On the surface, this is one weird book: a very devout Protestant teen and her way-too-religious father live with her open-minded Catholic grandmother. After Patty is beaten up for looking at the wrong boy, she is befriended by Miggy, who is the total opposite of everything Patty has ever been taught is right. But Patty is determined to "save" Miggy from herself and the life she's chosen. Throw in a few more colorful characters and you've got a pretty good book.

Purfield gives us a peek inside Patty's church by taking us there for a Sunday-morning service. I grew up in a charismatic church, so reading the description of Patty's fellow worshipers felt like old-home week to me. To some, it may seem over the top. I'm honestly not sure if the author was going for two extremes in his heroines or if he was trying to show that Patty was too into her "Jesus thing". I think it was the former, because I didn't really feel as if Patty was shown in a bad light. Again, my own background may be coloring my opinion there.

This book just screams, "Love, don't judge!" But not in a way that will make you turn and run away. Throughout the story, Patty learns that you have to look into someone's heart to truly know who they are and that love and friendship can come from unexpected places.

This is a fairly quick read because of the way it's written. It is a story about a group of teens in an inner-city school, so there is a lot of interesting vocabulary, but the story is well-written, and the book has a great message. Read this one, then pass it on to your teen.

About the book
Title: jesus freakz buddha punx
Author: M.E. Purfield
Publisher: Createspace
Release date: May 9, 2011
Pages: 238
Where I got the book: I won this book on Goodreads ( )