scheming.

As much as I love Frankie, I also loved Ollie and her uncle. The dynamic between them is great. Ollie is like her conscience and sidekick, keeping Frankie from going too far. Her uncle, who is a police office, knows that Frankie inherited some of her dad’s skills and is just hoping to keep her out of trouble. The deal when she moved in with him is no more stealing, no more heists. And technically, Frankie has kept her word 😉

Overall, I enjoyed No Admissions. While I haven’t read the first two books of the series, this didn’t detract from my enjoyment. The author does a good job of making it a standalone while also continuing Frankie’s story from the previous books. Middle graders who enjoy mystery and heist novels will devour this one with pleasure. Highly recommend.

Book Review

Title: No Admissions by Brittany Geragotelis (The Infamous Frankie Lorde Book 3)

Genre: Middle Grade, Drama, Family

Rating: 4.5 Stars

After reading and loving Stealing Greenwich and Going Wild I had no idea what to expect from No Admissions but I didn’t want this series to end as I was loving it so much but I couldn’t wait to see what Frankie and Ollie would get up to next. When we re-join Frankie and Ollie they are living their normal lives until they learn that Ollie’s friend, June has had something very important to her stolen. June is competing in an invention contest to gain a scholarship to an elite high school and her hard drive containing her invention was stolen and the contest is only a day away so Ollie and Frankie naturally decide they are going to get it back for her but it isn’t going to be that simple since there are several people at the school in the competition meaning any one of them is a suspect.

As we approach the ¼ mark in the novel, Frankie ends up stealing June’s hard drive back from Annabelle since she was the only one who would have been cruel enough to steal another person’s entry for the competition. Frankie gives it back to June and June invites her to watch her proposal which Frankie accepts, June’s entry turns out to be a facial recognition app that finds everything about the person you photograph and presents it to you. Mr. Morris the assessor for the competition uses it on a random boy in the school and has a very odd reaction becoming very nervous and leaving soon after which makes Frankie think something is up. This coupled with the information she overheard at Annabelle’s house about the rich parents rigging the admissions system to ensure their children get into good schools makes me think that these two things are going to overlap but I’m not sure how. In my experience the first half of these books tend to focus on the characters and character development and the second half contains the exciting stuff but I can’t wait to see where it goes.

As cross the ¼ mark in the novel, Frankie decides she is going to try and take down the people responsible for rigging the admissions in schools but it isn’t going to be easy. Despite Frankie making this decision and breaking into Annabelle’s house again to spy on the parents on the very night that Mr. Admissions pays a visit they don’t actually learn much about Mr. Admissions or the parents. At this point in the novel we are still very much focused on the characters as we see Ollie and Frankie have a fight over her referring to him as her sidekick rather than her parents which plays on his insecurities and Frankie trying to figure out how to fix things. We also see a very cute romance blossoming between Kayla and her Uncle Scotty to the point where Frankie begins to tease Scott about it which was so wholesome to read. Frankie is also forming a fast friendship with June after returning her hard drive, June gives her access to her app which might come in handy for Frankie’s recon but she also gives her several gadgets that she has been working on as well claiming they are going to help Frankie and she is debating on whether or not she should bring June into what she and Ollie have been doing.

As we approach the halfway mark in the novel, we get to see the beginnings of a plan coming together as Frankie and Ollie make up after their fight and get to work on researching who these people are. It turns out that every one of these parents has been involved in some sort of scandal over the years but there doesn’t seem to be anything Frankie can really use in her heist so they decide to do some in person recon. It was interesting to see that most of the parents have more than one child that they have a strained relationship with, for example, Brook clearly favour his elder child, Clara over Annabelle which she resents and she is constantly trying to gain her father’s approval even if it is through illegal or unorthodox methods. Frankie does sort of understand this mentality as she had a similar one when she was younger and to an extent still has now but she doesn’t understand why Annabelle goes out of her way to be so mean to other people which is something that really angers Frankie and she lashes out. The scene where she admits to breaking into Annabelle’s house highlights especially since she knows most people wouldn’t believe Annabelle but her uncle would since he is aware of upbringing and it would ruin everything she has been working to build with Ollie.

As we cross into the second half of the novel, Frankie ends up creating a plan where she sends one of her teachers off on holiday in order to get a temp and switch out their assignment with a new one. This new assignment would see her in a group with the children of the parents she is targeting in order to get close to them and dig for information with drawing suspicion on herself. However, pretty quickly Frankie realises that these children don’t deserve what will happen to them if she takes down their parents like she was originally planning. She begins to see that they are good kids, Sammy’s mother is essentially broke so it explains why she is using a rigged admission to get into the school since she might not be able to afford it otherwise and in Benji’s case he is a lot like her and she understands him and vice versa so she doesn’t want to hurt them. Due to this she changes her whole plan and decides instead of taking down the parents one at a time she is just going to go after Mr. Admissions because it deals with the issue of people rigging admissions but it leaves these children and their families intact.

As we approach the ¾ mark in the novel, No Admissions is turning out to be more character than plot driven which is fine by me especially since these books tend to have explosive endings. We can see some of Frankie’s own issues coming to the front when Scotty tells her that he is dating Kayla. This comes out because of a misunderstanding where Kayla referred to Scotty as Frankie’s dad but Frankie thought that Scotty had told Kayla about her life before she came to live with him which she was upset about. She is also upset about the relationship, not because Kayla and Scotty are dating but because he didn’t involve her in the process which he shouldn’t have to do as an adult but this highlights the issues Frankie has with her father and him giving her no choice in major decisions that would affect her life. She does end up talking this through with her dad as well as her new heist and gets some resolution especially when she realises that Kayla makes Scotty happy in a way she hasn’t seen before and she doesn’t have an issue with Kayla it is more she needs to feel in control of her life and having other people make decision affecting her doesn’t fit well into this mentality but it is something she is going to have work on as she gets older.

As we cross into the final section of the novel, we get to see everything come to its conclusion and while No Admissions wasn’t as action packed or fast paced as the previous two books it did have much more character development and emotional moments that I really enjoyed. Seeing Frankie’s story come to an end was emotional even though it does leave openings for more stories in the future but I felt it rounded off her character nicely as she has grown a lot since the first book. I have come to really love this series and I have a new appreciation for middle grade fiction and I will definitely be reading more by the author and more in this genre in the future. If you are looking for a fast paced and exciting novel to get you out of a slump then I highly recommend this series.

What worked:
Frankie is the daughter of an international thief and she’s learned some skills as his assistant. Instead of dolls, she receives a grappling hook launcher for her fifth birthday! She uses her talents to help others as she recovers a stolen science project for a classmate. She has no desire to make more friends as her one companion Ollie is all she needs. She helps him make a big splash during lunch period with the hope his performance might impress the school’s drama supervisor. Frankie lives with her uncle, a police detective, and he’s fully aware that she’s inherited many of her father’s criminal abilities. This creates a unique dynamic between the two characters, although Frankie also has a bit to learn about friendship.
The story will force readers to wonder about ethics and morality. Frankie does things that must be considered wrong or illegal at school and during her schemes. She sets off the school’s sprinkler system and is guilty of breaking and entering but she does these things to help her friends. Does that make it okay? Parents are cheating the education system to enroll their kids at exclusive schools although some adults neglect to consider the feelings, thoughts, and dreams of their own children. Frankie sets out to punish the families but she’s forced to reconsider her motivations. She wonders why the parents resort to illegal tactics and the results of her investigation come as a surprise. Is it okay to break the law if it’s done for a “good” reason?
The book offers a variety of family issues for readers to consider. Frankie’s father being in prison is uncommon but her guardian’s desire to have a social life is not. Frankie has mixed emotions about the situation and must learn that not everything is about her. Her best friend Ollie comes from a large family and spends much of his time with Frankie and her uncle. He receives more attention there than with his own family and seems almost like Frankie’s brother. The four families involved in the admissions scandal present different family dynamics, although on the surface none of them should need to resort to illegal activities. The parents include a doctor, a famous actor, and another working in finances so money should not be a problem. They all have high expectations for their children that often conflict with the desires of the kids. Frankie learns secrets about their families and her classmates, and she begins to understand the school bully’s behavior. Frankie even feels some sympathy for the girl tormenting her classmates.
What didn’t work as well:
Frankie utilizes innovative technology that doesn’t fit the overall realistic fiction of the story. Most of her actions are relatively believable until she receives high-tech “gifts” from a new friend and she wears a ninja-like outfit that’s everything-proof. However, these impossible factors don’t detract from the overall story and actually enhance Frankie’s daring schemes.
The Final Verdict:
This book can be enjoyed independently of the first two books in the series. It’s nice to see justice come to people with attitudes that they’re above the rules and laws and the underdogs score a win. Frankie’s game plan is fun to follow although predictably something unplanned always pops up. The book should be enjoyable to all middle-grade readers and I highly recommend you give it a shot.

I recieved an eARC so I could read and review this book. Thank you for the opportunity.

Frankie is her father's daughter. That can be ackward when your father is a super thief and is currently in prison and your guardian is in law enforcement. When Frankie and her Drama-loving best friend Ollie are asked to help when their friend June's project, which will hopefully win her a scholarship to her dream school, Frankie discovers a plot to get unqualified kids into the top private schools. But will Frankie be able to take down the plot once she actually gets to know the kids involves?

This is the third book in the Frankie Lorde series. I haven't read the first two, but did not find that an impediment to enjoying this book. It would be an enjoyable book for middle grade readers.