ALA Booklist (Sun Apr 01 00:00:00 CDT 2018)

Frankie Brooks wants nothing more than to transfer to the American Fashion Academy. She's applied secretly, hoping that an acceptance will help her convince her parents to let her go. So she's horrified when her parents have other plans. Frankie's fashion blog has caused her GPA to dip, and a party she threw was the last straw: her parents are sending her to military school. The uniforms are bad enough, but nonathletic Frankie finds herself facing brutal calisthenics, rigorous academics, and competitive classmates. If Frankie can't keep up, she'll be kicked out, which sounds appealing until she realizes it means repeating a year of school. But she slowly develops a friendship with her roommate, Joni, and a flirtation with Joni's friend Jack d, just maybe, she can find a way to make her passion for fashion work at the academy. More fluff than substance ough several characters do deal with sexual identity and disability is is nevertheless a charming, rom-com-style tale of a girl learning responsibility while still embracing her passions.

Horn Book (Mon Apr 01 00:00:00 CDT 2019)

Frankie has gotten into trouble one too many times, and now her life has become a clichi: she's being sent to military school. The classes are challenging, the physical training is preposterous, and there's almost no time for her true passion of fashion blogging. Unsurprisingly, Frankie marches on and finds her inner strength (as well as a gorgeous guy) in this predictable yet entertaining chick-lit novel.

Kirkus Reviews

A fashion-mad teen is sent to a military academy to learn discipline.Frankie knows she's meant to work in fashion: Her blog is already a huge success, and she's known for her personal style. But her parents believe that Frankie won't get far without discipline and good grades—so they ship her off to the military school her grandfather attended. Privileged, strong-willed, and obsessed with fashion, blue-eyed, white-blonde Frankie has a rude awakening at Albany Military Academy, starting with meeting stern disciplinarian Lt. Sturtevant. She has to wake up at 5 a.m., do more physical exercise than she's ever attempted before, and not break the rules—or risk being kicked out and having to repeat a year of high school back home. Frankie makes slow and unsteady progress, helped by new friends Joni (a closeted white girl) and Jack (a handsome, olive-skinned boy with cochlear implants), ultimately realizing her parents made the right decision. However, the story artificially maneuvers Frankie into having to wow Lt. Sturtevant with a leadership project proposal in order to stay at the Academy. Add in an equally contrived crisis in her relationship with Jack, and it's hard to care how Frankie's story ends.A rare realistic fiction military school novel, but it's one that won't recruit any readers. (Fiction. 12-16)