emeliestegbornblixt's review against another edition
Honest, nuanced and more touching than I was expecting to find it. The authors narration of the audiobook was really engaging.
missamandamae's review against another edition
4.0
I have admired Lyz’s work for a few years and finally got around to reading her book God Land. I love her faith journey she traces in it, as well as looking into different faith communities in the Midwest and how they all reacted in the wake of the 2016 election. It was familiar to me.
cloudss's review
informative
reflective
fast-paced
3.75
good references in the book for further reading. made me understand that I am ignorant abt denominations in middle america
heatherjchin's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Xenophobia, Transphobia, Sexism, Toxic relationship, Religious bigotry, and Misogyny
amymelissaestes's review against another edition
5.0
I really loved this book. From a writerly perspective, it was really helpful for the book I'm currently at work on; from an emotional standpoint as someone who has left the church due to many of the issues raised, it was comforting and infuriating (in a good way -- I related). Lyz Lenz writes in a well-researched style that also has gut punches of beautiful phrases. I really enjoyed this book.
rtq66's review against another edition
5.0
I first encountered Lyz Lenz and her writing through her Twitter account. She is bold, funny, insightful, and has a keen balance of social insight and honest self-reflection. When she announced the publication of her new book "God Land," I knew I wanted to read it. Lenz is a writer/journalist from the Midwest writing about the the profound experiences of loss in our country and in personal lives in conversation with this area of America. Her depiction is one of honest love that doesn't hide the tensions in the relationship. She neither romanticizes the Midwest nor does she reduce it to a caricature. The book honestly grapples with a people and the guiding mythology that informs their experience, a mythology that holds both illumination along with violent erasure. Lenz has a profound grasp of white evangelicalism and its practices, beliefs and theology and shows in profound ways how this theological mindset gives rise to many of the destructive social dynamics in our country today. This is not a hit piece. It is a profound meditation and a practice of truth telling. By focusing on loss and yes, even death, this book is profoundly more religious than much of what passes as contemporary religious piety, a piety that shares the cultural abhorrence of loss, death, weakness, individual and structural sin and thus perpetuates destruction and death rather than sits with it and learns from it in expectant hope. This book is an essential read to gain a greater understanding this time within which we find ourselves.