religion in fiction
Most of the books I read usually gloss over religion since it's not relevant to the plot. Religious holidays might be celebrated to hint at the beliefs of the characters, but for the most part it's not important or the characters are outright atheists. Most of the time characters with deep faith just come off as being preachy assholes which annoy the heck out of me. Probably because they are written to be preachy and push a message. Whatever.
[not very nice to hypocritical Christians (you are warned)]Anyway, I read this book last week called Are You Going to Kiss Me Now? The main character, Francesca, gets stranded on a tropical island with a bunch of celebrities, and for some reason, a celebrity blogger. They're all teens except the pilot (who is a movie star). It was like TMZ meets Survivor. The plot was ridiculously stupid and the characters were all stereotypes of celebrities (including the pantiless starlet looking for attention and environmentalist vegetarian teen idol). It sounds awful, but it added up to comedy gold if you ignored how stupid it was. I laughed so hard at times I couldn't breathe.
Back to my point, though. One of the celebrities is in a Christian rock band (he's the illegitimate son of the pilot star). He seems mostly normal other than him basically taking over the group while his dad freaks out even though the kid is the 2nd youngest in the group (after Francesca). I think it's the end of the first day that he suddenly goes all preachy and wants to pray. He starts spouting off about God saving them or something, and this is what cracked me up, all the other characters basically tell him to go fuck himself.
The book is far from PC, but I was surprised the author went that far. She has balls. There were many more scenes where they told him to drop the religious nonsense and leave them alone about it. A couple went on a Christianity bashing fest. Really, though, they were against people like the kid who are all hypocritical about their beliefs (preaching one thing, but living another).
The kid starts acting like an asshole a few days in. He's sexist and a homophobe, constantly getting on the case of the blogger kid who's gay. Him and his dad get into a huge fight about religion which was pretty spectacular.
In the end, the kid ends up being gay and in denial with all the self-loathing that religion can heap on you. He finally comes clean and has a huge teary reconciliation with his dad.
As an atheist, I found the whole thing refreshing. Characters that didn't coddle the believer that is trying to push his beliefs. They weren't afraid to tell him where to shove his Bible. There were a lot of thoughts that matched my own throughout the book, and a lot of things I wish I could say to the Bible-thumping hypocritical bastards that come knocking on my door. Some of it went overboard, but I know people that are like that in real life, too, so there was a spread of anti-religion in the group.
Funny enough, there were no reviews anywhere from Christians going ape-shit over the anti-religion stuff. Most of the reviews were like, "this book is so stupid and the writing sucks!" They obviously didn't get that it's more of a parody than serious fiction. It's supposed to be campy and absurd. Because it's funny.
On the flip side:
The book I'm reading now is about a girl who loses her entire family (parents and little brother) in a car accident. I'm only like 60 pages in, but what I've liked about this story is the portrayal of religion. I thought it was fantastic that the main character is Jewish and so is the (I assume) love interest. The two families were celebrating Passover together when everyone decided to go out for ice cream, but the MC and the boy get out of it. Her family dies. He loses his mother and his father, who was driving, is in a coma.
So far religion has only played a slight part. She mentions that they never joined the synagogue, but the rabbi does the funeral because he's the only rabbi in town. And that someone sang Amazing Grace despite it being a Jewish service (these were things the girl was thinking about during the funeral). At the dinner before the accident, when they realize no one made desert, the one mom says they have Easter candy left over from her husband's office party or something which I thought was really funny--oh, how the Christian holidays permeate every aspect of our lives.
Interestingly enough, the main character of the book I read before this one was also Jewish, although religion played even less of a role. I think he mentions it a few times, including his mom getting a camera for Hanukkah. Oh, and the pilot-dad from the above book was also Jewish. I'm on a roll with the Jewish characters this week.
[not very nice to hypocritical Christians (you are warned)]Anyway, I read this book last week called Are You Going to Kiss Me Now? The main character, Francesca, gets stranded on a tropical island with a bunch of celebrities, and for some reason, a celebrity blogger. They're all teens except the pilot (who is a movie star). It was like TMZ meets Survivor. The plot was ridiculously stupid and the characters were all stereotypes of celebrities (including the pantiless starlet looking for attention and environmentalist vegetarian teen idol). It sounds awful, but it added up to comedy gold if you ignored how stupid it was. I laughed so hard at times I couldn't breathe.
Back to my point, though. One of the celebrities is in a Christian rock band (he's the illegitimate son of the pilot star). He seems mostly normal other than him basically taking over the group while his dad freaks out even though the kid is the 2nd youngest in the group (after Francesca). I think it's the end of the first day that he suddenly goes all preachy and wants to pray. He starts spouting off about God saving them or something, and this is what cracked me up, all the other characters basically tell him to go fuck himself.
The book is far from PC, but I was surprised the author went that far. She has balls. There were many more scenes where they told him to drop the religious nonsense and leave them alone about it. A couple went on a Christianity bashing fest. Really, though, they were against people like the kid who are all hypocritical about their beliefs (preaching one thing, but living another).
The kid starts acting like an asshole a few days in. He's sexist and a homophobe, constantly getting on the case of the blogger kid who's gay. Him and his dad get into a huge fight about religion which was pretty spectacular.
In the end, the kid ends up being gay and in denial with all the self-loathing that religion can heap on you. He finally comes clean and has a huge teary reconciliation with his dad.
As an atheist, I found the whole thing refreshing. Characters that didn't coddle the believer that is trying to push his beliefs. They weren't afraid to tell him where to shove his Bible. There were a lot of thoughts that matched my own throughout the book, and a lot of things I wish I could say to the Bible-thumping hypocritical bastards that come knocking on my door. Some of it went overboard, but I know people that are like that in real life, too, so there was a spread of anti-religion in the group.
Funny enough, there were no reviews anywhere from Christians going ape-shit over the anti-religion stuff. Most of the reviews were like, "this book is so stupid and the writing sucks!" They obviously didn't get that it's more of a parody than serious fiction. It's supposed to be campy and absurd. Because it's funny.
On the flip side:
The book I'm reading now is about a girl who loses her entire family (parents and little brother) in a car accident. I'm only like 60 pages in, but what I've liked about this story is the portrayal of religion. I thought it was fantastic that the main character is Jewish and so is the (I assume) love interest. The two families were celebrating Passover together when everyone decided to go out for ice cream, but the MC and the boy get out of it. Her family dies. He loses his mother and his father, who was driving, is in a coma.
So far religion has only played a slight part. She mentions that they never joined the synagogue, but the rabbi does the funeral because he's the only rabbi in town. And that someone sang Amazing Grace despite it being a Jewish service (these were things the girl was thinking about during the funeral). At the dinner before the accident, when they realize no one made desert, the one mom says they have Easter candy left over from her husband's office party or something which I thought was really funny--oh, how the Christian holidays permeate every aspect of our lives.
Interestingly enough, the main character of the book I read before this one was also Jewish, although religion played even less of a role. I think he mentions it a few times, including his mom getting a camera for Hanukkah. Oh, and the pilot-dad from the above book was also Jewish. I'm on a roll with the Jewish characters this week.