The Unlikely Disciple 10

The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University (Kevin Roose) 2009, Kindle Edition -- 10

This is the first book in a very long time that I read in a single sitting. It's not only that the subject is interesting (as the title suggest, Roose poses as an evangelical christian for a semester at Liberty University), it's that it's maddeningly well written. I was furious at how well Roose was able to write, but it was so entertaining, i really couldn't commit to being mad about it either.

The first hint that something special was going on with Unlikely disciple was near the beginning of the book, where Roose compared his pre-Liberty concept of god as a "left-wing superhero . . . a celestial Michael Moore."

This is much more than an expose, though. In fact, it's really not an expose at all. From the beginning, Roose frames his experience as anthropological; his experiment as ethnographic. Roose makes a serious commitment to relate to his peers at Liberty, and perhaps dispite himself, succeeds. The resulting moral tribulations are honestly presented and thought provoking.

In the end, I found myself wondering if God himself had a hand in giving Roose the dramatic ending his wonderful book so well deserved.