Heck: Where the Bad Kids Go (The Nine Circles of Heck #1)

Ho-ly HECK this book is good! Never before did I think I would want to spend time in a world that’s so close to H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks, but that was before I read Dale E. Basye’s “Heck: Where the Bad Kids Go.”

“Heck” follows siblings Milton and Marlo Fauster, who, after a poorly planned oar robbery scheme in the local mall, find themselves dead and covered in burnt marshmallow in the afterlife. Unfortunately for the kids, they aren’t climbing the stairway to heaven. Instead, they’re in Heck, the precursor to you-know-where, where all the souls of misbehaved children go until they turn eighteen, upon which it is decided if they really should go to heaven after all. Milton is convinced there has been a mix-up, because he’s one of the purest souls there is, and tries harder than heck to get out of there.

Basye is so stinking clever it hurts. There are places in Heck like the Disorientation Center, which is watched over by Hall Demonitors, who are bossed around by Principle Bea “Elsa” Bubb, who wants nothing more than to please the Powers That Be Evil. It seems with almost every other sentence Basye includes some play-on words that describe the dastardly business of Heck. What’s fantastic about all of Basye’s puns is that they never get old. Each one is very well done, and rather than get annoying, these just further build on the humor and evilness that is Heck, and make the place where bad kids go a very developed and thought out world.

Basye also knows how to include some disgusting descriptors. I found myself more than a few times gagging from a description of a demon, from the tunnels Milton and Marlo find themselves slogging through (more often than not filled with human waste), and from the “food” Bubb and her minions provide for the children of Heck. Fortunately, these moments of repulsion are quickly followed by Basye’s punny humor, so the mood, rather than your stomach, is lightened, and you lose yourself in laughter rather than losing your lunch.

For parents who may be worried this has some religious undertone you may not be comfortable with your children reading, have no fear! While this is set in an underworld found in many religions, Basye has no religious agenda behind this book. Instead, he delivers a message that the good can be found in all of us, even in a place as evil as Heck.