The Book

What’s it like to be Shree Mandvi, caught between her life as the obedient, bookish girl her parents want her to be—and the Freak she learns she really is? Frankly, it’s not a piece of cake. Because when this first-generation Indian American is transplanted from the Bronx to the elite Kennedy Academy in Cambridge, Massachusetts, she learns that as long as there are kids who are different, there will be bullies to torture them. Shree must risk disappointing her parents to stand up and fight for what’s right.

Angry at the vindictive physical and emotional abuse she receives at the hands of five classmates she dubs the Demons, Shree discovers she possesses a special ability. It turns out that becoming a bee gives her the edge she needs. But there’s one major problem: bees don’t live through the winter—and winter is just around the corner. And because Shree has promised her parents to behave, her hands—and wings—are tied. She is either going to have to learn to channel her newfound powers, or give in to her impulse to sting.

As Shree desperately tries to understand what’s happening to her and why, she stumbles on an ancient map, one she believes leads to a treasure buried for centuries underneath the Harvard University campus. Shree must find the secret key alluded to in the map before she can find her way through the labyrinth of tunnels leading to the treasure.

The problem is that the Demons are equally determined to uncover the treasure and are willing to do anything to get their hands on it. That’s when Shree finds out that she’s not the only high-school reject with a unique, “freaky” ability—and that Nancy, Eleanor, Dave, and Ralph, with talents ranging from hearing for miles, seeing through walls, stretching body parts, and swimming like a whale—want to join her team. Will Shree and the self-proclaimed League of Freaks survive their Indiana Jones-like search? Or will they be outwitted by the Demons, lose the treasure —and their lives?