And Now Paranormal Teens

When I first started reading Homefree by Nina Wright, I thought it was going to be a problem novel with some kind of fantasy element. I wasn't terribly enthusiastic. Then I got kind of excited because somehow I began to think it was going to be a philosophical story with weirdness. (Though I must admit, I rarely understand those kinds of things--though I want to.) Then I thought, hey, there are way too many coincidences in this thing. I know this girl Easter moves around a lot, but just how many paranormal classmates can one teen have? But that objection was pretty much explained by the end of the book. Then I thought, I never can follow astroprojection. Then I thought, gee, this would make a decent television series. The actress from Dead Like Me could play the main character.

Easter Hutton is your traditional teenage outcast, but the kind from a bad home not the kind who is middle class and has everything but thinks life sucks and wonders if anyone else has noticed. You'd think that suddenly realizing she's having uncontrolled out-of-body experiences could only make things worse. Oddly enough, she also finds out that she knows quite a number of people who also don't exactly fall into the classification known as normal.

Fortunately, there is a place for people like them.

While I was reading Homefree, I realized that there's a good reason why teenagers, and perhaps all of us, like stories about groups of oddly gifted individuals. Most people feel like outcasts at some point or another in their lives, or at the very least outsiders. What a comfort it would be if someone, say, like the guy in the wheelchair in X-Men or the people in Homefree came along, told us we were special, and provided a safe place for us with other people like ourselves.