Godless

Agnostic-going-on-atheist Jason's mother is a hypochondriac, his father is religious, and best friend Shin is a snail-collecting freak. Having no life and being bored in his parent-mandated Catholic teen group, Jason creates Chutengodianism: the Church of the Ten-legged God, worshipers of the town water tower. Jason is Founder and Head Kahuna of his joke religion, Shin is First Keeper of the Sacred Text, and friends Dan and Magda are recruited as disciples. It was just perfect: his friends were happy in it, he had Magda all to himself, and he was the leader of everything. However, when the small but thuggish Henry joins the group, Shin sulks, and Henry leads a dangerous midnight swim in the water tower that results in injury, police discovery, and punishment. Now Jason is grounded for life, Dan and Magda won't speak to him, and Henry and his bullying cohorts have twisted Chutengodianism and made it ****. Also, Shin seems to go crazy as if Jason has shown him the light to all the answers in the world and becomes a Chutengodian fanatic. This is a story of a young man struggling to give a meaning to what he believes in and why.

I read this book back in 7th grade. My library teacher had a project for us to do; it was "go to the library and pick out a book. You got 2 minutes" as she was too busy with her lousy phone and not us having enough time to find finding quality books for us to read. I only had 10 seconds and I still could not find a book. Last chance, I saw a paperback book with a picture of a watertower. I been into watertowers when I was 6 for some reason. I just hoped that it was not some cheesey dumb teenage vampire book. As I read it, I found it funny and very entertaining. It was a very awesome adventure featuring some kid's homemade religion involving a watertower. It took me a month to read. In the end, I finished it during my waiting time in biology. I had to do a project of writing about the things that happened in the book. I had to return it shortly after. I came back to this book on google to try and read the sample. Memories. I might buy it personally for myself.

Godless “Getting punched hard in the face is a singular experience. I highly recommended it to anyone who is a little too cocky, obnoxious, or insensitive. I also recommended it to people who think there’re smart enough to avoid getting punched in the face by the likes of Henry Stagg.” starts off the riveting and exiting National Book Award winner Godless by Pete Hautman. This book tells the story of an overweight, ill-mannered and smart 16-year-old Jason Bock who is really frustrated with his Catholic faith. So the only answer to this problem is to start his own religion. Getting the idea when getting punched in the face by Henry Stagg. On the floor he sees the water tower and instantly getting the idea that since “water is life” why couldn’t the water tower be God. As a result he creates his own religion. Chutengodianism he calls it, the faith of the Ten-Legged-God. Grouping an unlikely team of followers, his snail collecting best friend, Sin, his normal friend, Dan, his love, Megda Price and the very impulsive Henry Stagg. Using these characters Hautman found a way to criticize Christianity and what it really means to be faithful. Not only is this book thought provoking it is really humors and probably one of the most funniest book that I have read. Hautman found a way to add jokes and things that made you laugh through the whole book so that you are not just intrigued but also entertained. I found his ability to do that amazing. Even with the unexpected humor Hautman had the unanticipated ability to add a very important message. I didn’t notice it at first when I first started reading the book but when Jason said “So I’ve been thinking about Shin, remembering what he said to me last time I saw him- that you can’t really understand something until you believe in it” I immediately new what he meant. I didn’t realize it before and it took me a little while to make sense of it. But when I did it was kind of like a small epiphany of sorts. I really enjoyed it. In the end I think this was a thought-provoking book with a religious twist that teaches an important lesson. It had the great ability to make you emphasize and think…what is religion?