Review: Scary good!
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 11 30, 2012
Tom and Jessica Novak are proud to be doing God's work. They've traveled to Port au-Prince as part of a missionary group with others of their church. They're going to help with rebuilding the island after the 7.0 earthquake that shook all of  Haiti, causing massive destruction.Their 15-year-old son Henry's Asperger's Syndrome had them questioning their decision. He's intelligent and quite functional, but changes in routine, surroundings and new faces could cause problems. Henry doesn't communicate well or understand social interaction.But Henry's the one that urged them to go. He's been obsessed with Haiti. So here they are, the whole family, including Henry's younger sister Natalie, who'd rather be back home. This is not her idea of a great summer vacation.Since Henry's been doing so well, they decide to extend their stay. If they had only left earlier, they wouldn't be searching for their missing son. Henry has simply vanished and wandering away from the protection of the armed camp is dangerous. There are a lot of bad people out there and he wouldn't stand a chance against them.If they had only known the reason Henry wandered away, they never would have brought him there.My favorite character is Jake. He befriends Henry when they meet in detention class. They aren't really bad boys, just a couple of kids who got in a little trouble.Jake is a kind-hearted boy, helping out the elderly residents in his trailer park. He does odd jobs, cleans house and run errands for the less able ones. You wonder how he turned out so well when you learn he suffers violent beatings from his uncle. After losing his parents he came to live with his aunt and uncle and his aunt suffers the same abuse.Jake brings Henry home with him after school to introduce him to his favorite neighbor, Lucien.Lucien is a powerful bokor, a voodoo priest, and with his black skin, unruly, long white hair and piercing eyes, he looks every bit the part.It becomes a regular routine for the boys to visit with Lucien after school and after much pleading, he begins to teach them about Vodun, the voodoo religion, beginning with simple spells and hexes.Lucien feels death coming for him and can't bear the thought of all his vast knowledge and power going with him to the grave.After Jake receives another very brutal and bloody beating, the three decide to create a voodoo doll to rid Jake of his uncle.This is where it all starts to go weird.Bad Juju was a surprise. I thought it was going to be all about voodoo, raising the dead, and voodoo dolls. Well, it was. I learned how to do voodoo, what the religion is about, good and dark arts of it, and how to raise someone from the dead. Some of it creeped me out, but a lot of it was really funny.Having the characters as teen-age boys made this story. Boys will be boys and they had me rocking and  rolling! I can't wait for you to meet the dead guy.Getting back to the surprise part, there were several deeper subjects tackled throughout this book and I could tell the author did a lot of research and included that knowledge in the story to make it believable and engaging.If you're looking for something different, look no further. Bad Juju has plenty of interesting characters, some tough topics, plenty of laughs, and lots of scary voodoo magic. Oh Yeah, I almost forgot the zombie!I felt like I got a crash course in voodoo, like voodoo for dummies.