This book follows Jason Bock’s process of finding his faith. His parents are Catholic, but he is having a hard time being part of it. So, after getting punched and seeing the local water tower from a new look, he decides to start his own religion: Church of the Ten-legged God or Chutengodiansim. He is joined by his best friend Shin, ordinary kid Dan Grant, the very good looking Magda Price, and the kid who punched Jason, Henry Stagg. Chutengodiansim starts out as a fun adventure, but things begin to turn south with multiple hospital visits as well as a visit to the town jail. This causes Jason to rethink things within this religion as well as his own beliefs and stance on religion itself.

Okay, okay so I heard mixed reviews on this book when I first read this. I had a few friends that read it in high school that absolutely hated it while others raved about it, so I was a bit apprehensive. BUT WOW! I really, really, really enjoyed this book. I thought the story was fascinating with entertaining characters that made me laugh so much. But I also really liked how this book encouraged me to think about religion for myself. For a young adult book, I think this is an incredible thing. I completely recommend this book to anyone! I can’t stress enough how much I loved this book.

Jason Bock is a boy who finds himself disbelieving in the religion of his community. To make an ironic point, Jason creates a religion where they worship the local water tower. He begins to gain a following and even his best friend becomes converted to the Ten Legged One. As the story moves on, Jason, who never once believed in his own creation, watches as his creation begins to schism and divide the people, even to the point of 'war'. Shin, his devout friend and the Keeper of Religious text, slowly goes insane throughout the story and becomes obsessed with the idea of being the most devout out of all the followers of the Ten Legged One, to the point that he risks his life to worship the tower adn winds up in the psych ward at the hospital. This story delves into the idea of Religion in our society, and how it divides and hurts people when used wrong and taken too seriously. it also discusses the ideas of Evil and Good, which are displayed through the characters in Godless.

It was an intense read but I enjoyed it overall! It really helped me understand how sometimes within our little societies and groups we create, there are problems and that nothing man made is perfect. I liked how Hautman shows the other side of religious control, and how it reflected the history of religious domination in the past. I would recommend this book to young adults because it can definitely help people understand that having something to believe really isn't necessary if you don't want it and that it may do you more harm than help you become a better person; which is the point behind religion.

content: intense action, language, obsessive and insane behaviors

I read this book in high school at the beginning of my deconstruction journey. Now 10 years later, I still think about it from time to time. I rate it 4 stars because I enjoyed it at the time, and definitely found it thought provoking.

Enjoyable read on what would happen if people worshiped something that faces ridicule - it made me think about bigger things.

It can be hard to find young adult realistic fiction that isn't about Issues. While I totally understand the import of books on serious topics, sometimes teens are interested in regular kids with regular problems. This book is relatively straightforward: there's nothing supernatural, probably nothing that could trigger something overcoming trauma (except for a short aside about how one character's dead father was physically abusive), and just deals with a regular guy navigating his social circle and, oh yeah, his struggles with faith. I particularly enjoyed the way that aspect of the book worked, because it seemed like a non-traditional approach to growing up in a religious household but believing.

The reason that I read this book is just for more books to read for class and the plot of the story looked somewhat interesting. I normally don't read books such as this one and I wanted to broaden my view of books. The title was also pretty so it made it seem like it would be interesting but when I read this book I did not like it. After reading this book I just felt weird because of the idea that were going through these kids mind as they thought that they should worship a water tower. It made sense as to why they were doing that, reading why but I just didn't like it. I would not recommend this book to anyone.
I personally would not teach this in a classroom setting because I thought that the book was just weird and it made me uncomfortable. There are some things that I thought were interesting points that I enjoyed and would talk about in a classroom setting. An example of something that I enjoyed and would teach is that if you have something that you believe in then you should stand for it no matter what. Even though the things that these kids were standing for were weird, standing up for yourself and not being moved by others is a good trait to have.
-talking about the female body
-some language
-violence

The problem with me reading books that I will probably relate to is that I will probably get chided by people because they, too, like me, judge books by their covers. The impression I got from this cover? "Some kid is an atheist and decides to start worshipping watertowers.

And it's amazing that I was right because you din't even have to be psychic.

So as wacky as this book's plot sounded, and despite the fact that my semireligious parents were probably going to scold their nonbeliever daughter for reading about the holiness of watertowers, I checked this book out from the library because deep down, I AM a badass.

(Ooo, she's SO rebellious.)

So upon reading the first chapter, I fell in love with the humor of the story. Who knew an atheist could be so lighthearted and funny? Ah, stereotypes. The plot was quick and moved right along, in a kind of bouncy fashion that requires smirks and eyebrow-raises from the reader. I couldn't believe this kid would actually go as far as creating his own REAL (kinda) religion, let alone base it on watertowers.

I must say, though: The religion, Chutengodianism, seemed reasonable. If you think about it, water actually IS more "holy" or whatever than any religious figure (G-d). It was a little silly, maybe even farfetched, but it was alright because, gee, it's fiction and it's awesome. It makes sense and Bock is an extremely likable character!!

And that's why this book is so great. It was terrific.

I really loved this book. I am in no way a fast reader, but I got through this in a week. An honest achievement for me. This book is so lighthearted and fun, and it was a wonderful escape for my brain. The character development is thorough and fascinating. I would recommend this book to anyone of practically any age, (besides the occasional swear word, of course).

This was a very interesting book, about a teenager who creates a new "religion" worshipping the local water tower... it explores a lot of questions about faith and comparative religion in an irreverent but intriguing way. I'm thinking of suggesting it to my son's book club (he's entering 9th grade).

Pete Hautman’s got a bunch of books, YA and otherwise. The first one I read was n  n    Blank Confessionn  n, a crime thriller with a light comic touch - it had that feel of a paperback you take to the beach and read all in one sitting. I enjoyed it. I wanted to read more Pete Hautman. My second title was n  Godlessn, which received a National Book Award and was billed as having a more heavy comic touch.

Premise of n  Godlessn is this - a bored agnostic kid in a small Midwest town makes up his own religion (Chutengodianism), where you worship the town’s water tower (the Ten-Legged One). He makes it all up as a joke, and his goober best friend Shin starts writing a knockoff satire Bible with verses about water being the source of life, et al. Then they pick up a posse, at least one member of which is dead serious about worshiping the water tower. Then they climb the tower, go swimming in the tank and piss off the entire town. Then there’s in-fighting, and their “faith” splits in two factions. Then it’s pretty much over.

n  Godlessn had a lot of promise - at least, it did when I’d just heard about the premise but before I’d actually cracked open the book. The satire is too softball and far-fetched. The comedy, most of it, is too cheap and obvious to score major laughs. The plot is practically nonexistent. The characters, while crafted as fairly well-rounded weirdos, have simple motivations and conflicts. But I gotta say, for the rest of my life, when I see a water tower, I’ll think of n  Godlessn.

Overall I think that the book was not very exciting. I felt no real connection with the characters throughout the book because they all stayed very flat from the beginning to end. I felt like there was no real character development for any of them which made it very difficult to stay invested in the reading. I liked the overall premise of the book and the different themes of agnostic vs atheist and the relationship of organized religion and families. However I was disappointed because I felt like the portrayal of these themes fell short of my expectations due to the plot being very basic. It is very hard to explain or even summarize this book because the plot is all over the place. There is a lot of very weird events that take place in this book, but they don't feel like they belong or have a purpose, it almost like they were just put in there to add to the "weird" factor of this book. Despite the themes being relatively mature in this book, the writing is very simple which I think makes it boring to read for anyone in high school or older. Overall I do not think I would recommend this book to others unless you are looking for something that is really out there, but simple at the same time.

This book reminded me a lot of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster in the sheer audacity of its premise, which is something I appreciated. It also reminds me a lot of the Simpson's episode where Homer creates his own religion, if he had roped others into it rather than using it as an excuse to get out of church. The main character is a delightful little provocateur, and his group of fellow wannabe apostles make for an entertaining read.

The struggle between the traditional religious parents and their more liberally-minded child is a bit of a cliche at this point, but the story handles that well regardless. Jason's friend Grant is also a good straight man to the nonsense going on in the story and the colorful cast of characters around him.

Though the protagonist's father is very old fashioned, you never get the impression that he's malicious or wants anything less than the best for his child. He ultimately accepts his son and his strange new religion, because ultimately his child is his child and he loves him regardless. This is the sort of book parents and youth can both relate to, and my only complaint is that some of the side characters feel one note which can make the story fall flat.

This book gets four stars for uniqueness alone.