Jacob Clark

A very strong albeit more traditional entry in the fantasy genre. Pacing is only slow when the world-building gets lengthy. 

I quite liked how many times we're allowed inside Coriolanus's head in the third person perspective; Collins has a gift in how she writes for these young frantic minds. Still, I am quite whelmed, as this entry in the Hunger Games universe relies heavily on callbacks to the original trilogy and adds little of note to the world of Panem. There's nothing overly challenging or surprising in offer here. 

This felt like a blog post that was forced into a book. The first couple chapters were good, but after that it got repetitive without expanding on its topics and themes at all. 

This is Monty Python's version of the apocalypse and Revelation. If that sounds good to you, then you'll definitely enjoy it. The ending also ties in some ideas about how we as humanity think about the end of our world and how we don't, and I appreciated that reminder as an anything-but-subtle moral of the story in a novel where subtlety is nowhere to be found. 

The only critique I have is more preference-based and it's the wild structure. I found it difficult to feel like I could set aside the novel because of its strange “chapter” breaks that are inconsistent in length. It does help the flow when I'm reading, but it drastically hurts my head when trying to reach a good stopping point. 

Brant Hansen is a funny guy who clearly knows it from how he writes, and him bringing his light, playful tone to a book about Christian masculinity is welcome. At least in the evangelical space, there often isn't room for authors who aren't deadly serious or seriously “manly” to contribute to thoughts on Christian manhood. Hansen veers hard into the “you don't have to be a bearded ripped guy who is always ready to throw down to be a godly man,” and that is very appreciated by someone like myself who doesn't fit that mold at all. He asks men to be “keepers of the garden,” similar to how Adam was asked to do the same thing in Genesis 1-3, and explains it through a variety of lenses related to martial fidelity, anger and gentleness, creating a sense of security for others, and many more. There are a lot of pop culture references, but they're to large enough properties so the book should age relatively well. Hansen is very self-deprecating but uses it to his advantage to show how men don't need to fit a classical manly image to be keepers of the garden the way that he sees God intending for us.

My main issue with the book that knocks its rating down considerably is that from the title to the last page it is complementarian by nature. I myself am an egalitarian and more “progressive” evangelical, and while I can take a lot of nuggets from this book that are helpful and good for my everyday Christian walk, I think women could too. The title of this book appealing exclusively to men is both a misnomer and its biggest flaw. Any Christian could learn how to be a better leader or person in general if they read this book, but the title almost excludes over half of the Christian population. I wish this wasn't marketed as a book exclusively on masculinity and manhood because while it does appeal to Christian men primarily its scope could be so much broader. 

Getting past the complementarian and exclusive nature of The Men We Need is very possible but takes some time. Hansen does make a good case for an alternative way of viewing Christian manhood that is less destructive and more compassionate than the average evangelical author, so I would recommend it to those looking for that. It's a pretty fast-paced read too, as the chapters are short enough and light enough to often cover pages and pages in a sitting. However, from a broader standpoint this book struggles with actually being inclusive enough to include anyone who is in a leadership position regardless of their gender.