Saturday, May 21, 2005

Godless by Pete Hautman

Jason is tired of his parent's religion. One day he decides that just because people believe in a superior being does not mean that it can't be a material thing. With this belief Jason goes on to start his own religion, worshipping their city's water tower. The religion, which starts out as a fun, rebellious thing for Jason and his friend Shin, soon turns serious. As more of their friends join the religion, things get more and more intense, until they end up in a life or death situation, which Jason cannot control.

An interesting, relatively short read, although "Godless" was a bit peculiar. This unquestionably started as a very appealing book because of the title and subject. However, as it progressed it got stranger and stranger, until I found my self thinking it was more of a fantasy book than a coming of age book. Despite this, I thought the characters were well developed in the beginning of the book. It was only when the book got to the climax and the characters acted in very unlikely ways, that I lost interest in the story.

Submitted by a Flamingnet student reviewer