Book reviews are subjective. I tend to rate books not according to how “perfect” they are, seem to be, or are said to be in general but rather to how perfect they are to me.
Double Danger by Judy Baer
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Description: Brentwood High’s broadcast news team has their hands full when a student is knifed at school. Is the attack only the beginning of the violence?
My thoughts: I flew through this third book in Live From Brentwood High, a YA ChristFic series originally published in the ’90s. (Yeah, I’m reading the ’90s editions, with my nostalgic self. Don’t know if the rereleased editions have any 21st-century updates.) This is the kind of fast-paced series you should start from Book One, to get introduced to the characters and to follow their progression.
As with the previous books, the group of Brentwood High students here grapple with questions concerning a serious issue most of them never had to think much about before. Some of the different angles they come to consider about violence are worth thinking about.
Now, in the style of the late ’80s-early ’90s TV show Saved by the Bell, since the kids are facing a particular issue in this “episode,” the issue pops up pretty much everywhere during the story. At times, it feels contrived.
Like, Izzy has apparently never seen his younger sisters physically fight. But now when the two little girls walk into the living room and happen to get into a swift disagreement, they actually start landing punches on each other, back and forth, one of them throwing in a kick. It seems that if the girls would readily display that level of violence with each other in front of Izzy and his friends, he would have seen it happen before. Or if the girls were new to acting out like that in front of their brother, they might start with a push or a slap or two, and probably shock themselves into stopping with tears or embarrassment, rather than jumping straight into pounding each other with their fists.
Also, the Christian teen of the bunch, Sarah, kind of teeters between being more of a natural character and being the “Christian teen cliché,” in my view. Sharing a little about her faith sometimes is one thing, but Sarah quoting verbatim from the Bible in conversation with the other characters, including chapter and verse in her quoting, feels somewhat forced.
On a different note, the N-word pops up once in this book, spelled out. It’s the Black character, Josh, who says it while he’s sharing something from his personal experience, which I understand. But I think (including when it comes to some in Christian publishing who may not be personally familiar with the Black experience) not everyone realizes just how strong a word the slur is for many people—especially considering the history and the generations of trauma that comes with it. As I’ve said in my reviews of some other Christian novels, if it isn’t a book where you’d find it okay to spell out the F-word, then you shouldn’t spell out the N-word. (Again, I don’t know if the word also appears in the rereleased edition of this book or not.)
Nevertheless, I found this novel to be another worthwhile read in the series. I’m looking forward to continuing on to Book Four soon.
Here’s my review of the first book in the series, Risky Assignment.
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