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A wickedly witty satire, The Loser Letters chronicles the conversion of a young adult Christian to atheism. With modern humor rivaling that of the media lampooning Onion, found on college campuses all over America, A. F. Christian's open letters to the "spokesmen of the New Atheism" explain her reasons for rejecting God and the logical consequences of that choice. Along the way she offers pithy advice to famous atheists such as Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, in the hope of helping them win over more Christians. "Of course we score big time with the young guys who aren't responsible for anything, and don't really care about anything besides spending most of their time in the basement playing video games and texting girls," A.F. Christian points out. But what about all those serious, thoughtful people who are Christian believers? If the New Atheism is to make real headway, she argues, its advocates must do more to persuade intelligent theists living meaningful and fulfilling lives.… (more)
User reviews
The first is the author's tone: it's too snarky. It's obvious to the reader that the main character, who is supposed to be sympathetic to the atheist position, is not. This tone makes the author's objective too transparent - a truly fatal flaw in a book of this kind.
Second problem: the writing just isn't very good. It's written in the voice of the kind of teenage girl I do everything to avoid in the checkout line at Starbucks. Perhaps that's intentional, perhaps not. Either way, while I wasn't expecting the quality of Lewis, I was expecting something more excellent than I got.
Full disclosure: I didn't finish the book. There were just too many other things I'd rather be reading.