Friday, August 16, 2013

Book Review: Chivalry by Zach Hunter

Chivalry: The Quest for a Personal Code of Honor in an Unjust World by Zach Hunter is in some ways exactly what a teenager growing up in the church needs. So much of our culture keeps adolescents from moving on to adulthood, and this book combats that by giving ten ideals that leads young people to living a more civil and chivalrous life.

The ten ideals are great. Some of them are, "I will not go on this journey alone", "I will fear no evil", and "I will never abandon my quest". And Hunter fleshes these out reasonably well. This book can definitely serve as a guide to how to grow up to be a noble Christian.

There were a couple of things, though, that bothered me about the book. First of all, he tries to say the book is for guys as well as girls. Even though his language stayed gender neutral, his content is very guy focused. I think a teenage girl would feel awkward reading this as a guide for her life. Second, I'm not sure most teens would read through this whole book. As an adult, it was a little redundant and just seemed to have too much surface information. Someone in their early 20's may read a book like this, but to me the writing seemed geared to someone 16-19. Especially knowing that boys are the likely target, I think the prose could have been edited down quite a bit. Lastly, I didn't like this being called Chivalry. It seemed something old and antiquated. For this generation, this is stuff they very well may not have been exposed to. I would have liked a stronger image.

Overall, this is not a bad book. In fact, I already know a young man that I will pass it on to. But I felt like the execution of it left it just average. I would recommend this book to any boy aged 16-19 that has the endurance to sit down and actually read the book.

I was provided with a free copy of this book from Tyndale Publishers in return for my honest review.

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