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Reviews of Previous Iterations

Awesome Surprise

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Awesome surprise within these pages, leaves you wanting more
I was given this book as a gift, and was admittedly ambivalent about reading it. Within pages, I had to know where Suzze would take me (and can’t wait to see where she goes next). The writing style of this book is definitely on par with the style of a favorite author of mine, Chuck Palahniuk of Fight Club and Choke fame. I have a particular distaste for televangelists, and receive a sick pleasure from the role they’ve undertaken in this story. I cannot wait to see how the rest of this story unfolds.

Amazon Verified Purchase

Entertaining, Satirical

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Entertaining, satirical view of religion, politics and life.
Protagonist Suzze and other characters seem to be formed from an amalgam of current day preachers, politicians and entertainers. They may just as easily represent similar voices from the past. Sex, politics and religion are usually shunned in polite conversation. In this book, they are in your face, no pulled punch. Fans of George Carlin and Bill Maher might feel quite at home with the language. A much larger audience will be pricked by the underlying message.

Author Connie Wellborne takes special aim at a few televangelists who are more interested in the biggest bank account, biggest house, biggest personal jet. The description slides into R rated expletive. Connie’s anger approaches a fever pitch that evokes an image of a Jesus overturning the tables of the money changers.

Not for the faint of heart, this story will force some readers to examine the basis of their belief structure. Those who are still forming an opinion might join the audience that considered the words of Paul as he spoke of the unknown God.

Amazon Verified Purchase

Superbly Written

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A superbly written story whose time has come. Entertaining …


A superbly written story whose time has come. Entertaining, thought-provoking, captivating and mystical, all rolled into one. I can’t wait to read the next episodes.

Advance Reader

A Fun Read

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A good throw back to the 60’s and 70’s
A fun read which makes you think you are back in time reading a Tom Robbins book. Why just poke fun at christianity and not include all religions given todays environment.

Advance Reader

Tom Robbins meets Bill Maher

 

Tom Robbins meets Bill Maher in anti-religion comedy romp.

This is the work of smart writers who have done their homework in crafting zippy dialog and a fast-paced narrative in a complex, layered plot. They evoke a Tom Robbin’s happy snideness in offbeat characters. Just in Episode One, I was entertained by many an imaginative, surprising scene and plot point. If I had had the whole book in hand, I’m sure I would have devoured this story. But why release a book in episodes in this age of distraction, when people’s attention spans have reached new levels of brevity? I would like to know how Suzze recovers from witnessing the shocking murder of her evangelist husband, but not enough to go in pursuit of the other, separate episodes.

Amazon Customer

Artful, cynical, good fun

 


Has Susie rebirthed herself from a profit for a Prophet? Artful, cynical, good fun.


At first, I was a bit bewildered at where this story line was going. Then, I took a long pause, and came to the realization that I was reading a Tom Robbins style novel. Slow down, enjoy the journey. So where, at first glance, the character development started out seemingly mundane, listless and aimless, somewhere along the way, Susie grabbed me. Perhaps it was her final angry confrontation with her toilet butler or Mathew, her angelic mini me statue…I don’t know, but somewhere, Susie’s delusions, her cynical but realistic assessment of her predicament, her gritty realization that all she wanted was to be home setting on a park bench, with or without disciples at her feet….. it all suddenly became a story that I need to see to the end.

I want to see if Susie becomes an actual Messiah, or does she just get accused of being one. Is Jack’s motivation to lead Susie to … Well, to where, I just don’t know…a truth or a deception? I just don’t know but I sure want to…..the snarky hype with all the current celebrity name dropping is fun, too.

And did I understand, btw, that California succeeded from the Union?, Really? Cool.

Amazon Customer

Zippy dialog and a fast-paced narrative

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Suzze still looking for traction in episode one
This is the work of a smart writer who has done his work in crafting zippy dialog and a fast-paced narrative in a complex, layered plot.  He evokes a Tom Robbin’s happy snideness in offbeat characters.  But why release a book in episodes in this age of distraction, when people’s attention spans have reached new levels of brevity?  Why?  

The novel is successful in every novel’s primary goal of getting the reader to want to see what’s on the next page.  On the other hand, I found myself regularly put off.  Here are some examples.  After Suzze has given away every item in her mansion, she has an extended dialog with her talking commode and her talking angel statue.  Okay, I get it.  She’s mega rich and can buy the most advanced technology.  But these robots at this point of the story have the most developed human personalities in the book.  Rings false.  

For the rest of Episode One, Suzze is barefoot and wears nothing but a robe.  For days she is impervious to the snowy, freezing weather of Aspen, Colorado.  Silly.  Then we’re suddenly in Detroit, and just as suddenly in the desert, with Suzze’s overriding purpose in life to have a decent bowel movement.  It’s all a bit much.
The real plot markers of the story—a football player is struck dead as he gives thanks to God after scoring a touchdown, and Suzze’s evangelist’s husband’s head cracks open during a sermon—are really intriguing, especially punctuated by the side bars about lawyers suing religions for child abuse and the talking Baby Jesus dolls that tell kids to kill their parents.  Clever stuff.  But as Suzze wanders in the desert talking to her benefactor Jack (whose personality is constantly shifting), the novel seems to be in neutral.  

I’d like to find out what happens next but not enough to go to the trouble of looking for Episode Two.

Advance Reader

A little disappointed

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Incidental denizens in this story that seems to be driving somewhere but seems to delight in only giving us a glimpse of the road

The central characters navigate through a landscape peopled with a menagerie of strange, incidental denizens in this story that seems to be driving somewhere but seems to delight in only giving us a glimpse of the roadmap. While I was amused by the honest excoriation of the word, I was a little disappointed that the targets chosen were so easy

Advance Reader

More of the same. Better than before.

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Although I gave the first episode when that was all there was a five star rating, I wondered why I’d read it. You never know when you’ll get the rest. And although it still isn’t finished, it’s even better than before. Where is HBO? This is a series waiting to happen.

Complicated

I love the Suzze character and it’s easy to see that she’s going to end up dominating the world or something like that and the writing is good and it moves along fast but with two or three plot lines running all the time, it’s like Game of Thrones which I’m not crazy about, you just have to pay too much attention. If you like a complex narrative, this is for you. If you don’t, you won’t.

Love the humor, love the cleverness, love the developing story, love the War on Christianity theme.

It gets more magical with every chapter . . takes magical realism as a genre and expresses Christianity in the same terms.

What a way to bring “the sign” to the masses. Has to be one of the most imaginative interpretations ever. Bold and in-your-face, but very effective…

As a Christian, I’m tired of my faith being challenged  …all churches suffer from charlatans and liars and cheats . . . don’t need for my faith to be challenged…don’t want to read about it.

Could this silly bit of fluff and puff, this slap-stick comedy serve up and address real moral and ethical questions and then honestly and cleverly answer them? Most likely, Suzze and her band of merry travelers will fade into obscurity for lack of readers who appreciate its subtleties. But it deserves to be read. I say give it a try. Especially if you’re a Christian.

Move Over Jesus is an atheist fairy-tale that pays homage to Voltaire and Vidal, Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins, Jon Stewart and Jon Oliver, Bill Maher and all the others of their militant atheist ilk. No doubt, it falls short of their greatness. Far short. Regardless, it is a first rate speculative satire, (Probably written for TV, unsellable and repackaged here, is my guess), dark, disturbing, urban, fun to read, pure escapist pap. But I defy you not to love Suzze Osmond, a heroine for our times.

Not for Scaredy-Cat Christians
I was told, “This will challenge your faith.” No it won’t. Nor has it. This thing takes Christianity and does everything it can to belittle it, and demean it, and trash it, but nothing can trash the glory of Jesus. Having said that, buyer beware, it is a funny story, somewhere in the blurb it says it’s funny while being totally perverse.

Bowel Movements? Seriously?
Hapless, witless, evangelist bimbo Suzze Osmond sees her world explode and hits the road, only to discover that whatever it is that’s after her (God?) won’t leave her alone. Written more like a TV episode than a conventional novel, she bounces from one conflict to the other each interrupted by her need to move her bowels, a relief that rarely comes. Somehow it all works.

Love to Hate Religion?
Move Over Jesus is old school satire meets modern day quest. Think Gulliver’s Travels meets Lord of the Rings with a little Breaking Bad thrown in to contemporize it. And mostly, it works. The funny parts are ridiculous, even absurd, until you get to the end of a chapter which, with a bow to current fiction apparently, are called scenes and realize that everything you just read is true, or likely soon will be, ripped from the headlines, etc. Will it capture all of those audiences or even one of them? Who knows? On the surface, it’s an easy read, fast-paced, fun, but will it appeal to those who do not or cannot read between the lines for a thousand nuances and allusions? Hard to say.

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