Uggh, a road trip! When 18-year-old Griffin Smith has to leave for college, his dad’s fiance’ decides that the whole family and his best friend, Cole, should drive up to his college in Southern California from their home in Kansas. Leaving his long time crush, Amanda Mackenzie, is really hard for him, but he is also eager to meet the mysterious Carrot, a girl he met online who goes to the same college he will be attending. On their way to college they will have to deal with many devastating problems from muggers to family affairs to a young child’s death. Once he arrives at the California college which he is attending on a running scholarship, Griffin quits his longtime addiction of burning himself with lighters and blow dryers with some much-needed help from his dad. This terrible habit started after his mom left when he was very young; he did it to punish himself for all of the horrible things he did that were not very Christian-like. Join Griffin Smith as he faces life’s tragedies and hopefully finds the best solution to solving each of them.
I think the authors, Todd and Jedd Hafer, did an awesome job at writing Bad Idea: A Novel (With Coyotes), because I didn’t think that I would enjoy this story and I ended up loving it! I thought that it was cool how the authors used coyotes as such a big part of the creation of this book, even though they weren’t actually mentioned a whole lot in the story. I didn’t overly care for the fact that there was a lot of misconduct and wrongdoing in this book, but after realizing how messed up his life was, he became a Christian. Overall, though, I thought this composition was well-written and an all-together amazing story. I recommend this wonderful book to young adults ages 12 and up, but mostly to boys who love running since it is a main topic in Bad Idea.
Content: There was drinking of alcoholic beverages, sexual content and references, smoking, burning their flesh (self mutilation),fighting, and suicide.
Rating (0 - 10 scale): 9
Reviewer Age: 13
Reviewer City, State and Country: Upper Strasburg, PA United States
