Welcome to The Real World According To Sam! Today is Magic Monday. This year is the 45th anniversary of the 1976 film Freaky Friday. I have never seen any of the film adaptations and before a couple weeks ago, I didn't know it was a book first. To celebrate the anniversary of the classic film, I will review the original book today. Later this year I will also review all three Disney movies adapted from the book, so keep an eye open for those if you're interested! Let's jump into this review.
Freaky Friday
Author: Mary Rodgers
Genre: YA
Year: 1972
Synopsis:
Annabel thinks her mom has the best life. If she were a grown-up, she could do whatever she wanted! Then one morning she wakes up to find she's turned into her mother...and she soon discovers it's not as easy as it looks!
Review:
As I mentioned above, this book was the inspiration for four Freaky Friday movies released by the Walt Disney Company. We will be talking about two of these movies later this year! Today, let's focus 100% on the book.
Honestly, this book is a bit of a mess. I am surprised at just how short and bad this book was. This is particularly because of how much success the movies have had over the years! You would think a good movie based on a book would have a good book. The only really good thing about this book is the idea. The execution is lackluster, but I still found some things I could laugh at.
Annabel Andrews is a thirteen year old girl who has an attitude and has been butting heads with her mother. At the opening of the book, she wakes up in her mother's body. She then has to live an entire day in her mom's shoes, taking care of adult responsibilities, which seem to keep piling on her. This is a pretty standard idea by this point that we are familiar with. I do like the concept. What kid doesn't want the freedom they think adulthood brings? On occasion I definitely know young me did.
Annabel is messy, doing badly at school, and thinks poorly of her mother and brother. Why? Basically out of pure jealousy. She isn't as beautiful as her mother and decides to be her polar opposite. She dresses sloppy, keeps her hair unkempt, and treats her brother like garbage. Annabel also has had many disagreements with her mother about how to live her life. She doesn't want the haircut her mom wants her to get and all the rules her mother imposes on her. Annabel wants her freedom and thinks being an adult must be great. Once their bodies are swapped, Annabel gets to find out what being an adult is like...kind of.
While being in her mother's body provides for a lot of comedy, there are some things in this book that just make me cringe or are borderline absurd. The boy in the same apartment complex that Annabel crushes on, seems to have a crush on her mom. Annabel has to take care of parental duties and run errands her mother was intending to do, such as buying gin. She also has to play the role of wife to her dad, which involves taking care of laundry and preparing dinner for his business clients on short notice. I enjoyed the moments where Annabel was getting in over her head, but the crush she has is one of those cringe points I mentioned.
At times, Annabel's age doesn't quite seem to fit. She is supposed to be thirteen, but she occasionally comes across as a bit older, or like the author meant for her to be older. By older, I'm thinking fifteen or sixteen, which is a big developmental difference from thirteen. One part of the book also brings up that Annabel is incredibly intelligent, but a lot of her actions don't read that way. This is when her immaturity really shows, yet with her level of intelligence I have a hard time believing this effectively correlates to the character. I definitely felt a disconnect at times with Annabel. Sometimes she seems her age, then older, then less intelligent than her IQ, and it just gets messy for me. On occasion she's relatable and then she is crazy annoying and awful.
The other thing about Annabel is she has a very quick character arc. She is exceptionally annoying to begin with, but her bad habits are recognizable. Many kids have had them. Lots of kids think only of themselves and how things impact them instead of others. Over time, most learn otherwise and grow. Annabel does learn and grow, but she doesn't make it quite as far as I'd like to have seen. Granted, this book covers the span of a single day, so clearly she won't change completely "overnight," but I do think she will grow more beyond the pages of the book as more time passes for her.
My main gripe with Annabel is the way her personal beliefs are presented at times. This book dates itself big time with its references and phrasing. For an example of dating, there are references to Queen Elizabeth and Jackie Onassis as icons to look up to in terms of beauty and fashion. There are also 70s ideals and thought processes presented. Annabel is supposed to be a "liberal." She is all about girl power and feeling free. This fits the setting of the book and when it was written. Annabel calls both her father and brother "male chauvinist pig." Today, we would more commonly use "sexist." While I agree that the father has a tendency to not show appreciation for his wife and talks somewhat condescendingly to her, her brother never does anything wrong. She just despises him for no good reason initially and throws whatever names and labels she wants at him. Again, she's rather immature. My main problem with this is that the boy she likes has similar chauvinist behavior and she just lets it slide, being blinded by teenage rose-colored glasses. I hope this is just to show that she is young and naive with a long way to go, but it feels very out of character and ridiculous at the same time.
On the brighter side--in a way--there are two instances where prejudice is shown in front of Annabel and she refuses to allow it. Her family's housekeeper has a moment where she goes on a tirade about the language Annabel and her "liberal" family use to refer to African Americans. She mentions "colored", "black", and "Negros", in a very condescending manner. Annabel calls her out on it and the housekeeper tells Annabel that she is prejudiced towards Germans. Annabel says she isn't aware the housekeeper is German, believing she was American. This all culminates in Annabel firing her, which everyone is grateful for, including me. Later, after a scene is made just outside her apartment, a woman on the street mentions an organization, using a wrong initial for it. Annabel corrects her, saying "C", as in the letter. The woman thinks she said "si" and calls her a "spic." Annabel says that she meant the letter and adds that they are Puerto Ricans or Spanish speaking people to correct the woman's derogatory manner. While I approve of Annabel's handling of these situations, I was rather stunned to see this theme tackled so bluntly, out of nowhere. She lives in New York City, so this was an interesting conflict point. It makes me wonder if this kind of conversation was had by the author during her lifetime, since she lived in New York City. I just want it to be noted that these terms are presented here, and commend the author for having her young teen heroine do the right thing in these situations, even if they came out of left field. This is definitely an uglier part of society to tackle and it is done so quickly, but Annabel does the right thing by sticking to being a good person towards everyone regardless of background, even when no one is around to really see her do that.
The best thing about this book is how short it is. The story itself is only 145 pages long. The book as a whole is 154. This means I was able to get through it in a single sitting within just a couple brief hours. I liked that the story was so short, because if it had been drawn out anymore, I would have liked it a lot less. The thing that works best is the quick pace. There is cringe, but it is over fast. Then you hit more cringe, and before you know it, the book is over. I loved how short this was, because I didn't have to suffer too long.
I liked that Annabel was forced to see herself differently, but the body swap component with her mother is wrapped up ridiculously quick. It is also too convenient with no real explanation for the swap happening other than the mom can just make it happen. At times, the book felt very preachy, as though a fictional mother was beating me with the book and saying, "APPRECIATE ME!" That point could have been made without making the mom seem so over the top or clueless. The mom is both more worked than Annabel realizes, but the ultimate point is that the mom gets her way about several things when it comes to Annabel's life. Annabel learns to be a better human being but still gets forced into something in a way framed as a "mother knows what's best, don't you feel silly for not letting me do this for you sooner?" I'm cool with stories about appreciating your family, but there is a point where the line is crossed and a story becomes too preachy and self-righteous.
Ultimately, this book isn't great, but it isn't the worst book I've ever read, nor is it the worst book I have read this year so far. Annabel is relatable, yet irritating. I agree with her moral compass towards ethnic groups, but disagree with her treatment of her family and most of the people around her. I hope she would eventually grow into less of a naive girl when it comes to her crush, although I can see how other girls may react similarly. I still find it very hypocritical. While comedic at times, the book is still a mess. There is no accountability and the adult characters are all rather absurd, even though there is supposed to be newly gained respect for them.
I give Freaky Friday a Lone Star rating of ✯ and a half stars. I laughed a few times, which is why it gets the extra half. Sometimes my laughter was out of disbelief at what Annabel said or how some boundaries were being lightly pushed by the author in a way that some young readers probably wouldn't catch.
Thanks for joining me for today's Magic Monday review here at The Real World According to Sam, where I bring the books to your computer screen and even put in my two cents about them!
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