Well-written fast moving story that offers plenty to ponder if you want to: role of religion, religious practice, friendship, leadership, coming of age, risk-taking. Liked it!!

Ik vind het idee heel interessant, en het is mooi uitgewerkt. Geen vijf sterren, omdat de enige vrouw die enigszins een rol in het verhaal heeft, Magda, eigenlijk louter als object van begeerte dient. Ik snap dat het over puberjongens gaat die vooral erg in hun eigen wereld zitten, maar het valt wel op. Verder is het beslist een goed boek, dat lekker doorleest.

It actually surprised me. It can be read fast and it's easy to follow. it's not my favorite book but I look forward on reading more material from the author. to me it felt real.
"That sounded pretty good. Blasphemous, but good"
"I have a religion, but I have no faith. Maybe one day I'll find a deity I can believe in. Until then, my god is made of steel and rust"

Wow, I read this book at the recommendation of my 13-year-old grandson, Theo. I was hesitant at first, but then really got into it and read it all this weekend. It is VERY thought provoking. These things tend to strengthen MY faith, but I can see where it might cause some people to stumble. But it is good to question our faith and then find our own answers. Worshipping a Water Tower allows the importance of WATER to become so real to us. Here is what I learned in the past about water: All of life needs water. All of life needs God. The liquid form of H2O is in fact God the Father and the solid form of water, ICE, is Jesus The Son and the Water Vapor in the form of steam is The Holy Spirit and the power of that spirit is working in the world today. I was surpirsed in the story about the direct criticism of the Roman Catholic Church.

I chose this book because of the discussion we had in class about religious work. I had heard quite a bit about this book, so I decided to give it a shot. Jason is a teenager who finds himself looking for a higher power that he feels is right. He's tired of his family's faith, so he creates his own. He decides the town's water tower will become his new idol (which feels kinda redneck-y to me, but okay) and recruits a group of followers. We can see how faith and power seem like easy concepts, but get very hard to tackle very quickly.

I enjoyed this book, but it wasn't my favorite. Taking on a heavy topic like religion and philosophy can be tough, especially for a teenager. The book seemed very Jim Jones-ish, but on a more PG-13 level. I appreciate how this could inspire teens to find themselves and their own truths, but it could be very controversial for some. Especially coming from a very religious family (that is a different faith than what I am now), some may feel threatened when their children try to find their own faith.

I feel like the author's point was along the lines of "all religion is made up and untrustworthy," but my takeaway was "man, teenage boys are stupid."

This book caught me by surprise. At first, I just thought it'd be a book about a person that hated God. It wasn't. Jason doesn’t necessarily hate God, he hates that people automatically submit to what they think god’s will is, and he doesn’t see people questioning if the material that teaches that blind obedience is what is needed are thinking. To test his thought, Jason creates his own God. It is the water tower in the neighborhood. Everyone worships the tower even though they don’t know it. Everyone needs water to live. He recruits his friend Shim, a nerdy kid that has many quarks, to follow him. He does and the religion begins.

But that is not the entertaining part. Jason and Shim need a way to climb the water tower. Henry comes along and shows Jason how to access the top. There are wires they can wedge their feet into and grip for hand holds. Though the climb is scary the view is worth it. And as Jason recruits more people to the congregation, more searching of the tower in investigated as the lock on the hatch is removed and everyone is baptized and swimming in the tank. Here’s where the fun begins.

Godless mixes adventure with religion. What kid hasn’t been inside church and been bored? What grown up hasn’t fallen asleep in the pew? None of the sleep you crave in church will happen while getting into the adventure of Jason’s life. Jason may not find God, but he does find experience, and no punishment for what his congregation did in the tank can take that memory away. Reading Godless is like watching teenagers explore the world they belong to. Just because you are a part of something doesn’t mean you have to believe it. Jason experiences this firsthand. A fun read.

Interesting book, but I don't think it does what the blurb says it does, or what the author seems to think it does. It plays out an interesting scenario of how a couple obnoxious, risk-taking teens could get obsessed with something and go a little too far, and it talks about religion to an extent. But it does little to study what it's like to believe in a religion or what it means to found a religion/political system like some reviewers claim. Because the concept (worshipping water towers) is too ludicrous to take seriously, and because the main character, while he makes interesting arguments for faith being arbitrary, is such a little jerk that you don't really care what he says.

This novel is a stroke of genius by Pete Hautman. Jason, a born and raised Catholic, is over his parent's religion. Sooner than later, his local water tower has its own religion run by the one and only: Jason. Jason pulls in a few followers to the new religion. Remember this is a metal water tower. One night, after climbing the tower, a member of the congregation gets hurt. Because of this, rules are created and the church gets a little more... intense? Jason looks internally at what he has created. Drama occurs and members continue to get increasingly intense. Did Jason create a monster out of water...? Is this Lord of the Flies? The reason I liked this novel so much is that it questions so many things. And it helps young readers question things as well. It doesn't have to be religion, but what morals they were raised in. Does it sit right for them? If they were to sway in a separate direction, would it make sense? For Jason, these are all questions that he had to answer. Things went terribly wrong and he had to learn to adjust. But he learned so much about what he believed because of this.

I would give this book a 3.5/5*, or possibly even a 4*. This book was 196 pages long and the story was well written.

This is a book about a teenager named Jack, who lives with a mother who is determined to prove that her son is sick. With what, who knows...every time he coughs, sneezes, sleeps too long or drinks too much she is sure that there is something wrong with him and so she has him at the doctor all the time getting tests done. And then there is his father who is a lawyer but also who is very religious. He has his family attend church every Sunday and Jack has to attend TPO classes, which is similar to bible study classes, once a week. The problem with that is that Jack doesn't believe in God.

And that is what the story is about, without all the talk about God. Jack and his friend are hanging out by the town's water tower one day when Jack has an ephinany. Why not make the water tower a god?

So Jack starts asking his few friends if they want to join him in worshipping this water tower. What starts out as a joke of sorts develops into something more during only a few weeks time.Something that started off as something innocent and just for fun ended up becoming something a little more serious and ended up changing people's lives.

Jack had gotten 4 of this friends to join him and together they came up with a name for their "religion" and a set of commandments. Also, one of the kids started a "bible" of sorts.

Jack didn't think that anyone would take this whole water tower as being a "god" thing seriously and so he continued on with it. Before you knew it they were all climbing to the top of the water tower for a "midnight mass". All of them, except one. One who was afraid of heights.

While up on the top of the water tower they thought it would be fun to go SWIMMING inside the tower and so they cut off the lock and dove in. Into this tower of drinking water for the town! When they had enough they got out and started to get their stuff back on. But while one of them was trying to get his boots on he slipped and something terrible happened.

Something that almost ended up being fatal made the kids open their eyes and see what they were actually doing. I am sure the fact that they all got in trouble with the police and with their family also had something to do with it.

Jack got blamed for the whole thing even though the whole thing was not his fault, but his father said that his friends are always going to do what Jack says. OK, I understand about peer pressure, but there are some things you just have to take responisibilty for for yourself and I think that this was one of those things.

Just when we think that everything is over and they all had learned their lesson and came to their senses that a water tower simply cannot be a "god", the boy that didn't climb to the top of the water tower does something very shocking.

This book was a coming of age story and even though it is about discovering who God is or isn't, it isn't heavy at all on religion. Even people who don't believe or are unsure of what they believe can read this book without feeling like they are pressured into thinking one way or another.

I really liked how this story was written ( and even though I only read 1 John Green book-An Abundance of Katherines...this book reminded me of the writing style of Green) and the character development was well done.

If you haven't read a Pete Hautman book you should check out this one.

Godless tells the story of a young boy named Jason Bock. Growing up in a strict Catholic environment, Jason's questions about religion lead him to create his own called, "Chutengodianism" were he begins to worship the water tower. While Jason made the religion up as more of a jest, his new followers take it more seriously as they write the religions bible and create events for the religion that turn a harmless thing into something dangerous. There were some things about this novel that I thought were a little off, but I think the overall idea of this story holds a lot of purpose and meaning. I think it was interesting how Jason was more questioning about the idea of religion while his best friend Shin instantly accepts the religion and becomes too obsessed. I personally think that this book deals with the idea of letting people have the freedom to think for themselves, and letting kids have the opportunity to question ideas and learn so they can be capable of having ideas for themselves and be able to act for themselves rather than conform. Conforming to something just because, can be dangerous. You need to have the freedom to think, without it, it can be crippling. As someone that substitutes schools, I know how much I appreciate it when kids have the guts to ask questions. I want them too, rather than have them all accept something without really understanding what it is that is being discussed. Everyone should have a say, we shouldn't be groomed to fill a mold or represent a specific opinion. I think Pete Hautman does a great job of illustrating that within this book. However, this complex theme is done in a really thoughtful way, making it an easy read for most middle- school youth.

What an absolute waste of time. This story is a journey to nowhere. The main character is a self-obsessed, self-important ass who sees everyone else in terms of what they can do for him. He has no respect for anyone else, their ideas, and zero remorse for anything he does wrong. I finished the book because I thought there would be some character development -- some kind of realization, growth, and change in the main character, because I couldn't believe that an author would build such a unlikable character with such simple and transparent ideas and not set him up to change, but he simply continued to be a one-dimensional narcissist.

The novel tries to explore religion, but the author seems afraid to explore anything important or profound, instead opting for the "whiny teenager doesn't like something so it must not be right" approach.