Title: I have a bad feeling about this
Author: Jeff Strand
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Release date: January 1st 2014
A while back, I tried, to the best of my abilities, to review The Greatest Zombie Movie Ever, by Jeff Strand. I say "tried" because in my opinion, I didn't do the book justice. Today, I'm going to try to review I Have a Bad Feeling About This.
I'll be honest here and say that during the first pages, I wasn't feeling the book too well. And then, out of the blue, I was laughing out loud like a lunatic again. The magic of Jeff's writing, my friend!
If there's one thing I love from his book, it's the way I always end up cracking up as I make my through the pages. Always.
What makes it extra special for me is knowing how much fun Jeff has writing his stories. You just know, trust me. The humour is not forced, it's brilliantly done!
This story is so well written that the most unbelievable thing wasn't so much how the boys managed to survive the survival camp, but how the book isn't more popular! The story is completely absurd, yet I was into it till the very end. And I mean it; you write the plot down as a list and you would probably think "how the hell does any of this make sense, how the hell does it even fit together?". Then you put it back in the form of a well written book and it becomes a five star read!
What I find really cool is how Jeff sneakily slides in some deeper stuff, so that when you finish the story you not only take away some terribly funny survival tip, but some great life lessons too.
You do you. That's what I take back from this book.
Henry, the MC, is a nerd; he loves video games and that's why his dad sends him to survival camp. At the end of the book, Henry, as well as all the characters, have grown a lot, but they remain the same people. They overcome every crazy obstacles that are thrown their way with their own strength. They don't grow super powers overnight, instead, they use the ones they had all along, the ones we all have: the power to be true to ourselves.
Heck, I loved this book so much that in my enthusiasm to share this with Jeff, I reinvented the title of the book and told him I fell in love with Looking for trouble instead of I have a Bad Feeling About this...
At the end of the day, Jeff is, in my eyes, all around amazing and so are his books. And if you know what's good for you, you'll definitely give them, give him, a chance.
