FREAKS - Brett Riley

 High school sucks.  And if you aren't one of the jocks ... worse, if you are branded as one of the outcasts or  freaks by your 'peers' ... then school years are miserable. It's not uncommon for students in a situation like this to have fantasies of getting special powers that would allow them to deliver some kind of retribution.  But what if, with those powers comes a proportionally powerful monster?

A group of four high school friends in a rural Arkansas town discover this very problem. Their friendship bond is based on the fact that they are each routinely picked on by the bullies in the school.  They accidentally open a portal to a different dimension and are endowed with superpowers. But opening that portal also allowed the demons from the other dimension to enter our own time and Earth.  Now the four "Freaks" (they decided to name their collective by taking the name they were called by their bullies) must protect their families and friends and stay a step ahead of the local police and FBI who are aware that something is going on and only know that the four school kids are involved.

This is precisely the sort of book I would have loved to find when I was in school.  It's a common enough trope (the nerds/geeks/freaks take power) but this takes a darker tone, which certainly will appeal to some readers.

One of the hallmarks of a YA book is that the kids in the story are 'alone.'  The protagonists here do have adults in their lives - parents and teachers and local police - but for a variety of reasons, they need to keep their powers a secret. At the same time, they need to use those powers to protect their families.  Spoiler alert: they are not always successful - which is part of what gives this a very dark tone.

Throughout the book the kids feel as though they are in over their heads.  Whether at school dealing with bullies or in the darkest time of night when the demons from another dimension are wandering the streets. This does lead to some anxiety for the reader and clearly this is not for everyone.

Author Brett Riley isn't afraid to make and keep this very dark, definitely targeting a specific reader. But everything here, including the darkness, is all on the surface.  There's not a lot of depth here - not in the characters, not in the 'villains', not in the story.  What you see is what you get, which does make for some disappointment, because we have the bones of a really powerful story and group of central characters here.  Perhaps that's addresses in the subsequent stories?

Looking for a good book? Freaks, by Brett Riley, is a dark, YA, superpowered story that will have a limited but specific readership, who likely won't care that there isn't much depth to the characters or story.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Edelweiss, in exchange for an honest review.

3-1/2 stars

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Freaks

author: Brett Riley

series: Freaks #1

publisher: Imbrifex

ISBN: 9781945501531

hardcover, 290 pages