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[Following is an official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Autobiography of God" by Rajan Schrenick.]

Autobiography of God, by Rajan Schrenik, is a book that tries to place the relationship between God and Man within the context of who created the other. It turns established theology on its head and uses a story as a means to probe the issue in an engaging fashion.

The book is separated into two parts. The first part is told from the perspective of a potentially omnipotent God and the author uses this perspective to provide a potential story of the creation of the universe and life in general. The second part is told from the perspective of Man, a representative of mankind who seeks to hold dominion over all other men. In the first part, the author talks about the rise of mankind from the point of view of a God and his descent into godlessness and maliciousness. In response, when God decides to ignore Man, the story follows the creation of false gods that are worshipped in His place. The first God tries to prevent the rise of the false Gods but finds that he is not able to triumph. He falls into an exile, a shadow of himself whose name is used to justify horrific actions. The second part discusses in part the meeting of Man with God-in-exile and his attempt to use him for his own purposes. However, the reader must remember that the book’s plot is merely a vehicle for the author to communicate his ideas about god and religion.

The greatest strength of this book is the quality of the writing. The author uses the English language magnificently and manages to convey ideas with a great deal of subtlety and nuance. For me, the quality of writing mixed with the choice of words made the book into an interesting read all by themselves. Moreover, the attention to detail by the author was also extremely impressive. In a book this size, I usually encounter at least half a dozen grammatical errors or typos, but I did not notice any in this book.

However, I found that the plot itself and the ideas presented were rather superficial for a book that seeks to answer existential questions like the relationship between man and god. As the reader, I felt that the build-up of the plot led to a very anticlimactic conclusion, where the author seems to basically declare a variety of things. While the approach and the thought experiment that is this book are interesting, I felt that it could have been covered in a book half its size with equal treatment of the subject matter.

I rate this book 2 out of 4 stars. While I really appreciated the writing style and the quality of writing, I found the content itself to be rather underwhelming. I would recommend this book to people who have an open mind where religion is concerned and wish to consider an interesting, well-phrased perspective on the same.

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Autobiography of God
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Thank you for your thorough review! It sounds like this "thought experiment" had a lot of potential but didn't play out very well. I like books that force me to examine/reexamine what I believe, so this one looked interesting to me, but your honest review has helped me decide not to read this one.

I'm on the fence about whether I want to read this one or not. I generally like to read books that look at theological concepts from a different perspective, but I also cringe when that perspective is too superficial. I guess it will go on the maybe shelf for. Thanks for the thoughtful review.

Thank you for the detailed reply! It seems like the author failed to realise the full potential of his chosen topic, despite the fascinating subject. However, as much as I am intrigued, I probably would not search this book out.

I must say, the title of the book is very interesting. I am a bit disappointed that the author may have underestimated the weight of the subject at hand. I shall be staying away from this one. Thanks for the review mate!

Its a shame that a book with such an interesting title will not live up to its name quite well. I like that it tackles philosophical conventions with alternate ideas and will appeal to some readers. Thanks for your review, it was on point.

Its a shame that a book with such an interesting title will not live up to its name quite well. I like that it tackles philosophical conventions with alternate ideas and will appeal to some readers. Thanks for your review, it was on point.

Thanks for the nice review. It is full of information that one will require to make a decision whether or not to read the book. Personally, I think that the book may not be my favorite type but I will read it to get the view of the author.

It is a shame it did turn better. I thought the premise was interesting.

God as the narrator - interesting concept and a unique way to look at religion. I might be interested in it.

This is an interesting question, and I’m intrigued to know that it was an interesting read. It’s too bad that the process of explaining conclusions logically tends to be a dying art.

I am not a fan of autobiography and I will pass on this one. Thanks for the honest review.

Wow! For a book that claims to be as deep as this one should be, it's too bad it was anticlimactic. I don't think it would be the book for me anyway, but I'm definitely not going to read it now. Thanks for the information, though!

Kudos to you for highlighting the superficiality of the author's claims. You're right that a book focusing on something so "heavy" should have some substantiated theology basing, or at least questioning, his commentary.

Thanks for this forward review!