Not a big fan of this book. It’s not bad, but I’ve just heard it all before. The tone is like a stereotypical teenager whining in his diary (as other reviewers have said). I kept waiting for him to get to the point. Chapter 13 about marriage had some good stuff in it. Otherwise... I could take it or leave it.

Reading “Blue Like Jazz” was very much a like/hate relationship. It is not a particularity deep text; in fact it demonstrates a very shallow understanding of Christianity, especially the teachings of Christ. If Christ made a rule, Mr. Miller apparently does not believe he actually meant one to follow it. The author also seems determined to be “cool” by constantly elevating those of a liberal/ant-Christian bent against those of Christian evangelicals or fundamentalists. Sure, he occasionally says that his thinking that way is wrong, but he knocks those of a conservative religious bent enough that I think his very weak attempts to say that those of a more conservative faith are not bad people seems forced. His own intolerance still comes through, and that hypocrisy was galling to me.
Especially bad was chapter 11, titled “Confession”. I disliked it for two reasons. #1-It rings false. I would not be a bit surprised if he made most of it up. #2-Spirituality is not a substitute for a walk with Christ. Jesus was pretty adamant (and clear) about that. Miller is more than entitled to his beliefs, but to pass it off as a substitute equal to what Christ explicitly taught is a bit much. Again, the arrogance and self-righteousness comes out of the writing in spades, and Mr. Miller is a big fan of pointing that out in others. In an attempt to be “cool”, he becomes irrelevant.
On page 210 of the text he has to gall to say that the Christian communities he has belonged to had unwritten rules and social strictures, but the ultra-liberal college he attended was a bastion of love and acceptance and no social strictures at all. That is a huge lie. Every social group has unwritten social mores and codes. Every. Single. One. Someone who does not know that much about humanity should not be writing a book to instruct others. I could point out a ton of moments like this in the text. For the sake of space, trust me on this one.
There are some nice moments and thoughts in this piece, hence the two star rating. The chapter called “Grace” was interesting and had some real insights on God’s grace and the role it plays in Christian life. Unfortunately, when Miller makes a good point, he follows it up with such irritating comments & observations that it becomes irrelevant.
I am not setting myself up as better, or more qualified than him. However, I also have the humility to know that my spiritual walk is not one to put on a pedestal and share out. Mr. Miller does not seem to know that about himself.

3.75 stars

but I rounded bc I'm very good at maths

review to come

- - - - updated - - - -

Hello my friends. I'm writing this on my tablet, which is something I've never done for my review's. I thought...you might wanna know that.

Anyway, as most of you probably know, I read a book called Everybody Always by Bob Goff, and loved it. Then I read love does, by the same author. Changed my life. Well, Bob mentioned on several occasions, his best friend Don, who wrote a book called Blue Like Jazz. and I was like, neat, and never thought about it again.

Flash forward.

I was having a rough day. A terrible, terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. I cried a lot. And I was crying and I closed my eyes and asked God to give me something, just anything really. I opened my eyes, and they landed on this book. Turns out, my family owns it. And it turns out, it's one of the books my parents read when they were coming to faith.

I crack open the cover and read the fifth chapter. Yeah I read it out of order, deal with it. It was exactly what I need. Instant conviction. So, I read the rest of the book too. And here are all my crazy thoughts.

Everytime I read this book, I take a pencil with me. Because I kept having to underline things (my favorite quotes will be at the end of this review)

btw i'm back on my computer peeps, cuz i know everyone cares.

anyway you may asking yourself (you: *not asking yourself*)
"alannah, you silly wittle goosey baby, if this book was so amazing, why 3.75 stars instead of a whole sky full of stars?"

well my dear litle goose, that is because this book...made me very uncomfortable. Yes, it was amazing. it truly did grow my relationship with Christ, making bold points, and amazing metaphors and such. but Donald Miller was very...open to pointing out...sin? And... he was very vocal with it. Very, vocal. Like I was debating putting it down because, this book is called "Blue Like Jazz, nonreligious thoughts on Christan Spirituality"
n o n r e l i g i o us

I thought this meant it was written by a atheist, but that's not the case. Its more like, Don doesn't just say "Jesus loves you" then give you a John 3:16 sticker and tell you to move up in line. He takes the deeper paths, the ones filled with uphill climbs and bramble bushes. I felt so frickin convicted. And Don isn't one to hid his sin either. He mentions a lot of sin that he's committed, and how he struggles with keeping his faith in the Lord through hard times. Donald Miller isn't perfect, but he sure is realistic. And it's kinda like he very politely slaps you across the face. And it was rough, but exactly what God was trying to tell me. It's pretty hard to ignore what Gods saying when it's printed in bold text in front of you.

Anyway, those are my thoughts, here are my favorite quotes from this book lol

"And I realized, there are eight billion people in the world, and I can only muster thoughts for one person. Me."

"Penny (his friend) amazed me. She would talk about God as if she knew Him, as if she had talked to him in the phone yesterday. She was never ashamed when she shared the gospel, which is a thing I've noticed in Christians I've encountered. They felt like they had to sell God, as if he was soap, or a vacuum."

(My thought on that: I think sharing the gospel has been made into a "get ur ticket to heaven before it's too late" but really, your just introducing people to your best friend.)

"I always thought the Bible was a salad thing, but it's not. It's a chocolate thing."

"God doesn't have favorites, and he doesn't love us just because the good book says to. He said he was talking about loving people just because they exist."

Lots of prayers, lots of love, God bless and goodnight :3

This is my all time favorite book. I've read it and reread it several times throughout my life. It truly shaped who I am as a person and a Christian. Rereading it now in my 30s was a good experience because the book still holds up and still had so much for me to learn. We had a part of Blue Like Jazz read at our wedding.

Reading this book about one man’s walk with God and struggles with faith made me feel seen on my own walk. He asked some of the same questions I ask. He struggles with some of the same paradoxes I struggle with. These questions and struggles can feel isolating at church where it is hard to discuss what is wrong with the church. It was really nice to feel validated, not guilty, for having these questions. I enjoyed reading about the author’s faith and I definitely took away a lot from this book.

While Don Miller's prose was vivid and dancing, I disagreed with a lot of what he articulated theologically. Most everything was experience and feeling driven, lacking a sturdy Scriptural backbone. Tim Challies' review from 2005 echoed my thoughts.

2024

I keep coming back to this book; it gets better every time. Cool to re-discover impactful books in different stages of life. Always enjoy Donald’s perspective and personality as he writes. It feels like we are sharing stories back and forth on a walk around his Portland neighborhood.

2021
Not sure what took me so long to find Donald Miller. It reminds me a little bit of my freshman year of college when I met this really awesome guy on move out week. He lived next door to me the whole year. I think I’ve talked to him once since. I have been reading and listening to most of Miller’s influences and contemporaries, but just am now sitting down with him. I will keep sitting down with him. I used I a lot in that paragraph. I sigh...

His simply beautiful writing style drew me in and kept me engaged. As he wrestles with Christian spirituality I saw so much of my own experiences, triumphs, and struggles. Incredibly relatable and rooted in truth. I would recommend this book to literally everyone.

I give this both a 2 star rating AND a 4 star rating for different reasons.

4 Stars: I enjoyed reading the author's struggle with being a Christian and what that is supposed to mean in a practical everyday sense. He verbalized feelings that are somewhat universal but rarely spoken. Things like, "Here are the things I didn't like about the churches I went to. First, I felt like people were trying to sell me Jesus....That rubbed me wrong...I wished they would just tell it to me straight rather than trying to sell me on everything..." (From chapter 12, "Church"). Each chapter is essentially a theme (Faith, Redemption, Grace, gods, Belief, Confession, Church, Romance, Community, Money, Worship, Love, Jesus, etc) where the author tells a story about how he's looking for authenticity. How do you have an authentic faith when it is so unnatural in our culture to execute that faith? In the chapter on Love, he is trying to figure out how to show love to a person in his life who he really has a distaste for. I particularly enjoyed the passage in Chapter 18 about how he felt after spending time with some hippies in the woods. "Until this point, the majority of my friends had been Christians. In fact nearly all of them had been Christians. I was amazed to find, outside the church, genuine affection being shared, affection that seemed, well, authentic in comparison to the sort of love I had known within the church.....My Christian communities had always had little unwritten social ethics like don't cuss..." He expresses his feelings that the Christian culture breeds conditional love while at the same time it preaches unconditional love. He struggles with reconciling his feelings with what he believes. He exposes himself and is hoping his readers will find comfort in identifying. He also has a few great stories, such as when he and his friends set up a "confessional" on a college quad for the purpose of telling the campus they are sorry for not being good representatives of Jesus. For this, I appreciated the book.

2 Stars: First, the writing. I randomly opened the book just now to page 238. Out of 12 sentences, 7 of them start with "I" and of those, 6 of them are either "I think", or "I feel". Perhaps the audience was intended to be in junior high, but, since the author is the one writing, I already assumed that the words written are what he felt or thought. He really didn't need to point that out. Secondly, I would sum up the book by saying it's a book about a guy who struggled and found some authenticity in his faith and he hopes you find some too. That's it. One reviewer likened this book to a long blog; it does feel like a blog. I was hoping for something more out of this book. However, I am not profound or deep thinking enough to say what that would have been. I do know that the bible is clear that it is okay and healthy to doubt. Even Jesus told Thomas to touch his wound (from the crucifixion)if it helped his doubt.

The thought I will take away from this book isn't really from this book. In tossing it around in my head, I am thinking that it is such a crock that the word "Christian" has become synonymous with the word "hypocrite". Any group that has standards to strive for can be ridiculed. Yes, Christians preach "love" and then exhibit hate sometimes. But, environmentalists preach "green" and buy trendy products shipped with oil guzzling vehicles sometimes. Homosexuals preach "tolerance" and then bash conservatives sometimes. Pro-lifers preach "value life" and then do nothing to protect abused children sometimes. Anybody who strives for high standards could be convicted in a court of law as a hypocrite. But, our inability to reach perfection should not hinder our efforts at living our standards. I did not find any additional authenticity in my faith through this book, but that's okay; this is Donald Millers story, not mine.

I stand this book. I’ve read it twice because I love it so much. Miller expresses most of the thoughts you have probably thought before (about God, religion, faith, messy politics, etc.) but never have felt bold enough to flesh out. Cool stories of God doing cool things. Deepened my affection for the Person and ministry of Jesus. Oh, you’ll also laugh often. Well, I did.

This book is truly captivating to me.

So many friends had recommended it to me and when I started reading it, it was okay, but it didn't really grip my attention until the 3rd chapter.

The author tells a story about how Navy Seals go to rescue some prisoners of war. The hostages are so frightened that they don't believe the Seals are American and refuse to come with them. In order to help the hostages trust them, one of the Seals sets down his weapons, removes his helmet, softens his face, and curls up next to the hostages. He was showing them that he was one of them, so that the hostages could trust the Seals to rescue them.

Donald Miller makes the analogy that that's why Jesus became man, so that we could trust him to save us. He also makes the analogy that we are being held captive in a world run by Satan, and we have to trust in Jesus so we can be rescued by Him. That story and analogy really speaks volumes to me..

Another reason that that little story really struck me is that just the day before, I had an interesting conversation about how people can sometimes psychologically manipulate others by taking on similar positions or attitudes in order to get people to trust them and feel more open around them... it's a very interesting concept.

I'm only halfway through it and already there has been mention of Steinbeck and Chico State.. odd! The author is from Portland and that is where the story is based.. but it always intrigues me when there things or places so close to me are mentioned simply by chance. It seems as though the author is speaking directly to me!

It's the same thing as when some arbitrary concept is presented to you -- and then you read about the exact same thing in a different context the very next day, or someone else mentioned the same thing. Or you open the bible and the first verse you read is exactly what you needed to hear at that particular moment.. Or the verse printed on the page of the notebook I'm writing in pertains exactly to the message/sermon I'm taking notes on!! I love it.

It's a wonderful book about the author's journey through Christianity and life.. I can't wait to finish reading it!

Not a bad read. It took me a while to really get into the book. The first few chapters were laying a foundation, I guess, and didn't really draw me into the book. But, as I kept reading, I enjoyed the book, the characters, and the stories more. All in all - 3.5 stars.

It wasn't as earth-shattering as I expected/hoped it would be. Miller didn't really say anything new or revolutionary to me, but maybe it is to many other people. From my perspective, it is nice to know that there's at least one other person out there who sees Christianity in a similar fashion as me. That helps me to validate my feelings somewhat.

It is a good and quick read and it does a great job of showing that not all Christians are the right-wing nutjobs you see spouting hate on television. He does a great job of pointing out that Christianity should be about love and that we as Christians need to examine ourselves before we can try to convert others. Remove the plank from your own eye before you tell your brother about the speck in his.

Christianity should be about being "Christ-like." It's not about politics, it's not about judging, it's not about comfort or complacency or rules or sitting on our high horse. It's not about using government, guilt, or a threat of hell to force people to agree with or succumb to your beliefs. It's about service and love and self-sacrifice and realizing that Jesus never forced himself on anyone. He met people where they were, He loved them, He showed them a better way, and He asked them to follow Him to eternal life. It's simple really. And we've made it so hard.

Really enjoyed this. Donald Miller is so relatable and his stories are so entertaining that I feel like we're close friends. Aaaaand that's the way I like reading books.