Negative Positive
Title: Powerful and vivid, personal, and to the point.
Review: This is the book that youth groups should mass order. Peretti recounts his own childhood growing up as a victim of both cystic hygroma (causing stunted growth and a speech impediment, among other problems) and bullying. He shares with painful detail how constant bullying effected his self-image ("I thought I was a monster") and how the school system typically does little or nothing to protect the weak. Even further, he illustrates his view of the world as governed by a higher system of rules, explaining why "Might makes right" is both a dangerous and a flawed philosophy. Peretti even confesses his own faults as an occasional bully, his failures to stick up for those weaker than himself. This is a super-quick read that will challenge adults to a new awareness of the bullying problem and will benefit every teen/pre-teen reader, whether he is a bully, a victim, or someone caught in the middle who doesn't know how to change "the way things are."
Is the review positive or negative? 