Fred falls in love with Aja, the "strange girl" of the title, and he and his friends are a witness to her preternatural calmness and her ability to heal injuries. My biggest problem with this book is how out of touch Pike is with the way young people speak and act. There are many instances, like the lack of texting, but my favorite is when one character gets caught trying to buy five pounds of weed. Five. Pounds. I was absolutely hysterical with laughter. But the bigger problem is that this whole novel is told as if Fred is trying to convince the reader how incredible Aja and her pseudo-Buddhist enlightenment are. I liked the unique idea of the story, but overall it was very boring.