“As much as you long for it, it longs for you more. Take one step toward the Big Person and it will take a hundred steps toward you.”
― Christopher Pike, Strange Girl

This was an unusual and very interesting book. I'd grown up reading Pike but his writing style is different in this book. I really enjoyed it.

Fred, a musician, meets Aja and falls deeply in love. But Aja is not your ordinary girl. From the beginning it is obvious that she is very special and she is "gifted". What that means and what her gifts do is the focus of the story.

This was a book that just left me feeling good. I had no problem getting involved in this unusual almost mystical story line and I adored the characters, particularly Aja.

SPOILERS:

Somehow this book, although it ends on a very sad note, manages to leave you with a smile on your face anyway. It has way more emotional depth then I expected and it is a book I'd be comfortable recommending to just about anyone. ( )

TRIGGER WARNINGS: Racism, child molestation, misogyny

The cover was beautiful. I didn't bother reading the blurb before checking out the book. When I got home, I read the blurb on the dust jacket three times to try and figure out what the plot was. The blurb claims it's three genres in one: love story, mystery, and there's a mystical girl in the novel. A love story and a mystery put together is called a romantic suspense novel. The fact that the blurb didn't refer to it as such annoyed me greatly. This is none of those things, anyway. "Strange Girl" is the wish fulfillment fantasy of a teenage boy: overnight massive musical success, hot girlfriend, girls agonizing over him, lives in a small town but has money enough for tons of instruments and cables for them. The author of this novel is actually in his mid-sixties. He wrote some great horror novels in the 90s and is obviously trying to branch out here. It doesn't work.

The book has entire chapters stuffed full of info-dumps and backstory and UGHHH THE DAMN SONG LYRICS. SHUT UP, LITTLE BOY, I DO NOT CARE ABOUT YOUR SONGS. He would not shut up. Like, every. Every italicized, center-formatted word was on each page when the teen felt like singing and I haaaated it. Song lyrics, especially entire transcribed songs, in books -do not work for me-. Guaranteed way for me to skip those pages and be cranky at the author. The only place it really worked was "The Hunger Games" book series, and it was not only characterization, it was -foreshadowing.- Even then, I remember thinking the movie would help me appreciate it more. The song turned out to be amaaazing and the whole scene was breathtaking and deserved tons of awards. Back to this book review. The writing in general was super padded. Kids wouldn't take so many words to say such simple things. Adults might if they were at the end of their patience and enunciating each word slowly and clearly to a child.

The novel has tons of racist microaggressions and racist portrayals. Mike, a fellow band member, is Latinx, a stoner, and violent. Does Pike think pot is meth? Mike the Racial Stereotype is unreliable, doesn't care about much, and is seriously injured during a drug bust. The closeted gay band member has a huge crush on Mike, and--I'm not sure if it was supposed to portray Mike as--I'm not sure. Anyway, Pike tries to score I'm So With the Times points by having the two date and/or hook up near the end of the novel, only to retcon it hardcore in the epilogue. The principal is part of the KKK, but secretly had a child by a Black woman, announces it and cries and hugs the woman at a school assembly.

Aja herself is a walking, talking Magical Negro Trope. She literally appears out of nowhere. White people are obsessed with her. Nearly every person of color in this book is connected to her in some way. Her name gets an in-dialogue, in-conversation pronunciation and spelling guide between the main character and his platonic gal pal. I just briefly looked up the name to fact-check and got four different definitions and origins for the name. I am so annoyed. Pike claims his character Aja is from Brazil. I don't know enough about the name to comment, but I knew how to spell and pronounce it before this book. My problem is, the way Pike wrote this book, might make people think Aja is a mystical fantasy name. It is not: Aja Raiden wrote a wonderful book about jewelry titled "Stoned." I went on a tirade for a bit but am refocusing briefly. Anyway, this book's character Aja being a personified Magical Negro Trope -is- the whole plot. She has no likes or dislikes, parrots others constantly, and whips back and forth between So Wise and Super Naive with breaking speed. Her speech often consists of cryptic, mystical statements when she's not trying to figure out English idioms. Despite the story repeatedly stating she shouldn't know English, she not only knows it but has a photographic memory of it. Her supernatural beauty is mentioned every five seconds. It's written in such a way that...it could easily be a teenage boy -or- Pike himself describing her. She's a person, not a platter of meat.

She heals people unnaturally quickly and successfully, hence the book's plot. Her only flaw is that healing can exhaust or injure her. The book outright states this. Fine. But readers are quickly clobbered over the head with CAN YOU GUESS WHAT HAPPENS OH WOW SOMETHING MIGHT HAPPEN OOH in regards to this. (sigh) Aja brings the protagonist overnight and unrealistic songwriter success because he fucks her. And he's seriously self-congratulatory over it. Sure, he tries to be all sensitive and caring, but his undisguised salivation and previous jealousy have such attempts fall flat. He's mean about girls in general and ruthlessly categorizes them: Nicole's the evil ex who uuused to be pretty, but is now tooootally a slattern who's juuuust too used to getting her way. He...says the same thing about Aja later on in the book, but she's not demonized for it. Quite the contrary. Janet is the platonic gal pal and at some point, it was hinted that she wasn't heterosexual. I see that a lot in books and media. It's old, annoying, and useless. Shelly is so hurt and heartbroken about the teen protagonist not dating her that she constantly hides. I fully admit: I was that kid. I didn't break the behavior until I was in my early twenties, and it took a -lot- of trying.

I am giving all these characters far richer description and backstories than Pike actually gave them. Each was hardly developed. Aja is one of those "so beautiful that she's not used to hearing no" girls. They actually exist. I know three of them. But they are real people, with actual depth and experiences of rejection and sadness and heartbreak. It is extremely difficult to write them convincingly in books and other media. Pike tried. Aja just got creepier and creepier as the book continued. I fully expected her to murder someone and laugh, and -then- develop character. The book got super preachy about spirituality and tried to talk about different religions, for a good chunk of the book. I was -furious-. I actually wondered if my arteries would be damaged due to my fury, at the end of the book. Aja The Hot Exotic Healing Girl dies so a child molester can live, and his victim sobs and screams and blames herself. CHRISTOPHER PIKE, YOU AWFUL PERSON.. ( )