Bad

by Jean Ferris

Book Overview

Inspired by the author's work in a girls' rehabilitation center.

Ray called it skating when we did the crazy things . . . Hot-wiring a fancy car for a joyride after midnight. Boosting stuff from stores . . .

Sixteen-year-old Dallas loves the rush, the excitement of "skating." But then she and her friends decide to rob a convenience store and it's Dallas who gets caught while the others get away. Since it is her first offense,...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0374404755
• ISBN13: 9780374404758
• Release Date: September 2001
• Publisher: St. Martins Press-3PL
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.0" x 7.6"
• Age Range: 14 to 18 years
• Grade Range: Grade 9 to Postsecondary

Customer Reviews

BAD

BAD Charlotte Cordell My book was called BAD by Jean Ferris. This book is about a girl named Dallas. She lives with her father. Her mother had passed away when she was around 4 years old. She doesn't remember much of her mother, but from what her father says about her, she was not a good roll model. She was really irresponsible. She came home late and didn't care much for the family. When Dallas got her father mad by whom she hangs out with or what she does, he says that she is too much like her mother. Dallas was dating a boy named Ray. Ray and Dallas where friends with a girl named Pam and a boy named Sonny. Sonny was Pam's boyfriend. That was their group of friends. What they did to have fun was shoplift and break the law. They called it, "skating." One day they were really bored and they decided to do something that they had never done before. They were going to rob a small jiffy spot store. Pam had stolen a gun from her father and brought it along so they could get control of the cashier. They were sitting in a café one night and were deciding who would do what. They had come up with the plan that Ray, Pam, and Sonny would break an entry. So that leaves Dallas to be the one to hold the gun and threaten the cashier, even though she didn't want to. When it was time, they did as planned. Shortly after they had entered the store, police cars had showed up. Ray, Pam, and Sonny darted out the back door like there was no tomorrow. They left Dallas there for blame. They also made up a story that Dallas had stolen the gun from Pam's father so that Pam and the others wouldn't get in trouble. Pam got taken away and charged with robbery. She was sent to juvenile hall. Her father wouldn't bail her out knowing how much he didn't trust her. Since they had nothing to do with her there, they sent her to a rehab for people who committed crimes. It was like a school to teach them that it was bad and also teach them so they don't get behind. Dallas had to stay in rehab for at least 6 months. She could have visitors on weekends. Pam came to visit her after a couple weeks. Dallas was desperate to get out of there! Dallas's father had shown up one day. Does he take her home? Read the book to find out. This book was a really good book. Every time I had to stop reading this book, I didn't want to. I could have just kept reading until I finished it. It was very exciting to read. The parts that got me most excited were the cliff hangers. They set me up for a big sensation to keep reading. The author definitely made me feel like I was in the book. Jean described every scene in the book very well so that I could just imagine in my head that I was there. The main conflict did interest me a lot. When I read the first 6 pages, I was already into the book. It reminded me of what not to do. Such as: Steal and break laws. The characters were definitely realistic. They reminded me of some people that I know. (Besides the w

Bad

Bad The book I read was called, "Bad," by Jean Ferris. The story was about a girl named Dallas. Dallas had a really tough life because her mother died when she was four and she didn't get along with her dad. She was 16 years old and didn't know what to do with her life besides doing all of the wrong things. She started hanging out with the wrong kind of people who did something called skating for fun. Skating is basically just shoplifting but one time they had taken it way too far. Dallas was put under a lot of peer pressure to bring a gun into a store and rob the place so they could buy fake IDs. She did it because she knew that those people wouldn't be her "friends" anymore if she didn't do it. Dallas was caught and had to go to court. The judge said she could either be put on probation or sent to a girls rehab center. Her dad made her go to a Girls' Rehabilitation Center for six months because he thought Dallas needed that for better discipline. Along the way she made a ton of new friends that taught her so many things. When she was there she really learned a lot about herself. Dallas found many new things she could do besides skating. She found her interest in books, writing, and school. The rest of the book was about her journey through a Girls' Rehabilitation Center and all of the things she learned to help her. I think this was one of my favorite books. It was really exciting because there was never a dull moment. She was either getting into trouble or learning something new. I did and didn't feel like I was in the book. I did because she goes through things that average teenagers go through. I didn't because she has a tough life and I can't really relate to doing any of the things she does like robbing a store at gunpoint. The main conflict did interest me a lot because it was different from the other books that I have read. The characters were very realistic because they were supposed to be. At the beginning of the book the author says that she was in a Girls' Rehabilitation Center so she basically wrote about what it was like for her. But it wasn't all coming from her life. The book's ending was pretty satisfying because it ended the way you thought it was. The only thing I didn't like was that it was really predictable and I thought she should have written a lot more about what Dallas was like after she went to the Girls' Rehabilitation Center. The voice of this book was mainly coming from the author's point-of-view from what rehab is actually like. Not everything was really from her life though because Dallas and everything Dallas did was made up. Jean Ferris uses vocabulary in an interesting way because she uses some slang and a lot of cussing too. The words she used were pretty easy because I never had a hard time figuring out what they meant. The author has a unique writing style because she writes in a sadder tone but she didn't use as much description as I thought she would. The authors' ability

Great for school reports

I enjoyed reading the book. It was a definite page turner. I liked hearing about what the girl had to go through and how serious peer pressure is. I would recommend this book for teenagers. The author had studied on this topic and really knows what goes on in these places, which made it even more enjoyable. It was not opinionated at all and made a good book.

Bad by Jean Ferris

Bad is a book about a girl, Dallas, who likes the excitment of "skating" or robbing. When she gets caught she goes to Girls' Rehabilitation Center where she learns not only her lesson, but a few others too. From Bad: "So the first time, bam! you must have got nailed with a gun in your hand or something." "Bingo," I said.

This is a provocative story about young delinquent girls.

This is a very well written provocative story about several young girls in a correctional facility. It is primarily Dallas' story. Ferris tells us what it's like in the Girls Rehabilitation Facility while Dallas spends 6 months there for attempting to commit armed robbery. Only fifteen years old, Dallas, abandoned by her friends, boyfiriend, and her father, through her experiences in the GRC realizes that her decisions brought her to where she is, and no one else is to blame -- maybe. Also, she learns from her mates and her counselors that living life "straight" is extremely hard, and she has very little hope of changing herself or her behavior when she returns to her former situation. She's not sure she wants to change. Ferris does not gloss over violent situations. She tells it the way she apparently heard it when she was doing her research, talking with teenage girls in a detention center during the summer of 1993. Particularly poignant is the experience of one of the girls who goes home for the week-end only to be beaten up by one of her family members because she won't submit to his sexual advances. Instead, eager to try and change her behavior, she fights him off and walks a long way back to the GRC-- the only safe place she knows. We are left with a glimmer of hope that some of these girls will turn their lives around, knowing that if they do, it will take extraordinary courage, much help, more than average incentive and lots of luck. The girls come to life on the pages and won't be quickly forgotten.