Freak by Marcella Pixley
Pixley, Marcella (2007). Freak. NY: Farrar, Straus, Giroux. 131 pages.
Seventh-grader Miriam Fisher is in love with words and poetry and is somewhat of an outsider in her middle school. Though she and her older sister Deborah used to share a love of the Oxford English Dictionary and an active fantasy world, when Deborah started high school, their comforting bond began to disintegrate. Now Deborah is gorgeous, popular and scornful of the younger sister she wishes would stop being, in her words, “such an alien.” The popular girls at Miriam’s junior high seem to share the sentiment and taunt her on a regular basis. When Artie, the high school son of family friends, comes to stay with the Fishers, Miriam hopes their mutual love for poetry and language will lead them to romance. Artie affectionately tolerates Miriam but has romantic designs on distinctly less cerebral Deborah. Unfortunately, Miriam’s passionate feelings towards Artie are soon discovered by the girls at her school (one of whom is the younger sister of Deborah’s best friend) and they use Miriam’s vulnerability to their advantage.
Freak, Pixley’s first novel, is a fast read that some will default classify as “one of those books about bullying;” however, the short book digs a bit deeper than that. I have to admit, I wasn’t too much of a fan of Miriam at first and thought her poetic musings–which are sprinkled throughout the book–were a bit sophisticated for a seventh grader. As in that television show Medium, in which the family drama is much more satisfying than the spirital sleuthing, I found the relationships between Miriam’s family to be much deeper and more intriguing reading. Pixley suggests a number of disruptions among the Fisher women but, as in life, these aren’t so neatly resolved.