You Don't Know About Me

by Brian Meehl

Sixteen-year-old Billy Allbright is about to bust out of his sheltered cocoon and go on a gonzo road trip. He just doesn't know it yet. His ticket to freedom? A mysterious Bible containing two resurrection stories. The second is about a man Billy's never met, and who is supposedly his father.
But the road to a risen-from-the-grave dad, and the unusual inheritance he promises, is far from straight. Billy zigzags across the American West in a geocaching treasure hunt. When his journey includes a runaway baseball star, nudists who perform sun dances, a girl with neon green body parts, and con artists who blackmail him into their "anti-action movie," Billy soon realizes that the path to self-discovery is mega off-road.


From the Hardcover edition.

Genres: Young Adult, Fiction, Realistic Fiction, LGBT, Novels, Road Trip, Teen

416 pages, Library Binding

First published May 10, 2011

About the author

Sign up for Brian Meehl’s ANNOUNCEMENTS at https://www.blowbacktrilogy.com , or CONTACT him at brian@brianmeehl.com .

Brian’s most recent novel is BLOWBACK '94, the “hugely enjoyable and fast-paced” finale in his critically acclaimed BLOWBACK TRILOGY. The kickoff book in the trilogy, BLOWBACK ’07, received a coveted red-star review from Publishers Weekly.

His award-winning books include a bestselling comedic riff on vampires, SUCK IT UP, OUT OF PATIENCE (Junior Library Guild Selection), and YOU DON'T KNOW ABOUT ME (Blue Ribbon from the Bulletin for the Center for Children’s Books).

Once upon a time, Brian worked for Jim Henson’s Muppets and puppeteered the gamut from a young pup, Barkley on SESAME STREET, to the Dying Master in Henson’s cult classic, THE DARK CRYSTAL. After taking up the pen, Brian wrote for kids’ shows like THE MAGIC SCHOOL BUS and BETWEEN THE LIONS, winning three Emmys along the way.

For more on Brian, his books and the BLOWBACK TRILOGY, visit www.blowbacktrilogy.com and www.brianmeehl.com. Or watch his interview presenting BLOWBACK '07 and talking about his career with the Muppets at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZM26....

You can also check out my latest interview and get a hint of what I hope to work on next at: https://www.californiaherald.com/goin...

Reviews

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

"You Don't Know About Me" was far better than I had anticipated. Brian Meehl has written a sort-of fanfiction of the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Over the years, there have been many attempts to do so, and some quite successful. John Clinch's 2007 novel Finn was critically acclaimed. This novel - "You Don't Know About Me" - is by far the best I've read. Even disregarding its engagement with the earlier classic, the novel's story and characters stand very well on their own.
Bill Allbright and his mom are the social outcasts of the story. Unlike Pap Finn's drunkenness, Bill's mom is drunk on the Holy Spirit. The pair of them are in-your-face fundamentalist Christians whose activism often borders on the bizarre: shaving the heads of Tickle Me Elmo dolls because they are the gateway to "unrestrained pleasure". Bill has been homeschooled. There is no father, as he has died years ago. Or, so Billy has been told by his mother.
The story begins with the unexpected arrival of a Bible for Billy in which are hidden a DVD from his not-so-dead father, and the opening chapters to Huck Finn. His father instigates a treasure hunt to find a rare work of Mark Twain's. The geocaching clues are hidden within Huck Finn. Bill runs away from home in search of those clues. Soon, Bill is crossing the mid-west with an unexpected travel partner: shades of Jim. And, Bill meets with situations that engage the original Huck Finn novel and yet are completely true to this story.
Brian Meehl has even found the analogue to the moral arc of Huck Finn. Bill has to go through an awfully similar crisis of conscious that Huck went through. Through the story, the story of Huck Finn is always front and centre through the clues hidden in it. And, yet, the deliberate parallelism in "You Don't Know About Me" is not evident. The new story feels true and organic: it stands by itself
"You Don't Know About Me" is intelligent, fun, thoughtful, engaging, and, a page-turner: Great read.

[Wendy Pittman]

Recommended by Barbara. A story of running away AND running to something that is missing. Kind of a teen read.

[Lyn · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sixteen-year-old Billy Allbright and his mother travel from city to city, stamping out evil along the way. They don't live anywhere for long. The story begins in Independence, Missouri. Billy and his mother arrive there in what will be the seventeenth town they've lived in since Billy was born. Usually Billy prefers homeschooling to being the new kid in every school. In Independence, he chooses to go to school to avoid whatever trouble his mother will get into when she takes on the Mormon Church.

Billy is homeschooled so that picking up and leaving is easy. Their reasons for leaving are varied. Once they were arrested at a Piggly Wiggly for using black magic markers to blank out the word devil on products and signs all over the store. They had to get out of one town fast when his mother climbed the church steeple to rid it of a cell phone tower. In another town they got into trouble with a motorcycle gang for hammering off the Live free or Die slogan on their motorcycles.

Billy is the son of a Southern preacher whose car plunged off the road into the Arkansas River when he was a baby. Billy has no memory of his dad and any photos his mother had were lost in a trailer fire before he was old enough to remember them.

Their mail follows them and in the latest batch, Billy gets the surprise of his life. His supposedly dead father has sent him a DVD hidden inside a bible. Billy watches it and discovers his dad was on his deathbed when he made it. This time he really did die. Billy's been left an inheritance, but to keep his mother from intercepting and destroying it, his dad leaves Billy clues and he must travel the country on a geocaching treasure hunt to find it.

This coming of age story is funny and sad, told by a hero who has been loved and betrayed by his mother and by the father who didn't find him.

My original review is posted on Bookloons.com

[Katie Cooper · Rating 5 out of 5]

At the beginning, I had no idea where this book was going. About halfway through, I still had no idea where this book was going, but I was enjoying the ride. When they got to Burning Man, I really had no idea where this book was going, but it was entertaining. There's a LOT of stuff going on in this book. If you liked Huck Finn, you'll love all the references to it since this is essentially a retelling of the story. If you don't mind a little God-musing and some gay explanations that may or may not sit well with you, read this book. It's kind of like Libba Bray's Going Bovine with Jesus, Huck Finn, the desert, unmovie-makers with anti-action stars and a closeted gay professional baseball player, but no mad cow disease or talking gnomes. The only thing that kind of bothered me was the odd slang: "fred", "gorped", "z-bag"... I could figure out what they meant but still, I've never heard of any of those. There's a lot of Bible discussion, but in a really interesting way and not anything like I've ever heard the Bible discussed before. I really really liked Ruah's interpretation of God changing His mind when it came to destroying the Ninevites. That really made some things clear to me.

[Elizabeth Majerus · Rating 3 out of 5]

There's a lot to like about this book. The plot was interesting, I found the character Ruah Branch quite likeable, and I appreciated the way Meehl used the main character Billy's bible-based homophobia as an implicit critique of homophobia (and in doing so mirrored the ways that Mark Twain uses Huck Finn's crises of conscience regarding helping an escaping slave to illustrate the inhumanity of slavery.) I also appreciated the way the novel challenges mainstream Christian ideas without devaluing Christian faith per se. (Ruah is a great example of a critically thinking, ever-evolving Christian.) But I found the voice of teenage first-person narrator Billy a bit hard to believe at times. Meehl tries too hard to give him a quirky voice, and uses way too much goofy slang - it seems forced. Meehl also sets himself up with a tough task in writing a novel that parallels Huck Finn in so many ways. His book isn't nearly as clever or funny as Twain's, not surprisingly. Still a good read, and a fun companion piece to Huck Finn.

[Andre]

You dont know about know me is a realistic fiction by an author name Brian Meehl. The realistic book is about a boy named Billy Allbright and a traveling life with his mom around America. Billy mom is a religious person and think they are the reason for their travling life. But then Bill mom was keeping a scret from him about his dad. So he then goes to bible camp and gets in a treasure hunt in geocaching and meet certain people.

Things that I liked about the book is that you maybe surprised of what certain characters would do. In the story Bill Allbright becomes a dynamic character. In the beginning of the story his use god a lot and obey what his mom says.In the middle he wants to do different things. Things that I disliked about the book is that in the beginning of the book its easy to read towards the end its a little confusing.

I think the book is a good book. I would recommend this book to teenagers who family or gaurdians that are religious but is different from them. Also to teenagers who dont get to choose their own path and have to take what life gives him.

[Sue · Rating 3 out of 5]

Billy Albright is 16 years old and is on his 16th move. He and his mother are the self proclaimed Jesus throated Whac-A-Moles. They move a lot because they let folks know when they are not doing the right thing – going against what Jesus would want them to do. This doesn’t go over well in the small towns they have been living in, so they move to another small town and start again. Billy thinks his dad is dead. When Billy finds out his father isn’t dead, Billy starts on a road trip to learn more about his father. Along the way he meets many different people, reads The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and learns about his father and about himself.

This is a standard road trip book, but for Christian teens. Billy thinks carefully about his faith, and it changes a little, but he doesn’t renounce it. This book may appeal more to Christian teens than to other teens, but Billy is a believable teenager from a very sheltered and very specific background.

[Claire]

The story of young Billy- part of the dynamic duo of himself and his uber fundamentalist mother who comprise the Jesus Brigade. Mom says Dad is dead.
As one person said this is a hard sell to the religious and too religious for the non religious.
That said
Billy is ready to bust out of the restrictive life his mother has laid out. It has been the two of them against the world- he has been home schooled all along- they bounce from city to city; no friends and too religious for most churches...
Now Billy wants to skip Bible camp and go the the local high school. On the eve of leaving for camp Billy gets a message from his dad.
This kicks off a quest as Billy jumps ship on the way to camp and follows clues laid out by his dad. Along the way he is required to confront his assumptions and grow into a real boy.

[Alma · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sixteen-year-old Billy had been steeped in all things Christian and Bible based by his mom since he was born. They believed their job was to remove anything they thought was non-Christian, from the word “Devil” on foods to Tickle Me Elmo’s hair. As a result of their actions, they lived in numerous states fleeing from the law.

Billy had his own set of Huck Finn-type adventures across the country as he geo-caches clues from the dead father he never met to find a rare book written as a sequel to Huckleberry Finn. Along the way he met Huah Branch, a gay baseball player who also doubled as Huck’s friend Jim, struggling with truths of his own. Through their time together Billy learned he could still be a Christian, but one with tolerance and the ability to put himself into other’s shoes without belittling them for what they believe.

[Christian · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book reminded me that it takes me a bit to get into Meehl's style, but once I'm there, I really enjoy it. His writing is generally solid, and his characters are always interesting. Of course, with this book, it helps that The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is the inspiration.

What most impressed me was the apparent ease that Meehl converted the 19th-century issue of race and personhood to the contemporary issue of homosexuality and personhood. In the process, he even got me to feel some sympathy for a homeschooled fundamentalist. From a teaching perspective, I imagine there is a lot in here that will help students approach and relate to Huck.

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although initially not obviously faithful to its source, Brian Meehl’s You Don’t Know About Me offers a hilarious and moving tale that draws its inspiration from Huckleberry Finn and the notes Twain left regarding his intentions for the unwritten sequel. The journey takes place in a camper rather than on a raft, and features a born-again hero named Billy Albright who geocaches his way across the American West – stopping, among other places, at Burning Man along the way - in search of his long-lost father’s legacy and of himself. The set-up sounds less than promising, but the author executes it brilliantly, with characters who thoughtfully address issues of faith and prejudice in the kind of moral gray areas in which Twain’s original specialized.

[Bmankiewicz · Rating 2 out of 5]

Another book using a classic as a crutch to appear literary? As Billy heads out to find his father and some supposed treasure, he encounters various people and adventures. The problem is the characters sound like mouthpieces for "interesting" ideas the author wants you to think about, rather than real people. The book reads like a list of reasons why you should challenge the religious beliefs you grew up with, including attitudes towards homosexuality. Some of the adventurous parts are good, but maybe the reader would be better served by rereading Huck Finn, who is so heavily referred to in this teen novel.

Maybe I am just critical because I just finished The Pull of Gravity, which is another road trip teen novel relying on Of Mice and Men!

[Jacqueline · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wouldn't term this book a re-imagining of Huck Finn as the book jacket does, but a companion to it instead. Billy Albright is extremely unlikable for most of the book, the "find my real father plot line pushes right to the edge of belief and the "parent suddenly has a change of heart" ending feels tacked on and rushed.

However, the humor in the book is sharp with plenty of laugh out loud moments that it makes the book worth a read and the runway baseball player with a secret is interesting and handled with tact and understanding. Teens will enjoy this book for the road trip aspect and Twain fans may like it as well for the nods to Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer.

[Jeffrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would say it is more like 4.75 stars.

When I first started reading, I really had no idea where the book was going. Was it written by a right wing conservative, and there would be no redeeming qualities to it, or would it take another direction and be about a boy changing his view of the world. Thankfully, it was the latter. If it hadn't been, I wouldn't have given it 4 stars, that is for sure.

I actually really enjoyed the meshing of the bible and Huck Finn into this book. Everyone talks about how it is a companion to Huck Finn, but you could also say it is a companion to the Bible in a way.

[Theresa Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

My only qualm with this book was that there was a little too much slang that I think the author just made up.
But I loved that there wasn't just one arc to this story- not just one climax to reach- it continued on with lots of parts and he didn't just shove through to get to the end. And it made me want to read Huck Finn, because I bet this story would have been even better if I knew Huck Finn's whole storyline.
Plus, I kind of wish I could have gone to the festival just to meet Spring and her glowing-ness.
I'm not focused enough to write how much fun this book was at times.

[Rachel · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wish I could rate this as an "I liked it", because I really did, but like what many people say about Huckleberry Finn, this also had a "sellout" ending. I was pretty disappointed that Billy, who had grown up as a hard-core devil fighting Christian all of a sudden decided in his last dream that everything that happened was because of him and had no relation to God. This just seemed really unrealistic to me, that a boy who had been Christian all his life had broken one of the fundamental ideas of Christianity. That kind of threw me off an otherwise pretty good book.

[Anne · Rating 1 out of 5]

Billy is a self-proclaimed ninja for Jesus. He lives with his mom, thinking that his dad is dead – until he gets a package (a Bible and a DVD) in the mail telling him differently. Billy sets off on a road trip following the instructions in the package.
Kids who are religious will not read this because they will find it blasphemous. Kids who are not religious will not read this because it shoves religion down one's throat. A really hard sell; I could not finish it myself.

[Jeanette Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this book quite a bit. The author took us on a zigzag journey. It encompasses a wide range of emotions. Billy travels 1000's of miles geo-cashing clues left to him from his deceased father whom he never had an opportunity to meet. Throw in a bible thumping rebel mother, a gay (in the closet) famous baseball player, a couple making an un-action movie and other random events and you have this funny and introspective coming of age story.

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I started reading this I was expecting a cheesy story about a boy on a raft just like Huck Finn. I was happily surprised to find it to be a great book involving a plot actually talking about Huck Finn, and paralleling it as well. It's also quite funny. Overall I thought this was a worthwhile read :)

[Cambria Erin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I LOVED this book. I am not entirely sure why I loved it so much (hence the 4 stars), but there is such a great sense of nostalgia whenever I think of it. I have never experienced such comfort when I reread/think of a text and while I cannot put my finger on it, I hope to forever cherish it. There is truly something for everybody in this book.

[Kristin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. I wasn't so sure about it because I am not a big fan of the fundamentalists but I loved the character addition of Ruah on the journey. I particularly liked the conversation held on page 210 and 211. It was really interesting!!!

[Amreena S · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was so slow in the middle. I felt like it easily could have been shorter. I was literally forcing myself to continue reading it, because I hate leaving a book. Some people might enjoy this type of writing, but it drives me crazy.

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

Weird but interesting. A weird twist on a story that made me so uncomfortable that I literally couldn't put down. Decent book. Billy's story is one that provides some answers to a lot of common Christian teen questions.

[BCPL Youth Services Librarian]

Click to see book in BCPL's online catalog

[Lara · Rating 4 out of 5]

It started slowly, but things picked up pretty quickly. I liked the parallel with Huck Finn. It has almost inspired me to go back and read Huck Finn again! I recommend it for HS students.

[Dana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this very thought-provoking book!

[Eva · Rating 1 out of 5]

weird.

[Jodi · Rating 1 out of 5]

Poor fact checking. For example Mormon temples do not have crosses on them. Other than that it was just a strange ride with ideas about how the Bible is interpreted differently. I didn't like it.

[Megan (The Book Babe) · Rating 3 out of 5]

please read my review at thebookbabesreads.blogspot.com

[єɱɱą · Rating 2 out of 5]

a little too religious, and kind of boring, but it was okay :) a fun plot, and i did like some of the characters.