Honest Illusion

OK, pop quiz.. Name the book: “This novel by Dan Brown concerns the murder of a man outstanding in his field, who is found naked with markings at the crime scene which lead the authorities to call in Harvard symbolist Robert Langdon for advice.  He is soon joined by the dead man's daughter (who is also an accomplished professional in her ...

OK, now that I've trashed “Joshua”, I might as well discuss the other books in the book club this year.  (Note, the club is run by St Valentines Roman Catholic Church is Bloomfield, NJ, so you might sense a theme in them). First was Running from the Devil” by Steve Kissing.  This is the memiors of a boy, who started ...

Part 1 is here. Part 2 is here. But after all of that, the thing that most bothered me, and moved me from merely being disappointed in the book at actually offended by it, is a 20 page story arc, which he mounts a slanderous attack against the First Amendment (which he conveniently only refers to as :“the separation of Church & State”). ...

Part 1 is here. Part 3 is here. This brings us to the next major failing of the book:  The character of Joshua.  In an attempt to make him a “Christ-like character”, Girzone spends too much time trying to make him “Christ-like” and not enough on making him a “Character”.  In the end, he fails at both tasks.  Joshua is a remarkably bland ...

Part 2 is here. Part 3 is here. I want to talk about the book I just finished.  Normally, I wouldn’t bother with a full critique, but I found this book so bad on so many different levels, I felt compelled to comment.   The book is “Joshua and the City” by Fr. Joseph F. Girzone.  It was a selection of my church’s book club, which is ...