Evolution, Me & Other Freaks of Nature is a 2007 young adult novel written by Robin Brande. The story follows high school freshman Mena Reece, who has just been excommunicated from her fundamentalist church. She faces bullying from her former church friends, especially her former best friend Teresa. Things get even more dramatic when her biology teacher, Ms. Shepherd starts a unit on evolution, prompting the church kids to stage a protest in favor of Intelligent Design. Meanwhile, Mena starts to develop feelings for her lab partner, Casey Connor.
This novel provides examples of:
- Alpha Bitch: Teresa. Possibly an even more dangerous example than most, because she legitimately thinks she has God on her side (or at least acts like it).
- Ambiguously Gay: In a later chapter, Mena wonders if Denny was actually even gay at all, but then adds if he was then who's business is it to anyone that bullied him.
- Affectionate Nickname: Kayla and Casey are called "K" and "C" by their mother respectively.
- Break the Cutie: Mena, having her old friends hate and bully her at school, her parents barely register her existence at home, and has to continuously lie to her parents so she can see her only friends.
- Broken Tears: Bethany has these when she sees the Bible Grrrl Sez column in the school paper and when confronting Mena on why she told people about Denny.
- Mena and her mother following Pastor Wells's sermon and in Mena's confessional.
- Cool Teacher: With her enthusiasm for science, Ms. Shepherd is this to students who are receptive to her messages and ready to learn. To students who try to undermine her approach by bringing religion into class discussions, she's a Stern Teacher, and even declares that such students are not welcome in her class.
- Cure Your Gays: How the church responded to gay student, Denny Pierce.
- Disappeared Dad: Casey and Kayla's father died of cancer three years before the events of the novel.
- Deadpan Snarker: All of the main characters have their moments.
- Driven to Suicide: Denny, thankfully his parents caught him before he went through with it.
- Expy: Very similar to the young adult novel "Speak."
- Faux Affably Evil: Mena comments that Bethany, while she took part in Denny's bullying, had pure intentions and her heart was in the right place because she thought she was helping him, Mena can't even bring herself to dislike her and even say if she were dying, she'd want Bethany to hold her hand. Furthermore, Bethany is the pastor's daughter, and with someone like him for a father, what chance does a person have? Bethany seems to legitimately feel bad that Denny tried to kill himself; by contrast, Teresa and Adam were out and out cruel to him and seem to not care that their actions nearly drove him to suicide.
- The Fundamentalist: Everyone at Mena's church.
- Hipster: Kayla and her friends.
- Hypocrite: Teresa is anything but conservatively Christian in her behavior. In addition to tormenting Mena psychologically and physically, Teresa curses and dresses provocatively to emphasize her figure. Furthermore, Teresa and most of the other youth group kids were anything but Christlike in the way they treated Denny. Mena notes that Teresa has always been two-faced like that, even when they were friends, and that she used to admire Teresa for her outspokenness.
- I Have Boobs, You Must Obey!: Teresa's modus operandi.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Although Mena did not participate in the bullying of Denny, she also didn't do anything to stop it, and feels guilty about it. The way in which she eventually chose to expose her former friends as bullies - writing Denny a letter - caused more problems than it solved.
- Nerds Are Sexy
- Official Couple: Mena and Casey. Also Kayla and Josh.
- Precious Puppy: Casey and Kayla's dog, Abbey, has twelve puppies who are to be sold to forever homes. Mena gets particularly attached to one named Christmas.
- Precision F-Strike: Mena's mom gets one after Pastor Wells publicly humiliates her in front of the whole congregation: "Son of a bitch".
- Raven Hair Ivoryskin: A trait Casey and Kayla inherited from their mother.
- She's Not My Girlfriend: Casey says this word for word when Kayla calls Mena his girlfriend.
- Shown Their Work: For fundamentalist Christian culture, and biology. The author was raised Fundamentalist Baptist, and sat in on high school biology classes as research.
- Sinister Minister: Pastor Wells.
- The Unseen: Denny, who, despite being the catalyst for the events leading up to the novel, is only mentioned.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Bethany.
- Wham Line: "MS SHEPHERD GOES TO CHURCH?"
