Review: An Unlikely Disciple

So this morning I was terrorized by 30 alarm clocks, until I woke to finish "THE UNLIKELY DISCIPLE" by Kevin "Rooster" Roose. I chose this book because I'm continuously fascinated by anyone's ability to maintain a belief in God over the age of sixteen. Hence, my fetish for shows like The Duggars (Or 19 & Counting). Is fetish the wrong word? I don't know.

The premise is that a liberal Quaker (who really isn't attached to religion, but doesn't considered himself an atheist) takes a semester off at Brown University (the bastard) to transfer to Jerry Falwell's college, Liberty University.

First off, Kevin Rooster is sexist. So, there's that. Every girl he meet he categorizes to his readers as hot, pretty hot, etc. In so many words that is. So I had to cringe my way through that, excuse him as he is only 19 and SO ENLIGHTENED in other ways. The book itself seemed one Mr. Roger's attempt to humanize the religious ("moral majority") right in such as way as to say "look some of us want to take a baseball bat to a gay kids skull but at the end of the day we're all just bros who wanna shoot hoops and browse chicks's Facebook bikini pics, amirite?".

Oh, also, he doesn't tell anyone there that he's a reporter, and pretends to be an evangelical student. So the BEST part of the book comes when he has his big reveal to his "friends" about the true nature of his presence. All of the conversations looked like this.

Kevin Rooster: I have to tell you something bro

Bro: You're gay

Kevin Rooster: No I'm a reporter, I'm writing a book about you.
Bro: Really? And also gay?

Kevin Rooster: No, just the book.

Good times. No, but really. He attends support groups to give up masturbation, that was great. Whenever he got the "urge" to masturbate he was supposed to call his preacher. Which was creepy. And most of the time the guys in his dorm are either cracking gay jokes, or on a serious witch hunt for actual gays in the dorm. Some of his friends even floating the idea that all gays could be killed, if only it were legal. Perhaps we could just lock them all in jail. Aside from that, the women are referred to as getting their "MRS" degree. Great. And some girls alienate one dormmate who they suspect to be "A FEMINIST". Shit. The book was at it's best when Rooster details the aftermath of VA Tech shootings. Prayer groups EVERYWHERE. And the apocalyptic news of Jerry Falwell's death.

This book also lists a lengthy bibliography in the back of other interesting religious-based studies. It even has me cracking out the ol' Bible.