The Freak

The Freak #1

by Carol Matas

When fifteen-year-old Jade wakes up after a near-fatal bout of meningitis, she discovers she has new psychic powers, allowing her to see the personal thoughts and feelings of her friends and family in their auras.

Genres: Teen, Young Adult, Fantasy, Paranormal, Fiction, Canada

160 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

Reviews

[Lana Kamennof-sine · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting concept - is it possible that a head injury/near death experience could result in an ability for a teen to foresee the future? The 15 yr old Jade survived severe meningitis but suddenly, and without her awareness, is commenting on behaviours, thoughts of all those around her as if they'd told her in some way. They didn't. Her parents are skeptical, her grandmother supportive claiming that her relatives were similarly gifted. The story covers how to cope/deal with the responsibility this can bring & how best to utilize it.

[Anna · Rating 2 out of 5]

Started this as part of the Tales of a Reluctant Psychic, but only skimmed the rest, so thought I'd post this instead of deleting the whole thing.

It's okay, a rather slight teen novel. If I were a teen, would I like it more? Not sure. I did like the way her faith was part of her, not something separate.

[Olivia Shanelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

A 15 year old Jewish girl naviguates new powers and a strange world she feels she doesn't know anymore

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

"A Freaky Freaky Freaky Good Book"

Published in 1949
Key Porter Books Ltd.

The Freak, by Carol Matas, is a fiction book that not only has non-stop events that are filled with mysteries, surprises and action, but the story is based in Winnipeg which is pretty cool, since all of the places that the author mentions, are places that I have been to.

The main character, Jade, is a normal fifteen year old girl who lives a normal life in Winnipeg Manitoba, until one day in the summer while she is at her cottage at Falcon Lake, she discovers that she has Meningitis. She soon finds out that she has to go through surgery and while they are operating, something goes wrong and she nearly dies.
When she wakes up, she starts to see things that frustrate, and confuse her. Unable to figure out what is going on, she turns to her grandmother whom she calls Baba, for help. Through out the book, Jade gets stronger and soon discovers that although she doesn’t fully understand what her new “gift” is and why she has it, she eventually learns to accept it and realises that it can be used to help others, and is no evil curse.

While Jade is trying to figure out what is happening with her, her best friend Susie stays by her side. Susie is a good and loyal friend, who, even though she has no clue about Jade’s “gift”, sticks by her even when everyone else at school thinks she’s weird. Another person who soon becomes a close friend to whom she can talk about anything to is Jon. Jon is her aunt’s stepson and is a strong believer in fate and god and how everything is planned out for people in advance, so he soon becomes close friends with Jade when she is trying to figure out her power. Her family, which consists of her mom, her dad and her younger brother Marty, don’t believe that there is anything happening with Jade, but Marty knows better and is eager to help.

Filled with confusion, mystery, action and drama, The Freak is a great story about a young girl who is trying to figure out her life after everything drastically changes. The author definitely succeeded in getting the message across that it’s ok to be different and to not try and change who you are. Definitely a must read in my opinion.

[Kelsey Broering]

I rate this book out of 10 a 10. It is one of the best books I ever read. I rated it a ten because of how good the book is and it isn't confusing at all so if you easily get confused I suggest you read this book. This book should be read by teenagers the most because it is about a teenager and it would be to confusing for a child and adults probably would say this book is to easy for them.

The Freak is a book about Jade who has meningtatis. This disease made her be able to see the mood the person is in, and she could tell what was going to happen in the future. She went to many nurses but no one could help this disease, she had to fight it on her own. Her friends start to avoid her because she is creeping them all out by her knowing what they are saying. She gets upset and is trying to find out a way to stop this disease.

[Nicole23 · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book because it was set in Winnipeg, the girl went to kelvin high school and she lived on waverly, so she was just like any other normal girl, she went to the lake in the summer but she got very sick and almost died. Sincce she had that near death experience she all of a sudden could see thing and know what people were thinking and people thought she was weird cause she would always say something thats going to happen before it happened, she gets tied up with family issues, she gets threats from these men, because she is jewish. She has to learn how to stop them and end all of this with the power of her mind.

[Tanya Petrova · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very Canadian book (as in a somewhat watered down mix of races, religions, and points of view) that in an purposefully non-judgemental way tries to talk about fatalism, free will and the fluid nature of our reality, but succeeds in tackling living on medication and the annoying limitations of the North American judicial system instead.
I've found it insultingly oversimplistic and blatantly disrespectful towards its target audience. When I was 15 (the main character's age) I was reading Kobo Abe and Dostoyevsky. Mic drop.

[Kara · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was... ight

[Tracy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Winnipeg locations and an intelligent teen author made this a good read.

[Jessie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great book!

[Ubalstecha · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent Sci-Fi story that weaves elements of anti-semitism, religion and school into the story of how a girl deals with psychic abilities.

[Triton Moseley]

The Freak by carol matas is about a Jewish girl names jade who was doing just fine and living out her life. Then she got into an accident and seen her grandpa who is dead when she was in a coma and woke up with psychic abilities but she did not know what was wrong with her she went to a shrink and a counselor and she thought she was crazy until she used her abilities she got to her advantage by talking her way out of conflicts by talking about things no one knows about a boy who was trying to bully her for being Jewish got scared after jade brought up his family because no one knows about his family. Then she later meet a boy and they go to check out where all of this random Jewish hate mail and threats keep coming up from so they follow the boy who was bullying her and then leads them to a house and they plant microphones in the window so they can hear what their talking about and finds out that is the house and wants to go to police so she wakes up her parents and they planned to blow up her church so the next day at church they bring dogs who smell explosives to church. But the bomb was there before they got their and then she sees the bomb with her abilities and throws it into the river so no one gets hurt some things i liked about the book were the action and the constant conflicts that occurred it kept me reading and not bored, the things i did not like about the book is how corny it was with the happy ending the boy and the little things in between that went on between jade and the Indian boy she was obsessed with in the book it was a funny book because of that. All in all this book was good read short and doable by almost anyone i will rate this book a 10/10 a side note this book is the first of a trilogy which i did not know until i typed this review at eleven o'clock at night