I haven’t read Ant Farm or Free-Range Chickens, and I probably won’t. This novel simply didn’t make the grade for me, and I found it faintly boring and fantastically silly.
God resides as CEO of his company, Heaven, Inc., with a huge operation run by Angels who have been haphazardly chosen to enter the Company by the amount of skips their stones have made on Earth (16 skips is the number God chose for entry). God lounges around while his In Box fills with prayers and some of his angels work and others play. Two angels in the Department of Miracles, Craig and Eliza, love their work, creating small miracles for the humans on Earth on a daily basis. Evil Vince the Archangel works for God and thinks that they are idiots to try and help humans, since humans don’t see miracles when they are placed right in front of their faces.
God decides to end the Earth because he is bored and wants to start an Asian fusion restaurant instead. Craig and Eliza make a deal with Him – if they can partner two humans who are attracted to each other and make them kiss before Judgment Day (in a month), God will not destroy the Earth.
As Craig and Eliza finally pull in Vince to help them with the two hopelessly shy humans, Laura Potts and Sam Katz. As Laura and Sam ignore every attempt to get them together, Craig and Eliza find themselves on a parallel universe – they are in love and too shy to get together too.
A supposed satire, What in God’s Name just didn’t make me laugh, smile or burp. However, some people might really enjoy the thought of God as a CEO who wants to play golf, drink and play sports games rather than be a responsible business owner, and two angels who love Earth. I think Mr. Rich missed a lot of spots in the novel where he could have created a laughable satire, and you might enjoy the novel. I didn’t.
What in God’s Name: A Novel
Ratings are based on a 5-star scale
Overall: 2
Review by Broad “A” – Ava
We received a copy of this title for our book review. All opinions are our own.
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