RaveLittle VillageIt is an audacious attempt to synthesize and personalize the range of issues confronting 21st-century Americans, and Lenz does this with humor, honesty and aplomb ... Throughout, Lenz — perhaps best known through her work on the Rumpus, although a longtime journalist beyond that — provides readers with hefty doses of wit and insight that allow the experience of the book to be both meaningful and pleasurable. Lenz’s approach is masterful ... God Land offers a wise perspective ... the account is balanced — she is as quick to point out her own complicit silences as those of others, and to praise the compassion of those whose politics and practices she may otherwise find problematic ... God Land holds its own as a theological criticism of \'traditional\' Christianity ... If God Land is unafraid and unflinching in its portrayal of the problematic ways that Middle America combines religion, politics, economics, race and misogyny, then it is equally bold in suggesting an alternative. Throughout, Lenz shows the fearlessness of faith ... If the end of the book is not quite as clever as the beginning, this is a strength, as Lenz’s passionate compassion becomes clarified.
