Good Idea Gone Bad

by Lesley Choyce

Mick and his friends hang out in front of the downtown library--hassling passerby, making noise, spitting on anything in sight. If the night's slow they might even do a little "street cleaning," bashing some geek who has the bad luck to come anywhere near them.
Unlike his friends, though, Mick would rather be playing drums in his metal band, but they broke up in a vicious scrap that left everyone in stitches. So when he meets Dariana, a keyboard player, he's psyched to get together. But for Dariana, Mick's bashing is not at all cool. When Mick and Dariana's band starts taking off, he knows he's got to change. But his old friends have other ideas, and they decide to "persuade" Mick to see things their way.
Set against the tough background of inner-city Halifax and its music scene, Good Idea Gone Bad is the story of one young man growing up in dangerous circumstances.

151 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1993

About the author

Lesley Choyce is a novelist and poet living at Lawrencetown Beach, Nova Scotia. He is the author of more than 80 books for adults, teens and children. He teaches in the English Department and Transition Year Program at Dalhousie University. He is a year-round surfer and founding member of the 1990s spoken word rock band, The SurfPoets. Choyce also runs Pottersfield Press, a small literary publishing house and hosted the national TV show, Off The Page, for many years. His books have been translated into Spanish, French, German and Danish and he has been awarded the Dartmouth Book Award and the Ann Connor Brimer Award.

Lesley Choyce was born in New Jersey in 1951 and moved to Canada in 1978 and became a citizen.

His YA novels concern things like skateboarding, surfing, racism, environmental issues, organ transplants, and rock bands.

Reviews

[Paul Vender · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cameron who is in a group of three other boys are always up to no good. From fighting and stealing Cameron decides he wants better for his him but, Cameron is a boy with problems. His parents are splitting up. His dad has no job. His mom is moving in with her mean boyfriend nothing is going right it seems. But then Cameron moves in with best friend as she lives in a tent with a dog to try and make things better. One thing I did not really like was the author would move from one problem to the next very quickly which made the book kind of confusing at times. The development of characters was kind of bad because there was not much time for them build any big connect with you and the story because it seemed too fast. This was overall a pretty good read because it was on the shorter end but the author kept it interesting for how short it was. Because it was shorter things seemed right to the point but it wasn’t worse thing. You would enjoy this book if you like dramatic teenage stories. There are definitely some things this book does well. There are many details in the book and there is good imagery. I would give this book a 3 star out 5 for what it was. The one thing the author could do better on is building the story-line a little better or tweaking a few things her and there.

[Lindsey · Rating 2 out of 5]

So, I picked this up on a whim at my school's library because it looked like a troubled teen story. I read it and really didn't enjoy it very much. First of all, the Main character, Cody, is just terrible and has no redeeming qualities. He was just a super shallow, arrogant, and violent douche. I was cool with him finding a hobby besides beating up people at the graveyard, such as playing in a band, but he mostly seemed to want to join the band because he liked a girl in that band. I thought He acted condescendingly around her because she was a woman he should have no chance with. He came off dismissive of the other members until the end. The story is also predictable because I know that he will see the error of his ways at the end and fight against his past friends. But overall, this novel was not a fun time, and I don't think the ending justifies Cody's bullcrap. I am giving this a 1.5 out of 5 stars because it just pissed me off so much.

[Kenneth Zhu · Rating 4 out of 5]

1. I decided to read this book because when I read the blurb at the back of the book I felt very interesting and I felt this book is a cool one with cool characters in it. I felt like I really want to read this book because I want to enjoy this book as part of my wide reading.
2. This will fit in the category of a book with a male protagonist because the main character of the story is Mike. He is the coolest student who want to be part of the rock band.
3. I like this book because Mike is the coolest guy in the story. He is the drummer and he really want his band to do things right, not wrong, he wants to make money by selling out the copies of their song and making a contract with the company. From this book, I hate bullying because it is violence to everyone and it will make them upset, sad emotional face. As it is in the story, there is a boy being bullied by Mike's big bullied guys. The boy was crying and so upset that the policeman saw it and came over to see what it is happening. As the result, the policeman took these guys away. The key message from this is to prevent from being trouble. If you get into trouble, you need a serious consequences.
4. The challenge for Mike is stand up for himself to his big bully guys who wants to bully him. One night, Steven (who is Mike's bully guy) says some bad language to him about his band. He said "I heard you song is bad because it is not a cool…..” That makes him so upset that he wants to punch this guy and walk away from him. He has to think about creating his song with his team (Alex and Dariana). He wants to make sure the song is cool enough to be sold in the shop all around his township. Mike is clever, bravery boy.
5. In the story, there has been a race each other to see which song is the best and how many people wanting to buy their songs at the supermarket or at the music shop. At the end, both teams agree each other that racing against to get see which song is the best is not important because it worth nothing. They will need to spend a lot of money making DVD available to the public, they will be spending a lot of money with their contractor making business running.
6. My Favourite quotes of this book is "My father catches you drinking his beer and you'll find a set of tire treads on your face"-Dariana and “Oh no, here we go again. Democracy in action”- Mike. I like these two quotes because they are funny, also there is a problem where things are going wrong. The first quotes shows us how serious Dariana’s dad is if you took his beer from the fridge and drink it. He will be very furious and he will be on fire! The 2nd quote tells us if there is a problem, everyone must help him to solve the problem, if they leave the problem unsolved then it will be more problem in the future. It is important to solve it and learn from mistakes.