Godless begins with an intriguing premise. Jay, the 15-year-old protagonist, is unsatisfied by his parents' rigid Catholicism, so he decides to create his own, nonsensical religion with the town water tower as the central deity. Soon he has recruited an odd band of followers, including his nerdy best friend Shin, the town bully Henry, a preacher's kid named Dan, and a cute girl from his church group. For a week or two, the group has fun inventing commandments and rituals, but the story takes a more serious turn when they take a dangerous climb to the top of the water tower.

I wanted to like this book very, very badly but left it with only lukewarm feelings. Although the premise is fascinating, the author didn't really know what to do with it. The result is a slow-paced narrative whose characterization sometimes strains credibility. Jay, the narrator, felt dull, and his friend Dan was nothing more than a puppet to round out the plot. Both female characters were consigned to hand-wringing and emotional instability, a pet peeve of mine. More seriously, Shin seemed to have a serious mental health issue that the author declined to confront. By the end of the book, I found the story as hollow and unsatisfying as the narrator found his original faith. ( )

It was really stupid and crazy, i liked it but not as much as some books. I gave it a 1 1/2 because it wasn't put together well and it seemed like someone just voicing their opions about religion, and making it into a chaotic book. ( )

Reviewed by Me for TeensReadToo.com

There is a reason that GODLESS won the National Book Award for Young People's Literature, and I don't believe it's because author Pete Hautman wrote a book he intended to be satire, as other reviews have suggested. To me, GODLESS is the epitome of everything that is both bad and good about organized religion--it is, in effect, an entreaty to the leaders of religions around the world to look at how blind faith funds their coffers.

Yes, maybe I'm reading more into the book than the author intended. If so, I can only hope that he appreciates the fact that I've obviously thought about the words he wrote long after they were published, and that he'd be happy about that fact. Now, though, on to the story...

Fifteen-year old Jason Bock is an agnostic ("I'll believe in God when I see Him") bordering on being an atheist ("There is no God"). His mother is obsessed over his health, coming up weekly with a new ailment that he just has to be suffering from. His father, though, is more concerned with his son's soul. That's why Jason, regardless of his personal beliefs, finds himself attending weekly Sunday Mass at the Church of the Good Shepherd, and even occasionally joins in at Thursday night TPO (Teen Power Outreach) meetings. The fact that he's ordered to attend the meetings more frequently when he's in trouble doesn't escape his notice.

Until one day, agnostic slash atheist Jason wonders what would happen if he started his own religion. Along with his best friend, Shin, fellow TPO attendee Magda, preacher's son Dan, and town rebel Henry, Jason creates the Chutengodians, a religion who worships the Ten-Legged One. That the Ten-Legged One is the town's water tower doesn't seem to deter them.

I know what you're thinking--who in their right mind would worship a water tower, even if they are teenagers? The answer, of course, is pretty simple. Why do people worship the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost? Why are there Buddhists, Muslims, Scientologists, Mormons, Protestants, or Latter Day Saints? Why does anyone worship anything? They do it because someone came up with their own ideas, made up some rules, implemented some commandments, created posts of leadership, and recruited parishioners.

Jason does the same, with some of the same consequences other organized religions have faced over the centuries--infighting, backstabbing, persecution, and doubts. When one Chutengodian almost ends up dead in an accident, and another seems determined to take his own life, and the others doubt the wisdom of associating with the creator of their religion, things start to fall apart. Sounds to me a lot like what happens in most "normal" organized religions found throughout the world today.

GODLESS is, without a doubt, one of the most thought-provoking books I've ever read. I highly recommend it to anyone searching for their own truths, regarding not only religion but finding your sense of self. You won't be disappointed--I know I wasn't. ( )

Great read! The narrator has a strong voice, funny and realistically teen, self-aware and intelligent. I particularly like the way his voice lapses easily into fantasy versions of reality (my brain still does that). The plot was believable and authentic. I know quite a few people who invented their own religion during their teen years; it is such a great example of the endless process of building your identity that becomes so important during adolescence.

Which all sounds very heady, but this is also just really fun. You like the characters. They seem like people you know. There's just enough excitement to keep things interesting but grounded in reality. The only quibble I have with this one (and it probably isn't the author's doing) is that the back cover description makes it sound more like a fantasy novel than a coming-of-age story and I'm a big fan of truth in advertising. ( )

Interesting read about a teen boy who creates his own religion but it backfires. Slow at times but it really makes you think. ( )

3.09 ( )

Grade: 7th and Up

National Book Awards (WON) 2004
Minnesota Book Awards (WON) 2005

A weird book for me. The story is realistic, but it's slow-moving and unremarkable. ( )

Hautman's book is in the same tradition as Chris Cutcher, Robert Cormier, Laurie Halse Anderson, and E.L. Konigsburg (amongst others). While the superficial subject of the book is religion and the creation thereof, it's really all about growing up and learning to navigate the world without losing oneself. It does this through the plot of Jason Bock's experiment with religion creation and the effect it has on his friends.

One of the nice aspects of the novel is that although it raises doubts about the validity of organized religion - especially modern religions such as Scientology or Mormonism - it does not ultimately suggest that everyone should become atheist or agnostic. Rather, though the main character is an agnostic throughout, other characters are religious without condemnation.

Even though the novel doesn't condemn religiousity, it does ask the reader to think critically about faith and religion through the creation of Chutengodianism by the main characters. If Jason created this religion as a joke, knowing full well that the water tower is not actually a god, then who is to say that other religions weren't created the same way? But even while the novel asks this question, it shows how the water tower is a god of sorts (it provides all the water for the community, which allows them to live, for example) and students of mythology will recognize that this line of thought is how other gods have been created - think of Apsu and Tiamat, Gaea and Ouranos, or Ra and Nu.

The novel's religious theme asks the reader to recognize that religions are man-made, fallible things. Yet they are powerful, too, as Shin's obsession with Chutengodianism causes him to place himself in danger. Even so, it does not deny that many people derive comfort from their faiths, nor that there is a place for religion in societies, no matter how they came about. It is a mixed-bag sort of ending, providing support for both theism and atheism.

Probably the take-away message of the book is to not take everything at face value. Just as religions are exposed as having shady origins (compared to how they're touted by the faithful), Jason learns that people, too, are not always as they seem on the surface. Henry Stagg, for example, is a science-fiction fan and someone Jason discovers he could be great friends with, despite having previously thought Henry to be no more than an ignorant thug type.

I can't say that this is a book I would recommend to just any teenager, because I know that many would scoff at the title and the plot and not read closely enough to recognise the life lessons it has inside. But I think it's as good as any other for those people struggling with what it means to believe in the modern era, and could be a comfort for them. ( )

The imaginative concept of this book caught my eye and I have to say it fulfilled its promise. The characters rang true for the most part, with nobody really being either all good or all bad, including the protagonist. It got a little preachy at times, but I guess that's to be expected considering the subject matter. ( )

Young adult book. A boy is being force fed religion so he makes up a religion worshiping the town water tower, and various things happen; one kid gets caught up in it; there are odd friendships made & broken.

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Jason Bock goes on a spiritual journey, founding his own religion, based on having fun and worshipping local landmark, much to the horror of his family and the local youth group leader. He finds new avenues and new ways to look at the people around him. I found this fascinating as a commentary on the lack of logic in religion. Jason ultimately finds that he can not control everything and things spin out of control leaving him to face the consequences. ( )

This was a good, quick read, but it didn't really grab me in any special way. For a book called "Godless", I was expecting much more questioning of religion in general. There was some, but it didn't feel whole-hearted. It was an interesting premise with interesting characters, but I disagree with this review from Booklist, quoted on the back of the book: "Anyone who has questioned his or her religion, especially as a teenager, will respond to [the main character's] struggles with belief." I'm sure there are books out there where the main character has a more genuine, painful struggle. But if you haven't struggled with religion, I can see how you might think this book would be good for people who have. ( )

When sixteen-year-old Jason Bock and his friends create their own religion to worship the town's water tower, what started out as a joke begins to take on a power of its own

One of my favorites because it's about a small town just like my hometown of Blue Mound. Peer pressure gone wrong in this one.

When Jason decides to make a mockery of religion by starting his own faith that revolves around the worshiping of a water tower, his friends go along with the gag until "followers" begin to look to them for guidance and Jason's friends get power-hungry in their roles as founders of the new faith. ( )

Interesting story. The protaganist doesn't believe in anything, not even himself. My thoughts after reading this was that in order to believe in greater or higher power you also have to believe in yourself which then leads you to believe in others. Questioning faith is not a problem, I think it's necessary, but you have to have faith in something. He had no faith at all and apparently doesn't really want to, which is pretty sad. ( )

Jason Bock has an epiphany as he lays on the ground looking up at the water tower. He'd just been punched by Henry, but his thoughts are on a new religion. Why not worship the water tower? After all, water is life. And so begins Jason's spoof religion. Or is it a spoof? Not everyone who worships the Ten-Legged-One thinks so.

My Rating: Very Good

Favorite lines: "I once read a short story about some cannibals who didn't turn their victims into steaks and chops and roasts; they made them all into sausages. Because when you're eating a sausage you don't think so much about what you're eating. It's the same with communion wafers.
Hosts are little white disks that do not resemble any kind of real food. The closest thing I can think of would be a flattened, sugarless marshmallow. They have almost no taste, just a faint sourness, and they require no chewing. I think they're made out of some kind of digestible paper.
My point is, the miracle of Holy Communion is when the priest turns these little white disks into the flesh of Jesus Christ. They call it transubstantiation. So, if you buy that, then the host the priest places on your tongue is actually a sliver of Jesus meat. Buth they make the host as different from meat as they can, so that even though communion is a form of cannibalism, nobody gets grossed out. Like with the sausages." --Jason Bock ( )