Freak by Marcella Pixley

2007, Douglas & Mcintyre ltd.

I tried to make sure Artie could see my tongue when I brought the spoon to my lips. Sometimes I licked the rim of the spoon all the way around and breathed heavily so my breath would fog up the silver. 
"What's wrong with you?" said Deborah.
"I like the texture of the spoon," I panted. "It feels good in my mouth."
"Jenny Clarke is right," she muttered. "You are a FREAK." (51-52)

Miriam Fisher is about the world's least popular girl, according to how the "watermelon girls" treat her. With glasses, greasy hair, and pimples, Miriam is named a freak by the kids at her school, and even her own sister.

One year, Artie, friend of Miriam's family and her supposed "soul mate" comes to stay with them for his senior year while his parents are off digging wells in some third-world country. The big thing that Miriam and Artie have in common is their passion for poetry. Artie reads romantic poems at the table to Miriam's sister Deborah, and Miriam herself is an aspiring poet with an over sized vocabulary for her age.

All year long, Jenny Clarke and her crowd of popular friends target Miriam for liking Artie and for writing in Clyde, her personal poetry book and diary. Miriam has Rosie, her only friend by her side, but everything seems to get worse and worse.

When Miriam is pushed over the edge, she is forced to unleash a side of herself that nobody else knew before, and pay Jenny back for all the wrong that was done to her, only to discover that she and Jenny have more commonalities than differences.


Freak was, like few others, one of my favorite novels. It consists of everything teen readers will look for in a book: vivid and easy-to-relate-to situations and characters that are debatable, and heartbreaking, and a unique ending with a twist.

Many kids and teens have been bullied, and Freak showcased some very accurate problems in a normal child's life. Written heartbreakingly from the perspective of Miriam Fisher, the main character tells us about her experience being bullied and the effect it has on herself and her family. While narrating her novel, Marcella Pixley writes in such a way that tears will nearly be brought to her readers eyes.

Some of the events in the book cause the readers to ask themselves the following questions: "Is Jenny good or bad?" "Has Artie really been trashing our innocent protagonist behind her back?" Nobody hates a book that leaves you pondering over what you will read next long after it's lights out.

The best thing about Freak, linking to its questionable happenings, is the very twisted and kinky ending. The problems in the story are wrapped up all together in an extremely satisfying way that instead of begging the author for a sequel you will shift to your next novel and look back on this one fondly.

I strongly recommend Freak to any girl around 11-14 years old, and I hope fellow readers will enjoy the book as much as I did.

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