Adora Benet and her friends Eli and Liza have always been on the fringe of their high school’s social order: not one of the common people, but certainly not special enough to be treated honestly by the Ruling Class, led by Sondra and Noel. Dora is tired of Sondra always setting trends, including hairstyles, clothing, and even how to think. She wants revenge.

A perfect opportunity to inflict change occurs when Dora must complete a project on revolution for her social studies class. Why not try to usurp the Ruling Class in the very own school through an actual revolution of her own? The more Dora thinks about this idea, the more she is determined to act upon it. She gets her own “Me Style” haircut, riles up the school through satirical editorials in the now-hot school newspaper, and enlists the support of the masses—all following the footsteps of previous bloodless revolutions.

Before long, Dora has succeeded in overthrowing the Ruling Class! No longer do they dictate what everyone else says or does. Dora is seen by nearly everyone as some sort of hero, a leader for their purpose. Life couldn’t be any better.

Or could it? It doesn’t take too long for Dora to realize that the old saying is true: revolutionaries do NOT make good leaders. In the process of her revolution, Dora has managed to anger her two best friends, fall for the wrong boy—twice, and misjudge the people around her. What can she do in order to right her upside-down life?

FRINGE GIRL is imaginative and easy to read. Personally I get sick of books that mention the Ruling Class/Upper Crust/Royalty of high school as the main conflict, but Valerie Frankel works with this too-much-used conflict very nicely, creating for us a unique protagonist in a convincing world. ( )

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