Blue Like Jazz

Summary: Donald Miller tells a series of stories, mostly centered on his time at Reed College, exploring God and spirituality.

It is challenging and refreshingly genuine.

A wonderful, easy read. I actually looked forward to picking this book up and reading it. Donald Miller is one of my favorite authors.

Donald Miller certainly looks at the world and Christianity, more specifically, in a completely different way than I do. This, however, only served to make the book that much more interesting - he allows the reader to travel with him through the process of him becoming a believer. Seeing this process through a male perspective was intriguing and yet still more relateable than I would have previously imagined.

He uses numerous examples to further explain concepts he's come to grasp regarding Christanity - one of which that stood out to me most was in chapter 3 comparing the essential components of any story really (setting, conflict, resolution) to our own lives and seeking God and a relationship with him.

I would recommend this book to any Christian, regardless of where they are in their pursuit of an intimate relationship with God, and I could also see a non-Christian or someone who is not sure of what they believe being able to take something away from the book.

I laughed out loud several times while reading and personally felt more motivated to be a better follower of Christ, a better person in general.

Although I did not entirely agree with everything he covered in the book, Blue Like Jazz is one that I truly enjoyed reading and could see myself reading certainly more than once. For the most part, it was an easy read although there were some parts that I felt were necessary to read over in order to better understand the point he was making.

Overall - lots of personal stories (well, it is his retelling of how he got to where he is today spiritually speaking), good infusion of humor, the author is extremely relateable and honest and one can certainly take away a lot from reading this book.