I Have A Bad Feeling About This by Jeff Strand : Book Review : Truman Nominee

Title: I Have A Bad Feeling About This
Author: Jeff Strand
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Published Date:  March 1st 2014
Genre: YA, Adventure, Humor,Middle Grade
Page Count:242
Format: Paperback

My Rating: ★ ★ ★

Goodreads Summary: 
Wilderness Survival Tip #1
Drinking your own sweat will not save your life. Somebody might have told you that, but they were trying to find out if you'd really do it.

Henry Lambert would rather play video games than spend time in the great outdoors--but that doesn't make him a wuss. Skinny nerd? Fine. But wuss is a little harsh. Sadly, his dad doesn't agree. Which is why Henry is being shipped off to Strongwoods Survival Camp.

Strongwoods isn't exactly as advertised. It looks like the victim of a zombie apocalypse, the "camp director" is a psycho drill sergeant, and Henry's sure he saw a sign written in blood...

Wilderness Survival Tip #2
In case of an avalanche, don't despair. You're doomed, but that's a wicked cool death.

Wilderness Survival Tip #3
If you're relying on this book for actual survival tips, you're dead already.

Praise for Jeff Strand's A Bad Day For Voodoo:

"A delightfully ludicrous read."--School Library Journal

"Just the thing for teen wiseacres."--Booklist

"[A] free-wheeling dark comedy that starts off running and doesn't stop until all plausibility is exhausted. Sam Raimi fans should eat it up."--Publishers Weekly

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 My Review:

"Don't ever talk again. Live the rest of your life as a mute. Imagine that any time you open your mouth, a giant fist will slam into it because that's exactly what's going to happen!"

One of the things I loved about this book was that while it deals with scary situations and teenage boys there wasn’t any bad language or crude humor. It was a nice change from what we’ve been seeing normally.

Henry Lambert and his best friend are sent to a survival skill camp by their parents in order to get them out of the house away from video games and for both of them to get tough and to stop being so fearful of everything.

Once they arrive at camp they meet their roommates for the next few weeks as well as the person that will teach them survival skills. This starts not only the boys trying to work on their fears but also learning how to work with others.

They also learn that another camp that has girls in is just through the woods and they meet several of them and they even end up helping each other when things start going horribly wrong. This does include a romance element but it never got to touchy or anything like that.

"He'd delivered a final blow that had knocked he opponent unconscious! He'd defeated the evil Mr. Grand! He'd won the battle!"

Overall I enjoyed reading this book; it was a fun and quick read that reminded me a lot of a family friendly movie that makes you smile and laugh through the majority of it. Sure the characters were flawed and the guy in charge should have never been put in charge. But somehow the boys actually make it out alive and mostly uninjured and they learned to work as a team and that some things you don’t need to be scared of when there are real life things that are way more terrifying. Plus the one-liners that every character had were funny and made me laugh out loud several times. After a while though they did get a bit to consistent and stopped being so funny when things go to the point where the boys had to try and survive. Plus the survival tips included in each chapter were a funny add in that should not be taken seriously.

If you want a fun, quick and clean read then I would say this is good choice.

"Now that he was in a situation where he really might die, Henry wished he hadn't spent so much of his life thinking he was going to die in non-dangerous situations."