Book Review: Bad Idea a novel (with coyotes)

It's been a long time - years, even - since I've read a book good enough to consume an entire Sunday afternoon. I changed into pyjamas at 2 o'clock, brewed a pot of tea and enjoyed a good, long read.

In Bad Idea, the Hafer brothers combined the angst of the teen years with enough humor to pull the reader through a difficult story. The main character and narrator, Griffin, reminded me of Holden Caulfield in Catcher in the Rye in his sarcasm and intelligence. Unlike Holden, though, Griffin sees the good in people of true faith and he despairs of ever reaching their level of goodness. He logics his way to self-mutilation as a means to salvation or something near it.

The book is set on a road trip Griffin is taking with his dad and his dad's cliché, I mean, fiancé. But most of the story doesn't happen there. In a masterful use of flashbacks and inner thoughts, the Hafer brothers tell us all about Griffin, from the smart Christian teen he appears to be to the tormented, lost child of divorce that is his reality.

Bad Idea steps outside the bounds of a novel you would expect from a Christian book publisher, but not in a bad way. It's smart and it doesn't skirt the fact that Christians face real temptations and succumb to real sins that destroy themselves and those around them. If you read Christian fiction to escape the problems of real life, you may not enjoy this book. But if you'd like a ride inside the head of a teenager whose security has been jerked away from him, this is one the best books I've read in a long time.

Don't even ask about the coyotes. You'll just have to read it for yourself.