I read "I, Emma Freke" (2010) after a painful midterm, and I really couldn't have asked for a better way to get my mind off the fact that math and I are never going to get along. The young adult novel, penned by MALS graduate Elizabeth Atkinson '95, is a charming and uplifting story about finding and accepting yourself strengths and weaknesses, talents and flaws.
The titular character, Emma Freke, is not your ordinary pre-teen. Physically, she sticks out like a sore thumb, sporting bright red hair and checking in at just under six feet tall. Intellectually, Emma is far beyond her peers at middle school, and she is remarkably independent as well. And, of course, there's her name: "To make matters worse to make matters impossibly worse my name is Emma Freke. Like, if you say its slowly, Am a Freak. For some reason, my mother, Donatella, chose my name without saying it out loud. And I never could figure out if my weird name made me more of a freak or if I would have been a mega-freak anyway."
Her mother didn't realize? Skepticism at such a claim would be valid, except that Donatella is possibly one of the worst mothers in the history of young adult fiction. To be blunt, she has the maturity level of a toddler. For example, because Kevin, Donatella's love interest, does not like kids, she lies and tells him that Emma is an employee at her bead shop. (This lie is, actually, basically true. Emma spends so much time manning her mother's store that I couldn't help but suspect that child labor laws were being violated.) When Emma, unaware of her mother's little white lie, sets Kevin straight, Donatella blames her daughter and throws an all-out temper tantrum. "My forty-seven year-old-mother," Emma explains, "burst into tears like a blubbering baby. She ran across the floor and slammed her bedroom door behind her. And she didn't come out at least when I was around for three full days."
Such behavior makes Donatella's character irreversibly unlikeable, resulting in some negative repercussions later in the novel. The major plot twist occurs when Emma receives an invitation to the Freke family reunion, held annually by her (absent) father's side of the family in the wilderness of Wisconsin. At first, Emma is thrilled by her new family and feels as if she fits in for the first time. Soon, however, she is put off by the creepy and controlling antics of her Aunt Pat, who enforces a strict itinerary on all reunion participants that makes Emma miss her freedom back home.
"No, Emma," I wanted to cry (okay, possibly did cry; sorry, roommates/everyone on my floor), "you absolutely do not miss your psycho, selfish, incompetent sorry excuse for a mother." I wanted to gag during a scene in which Emma asks her mother if she is adopted and the two have a heart-to-heart of sorts. I am fairly certain this scene was intended to humanize Donatella, but her character is so dramatically and effectively caricatured early on in the novel that attempts to add greater depth later on in the novel fall somewhat flat.
In fact, many of the adult characters in the novel are rather one-dimensional: the flighty Donatella, super-OCD Aunt Pat and even the kind and nurturing Stevie, a local librarian who takes Emma under her wing. The incompetent mother, the sugary sweet teacher these are tropes we've seen before. Think "Matilda."
But the adult characters are not the reason to read this book. Rather, it is the truly one-of-a-kind, relatable young adult characters who help invest us in the story. There is Emma's best friend, the bubbly and outgoing Penelope, who lives across the street with her two moms and befriends virtually everyone she meets. There is Fred Freke, Emma's big-eared cousin whose quirky sense of humor and aspirations of becoming a famous magician brand him as a "freak" among the Freke clan.
And then, of course, there's Emma a character so insightful and so believably insecure that we can't help but empathize with her struggles. It is worth reading "I, Emma Freke" simply to witness Emma's transformation from a depressed, insecure "freak" to just Emma, the beautiful and happy heroine of our story.
