My review of Bad Idea by Todd and Jedd Hafer...
Posted by:
Michelle Sutton on
August 29, 2007 at
7:35PM EST
From the publisher:
A
weird family, one messed-up guy, and an angry coyote transform Griffin
Smith's rite-of-passage road trip to his freshman year of college into
an attitude-changing adventure! As their journey takes random detours
and the states blur by, Griffin, his best friend, father, and kid
brother learn life lessons about forgiveness, integrity, and character.
My review:
I'll
admit I feel a bit conflicted about this book. I've worked with
troubled kids for over twenty years so I know where the authors are
coming from. The book was compulsively readable. The wit, sarcasm, and
analogies were the most original and creative I've ever read. The
authors clearly had insight into a troubled kid's head as well. I'm not
sure I agree that the content is for kids as young as twelve, though,
despite what the recommended age level is. For one thing, Griffin does
a lot of dangerous stuff in this book including self-mutilation and
drinking secretively through the majority of the book. My concern would
be that a troubled kid would read about something they'd never done
before (like burn themselves) and try it because they read about it as
a way of coping for Griffin and if they thinks he's cool...
I
dunno. I remember being 12 and 13 and reading a book about girls who
were anorexic and trying to imitate their behavior when I was upset
because I thought they were cool. That's what I'm getting at here. I
liked how the authors gave incredible insight via the first person
point of view into Griffin's inner heart attitude and his extreme pain
over his mother's abandonment and how that played out in his life. I
also liked how they showed the lessons Griffin learned over time,
though they were slow at coming out and then the book was over. I'm
also a bit conflicted on the spiritual element because from reading
this book you sort of get the impression that Griffin sees himself as a
Christian, yet his thoughts don't seem to match up with how a truly
spiritually regenerated person would view things. He seemed to have no
hope at all so that didn't sit right with me. However, he did seem to
understand grace more in the end, so something obviously happened to
his heart to change his impression of what a relationship with Christ
means.
Some of the stuff in Bad Idea
is truly LOL funny, but even when reading snippets to my two teenage
sons, I could not get them interested in reading this book and they are
the target audience! Some of the stuff seemed too thirty-something
sounding in Griffin's thoughts. What 18 year-old knows what Billy
Idol's fish hook snarl looks like? Or am I just out of touch with the
pop culture of today? At any rate, I still recommend this book for a
snappy read to someone who loves angst and works with troubled youth.
I'm just not so sure I'd recommend it to troubled teens as a resource.
Sure, they might also self-mutilate and can identify with Griffin's
thought process, however, if they don't already self-mutilate I'd hate
to think they had now just discovered a whole new way to hurt
themselves via a Christian book. Make sense?
I love edgy
stuff, so I had to really sleep on this one before I put my thoughts
down to be fair to the authors. I still want to read the sequel.
Bad Idea was published by NavPress THINK and released in August 2006.
