How can someone making straight A's, playing in classical piano competitions, singing in a select school choir as well as acting lead roles ever feel that he is "not good enough"?
(Warning: If you are a very fundamentalist Christian, you will not like this book. You will want to pray for the author by the end.)
This is a memoir of the childhood and high school years of someone who grew up in Kansas City, Missouri in an extremely fundamental religious family. They did not watch tv (except for holidays), listen to anything except for religious radio, and went to church at least 3 times per week. His father was a professor at a bible college and his stay-at-home mother led "Good News Clubs" Aaron is onboard with all this until he is about twelve. Then, his questions and desires kick in. He struggles with the temptations of the world: wanting to wear deck shoes without socks, go to movies, listen to Amy Grant tapes (she's apparently not Christian enough), and, (jump back) make his own friends and decisions. All this is seen as "rebellion" by his strict father and not "pleasing to God". The guilt his parents lay comes thicker than peanut butter and they can out-God him at all turns. How do you argue with God as the reason for everything?
How is this humorous? It just is. When Aaron tells his stories, many are funny. Some make you wince and some make you ashamed to be a Christian. It is a good peek into that lifestyle and shows the difficulty of living that narrow life. Aaron made mostly "bad choices" according to his parents and spent a lot of time trying to live two lives. In secular terms, he wasn't that bad. I am familiar with "Good News Clubs" and much of that worldview and this is a good picture of it for anyone who would like to understand some of it.
(2nd warning for fundamentalists: Aaron Hartzler is now Gay and is currently on a YA book tour. He is an actor as well as an author.)
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