I like Strand's writing. He's fun and scary. Creepy and laugh out loud. This book falls into his teen reader market, not the scarier stuff that he writes for adults. But that's ok, because Strand's writing is about real people falling into weird and crazy situations. And because I think Strand hooked my 10 year old on horror. As soon as we finished reading this book together, she immediately had to go to Barnes and Noble and find more Strand. I'm hoping that it sticks. We'll find out. ( )

Dit boek is enorm grappig en gaat vooral in op de slapstick humor met een beetje horror in de mix. Dit is een young adult boek die zeker het lezen waard is voor iedere horror fan die in is voor een grapje!

A Bad Day For Voodoo
by Jeff Strand

Oh my gosh! This book is so hilarious! I don't care what age you are, teen and up should be good, you will find this funny!
Say your teacher is a super jerk to you, and just you. Everyone knows. Your less than sane friend comes up with a plan. A voodoo doll! Ok, it's not really going to work so you humor him and stick the pin in the doll of your teacher as he has his back to the class. Chaos ensues as his leg is ripped off!
You get mad at your friend. Make him take it back. But he gets mad at you and gets a voodoo doll made of you! You guys make up before he uses it. Before you can take it back, it gets stolen. From there, it is one crazy adventure trying to get the doll back! It is hilarious! Oh my goodness! Everyone is involved! I laughed so hard! A must read! ( )

This hilarious novel starts off innocent enough with Tyler being furious with his history teacher for giving him an F on his test because someone cheated off his paper without his knowledge after he had spent a week studying for the test and not spending time with his hot, and brilliant, girlfriend, Kelley. But it isn't just that, the man is evil. He makes history boring and gets great glee in announcing each person's grade aloud to the class and he seems to be happiest when someone fails.

Adam, Tyler's very weird and bizarre friend decides to do him a favor and goes to a store downtown and gets him a voodoo doll of Mr. Click the history teacher for Adam to have a little fun with before he goes to the Principal about the test. Tyler doesn't believe it will actually work but when Mr. Click has his back turned from the class, he reaches into his backpack and sticks his leg with the needle and suddenly Mr. Click's leg goes flying off his body. Kelley performs first aid on him and he is taken to the hospital. At the end of the school day, Tyler and Adam go to Tyler's house and they get into a shoving match while the doll is still in Tyler's backpack on his back tossing the doll around. Then Tyler hears the news a little later and learns that Mr. Click has died on the table of a broken neck. When Tyler looks at the doll its neck is tilted. Adam has long since left scared that the police will find out what they've done and come for them.

Tyler calls Kelley for help in figuring out what to do with the doll when she asks what is Adam up to because Adam has a way of making things worse. They finally hear back from Adam who has made a doll of Tyler to protect himself in case Tyler goes to the police. Once they make it clear to Adam that Tyler would never do that Adam feels pretty bad and stupid for making the doll but now they have a doll of Tyler that needs to be uncreated. So they hop in Tyler's mom's car and punch in the GPS for the store and find themselves going through a bad neighborhood.

While stopped at a photograph stoplight a man comes up to the window and Tyler doesn't feel like he can just drive off without getting a ticket so he rolls down the window to see what the man wants and finds himself facing a gun and being told to get out of the car. They try to get the doll out of the trunk but are not successful. They find a taxi driver named Felix who is up for a chase who takes them to where the car is being chopped up.

So Tyler goes inside to bargain with the gangsters and when they find out it's a voodoo doll they don't believe it works until they try it out for themselves and cut off two of Tyler's toes. Then they get into an argument over the doll and things get deadly. Tyler escapes but then the Felix demands his fee of the cab ride once he finds out that Tyler is bleeding in his car and he wants them out. When they explain that their parents can pay it but they can't Felix demands the doll as a downpayment. And from there things go from bad to worse as something comes running down the street to meet them and when they knock on the doors of houses they encounter weird and dangerous things.

Will they ever get the doll back? Will they survive the night? Tyler is a funny narrator who while he does get quite angry at Adam and threaten to end the friendship many times you know he won't because Adam will somehow redeem himself. Kelley is the one rational, intelligent person there. She is the planner even if the plans don't always work. She's a tough young woman. This was a fantastic book that's filled with gore and humor and a motley crew of bizarre characters. I loved this book and I give it five out of five stars.

Quotes

My cat’s communication was simple: Any noise it made meant either “Feed me” or “I hate you.”

-Jeff Strand (A Bad Day For Voodoo p 104)

I wished my life came with a musical soundtrack to help me figure out how to behave.

-Jeff Strand (A Bad Day For Voodoo p 116)

And why don’t they sell Girl Scout cookies in stores? Why do you take a product that people actually want to buy and put a stranglehold on it like that? Tell you what what, you find me a box of Thin frickin’ Mints and you can use my phone to call 1-800 horoscope numbers for all I care.

-Jeff Strand (A Bad Day For Voodoo p 144)

That’s enough! Young lady as long as you live in our house, you will respect our rules, ans when we say that there will be no human sacrifices tonight, well, that’s exactly what we mean…You’re way too old for us to keep having to treat you this way. Keep up the attitude problem, and I promise we will take away the pizza cutter, the spider venom, the daggers—all of them, even the one with the hidden compartment—those special pliers that Grandma made for you, your TV, everything. All of it, gone into storage until you go to college!

-Jeff Strand (A Bad Day For Voodoo p 176-7)

I also have to say that vampires are lying to you about kissing with blood on your lips being arousing. It’s really kind of gross. Don’t try it.

-Jeff Strand (A Bad Day For Voodoo p 186) ( )

When his best friend gives him a voodoo doll to get revenge on a teacher, Tyler does not take him seriously until the teacher dies.