Early Weblog Reviews of To Own a Dragon

Published by Geof F. Morris | Filed under weblog reviews

Back when Bryan (the fearless leader of the donmillerfans.net revolution) first told me about his ideas here for [donmillerfans.net], my immediate thought was that I should begin setting all my cool Internet tools to seek out and find reviews of Don’s stuff. The idea was that we’d cull the Internet for the good stuff and point you to it. As we expected, lots of you are posting reviews of Don’s latest book on your weblogs. Here’s a few samples of what folks are saying (follow the links to read the full review):

• A Shade of Keller affirms Don’s notion that TOaD is very much a book directed towards men:

Miller’s humour is laced throughout the book, but is definitely directed at a male audience. He warns the reader that this is the case. He makes no beefs about it, which I’m glad. Women may benefit from reading this book (especially single moms whose boys are entering the tweens or teens). There were a few chapters of this book that I really resonated with and I’m sure that any male would. The book is definitely worth reading, so I will give it a 7.5 shades out of a possible 10. Miller’s brutal honesty is refreshing and revealing so be prepared for more shocker comments from his mind and heart.

• Steve Sheppard has some strong thoughts after reading the first chapter:

Now I have brand new tires, expensive tires, and no one knows what to say. They look at me with a sense of fear, because I crossed into some forbidden, lucky zone, or grabbed a bar and raised myself up a notch, and where will he be in a month? they wonder. I work the tires off and there are more windows, and the lady has no desire for me to stop washing, so I get rims. Aluminum rims, swirly ones from a special catalogue customers haven’t seen yet, and I have to order them, and they put them on for a case of Coors Lights, and now I have swirling, shiny rims and black, new tires with deep tread, and mouths are agape. Shepherd my sheep.

I was a new man. I stayed up late sanding my Bronco and painting it, and I start filling my tank full of gas, instead of putting three bucks in at a time, and I apply to colleges and get in and at the age of 23, not a moment too soon, I’m the f— out of there, never to look back, or take up a squeegy again. Tend my sheep.

• Betsy Zabel describes how she devours a new Miller tome after its release:

So when I get one of his books, it is customary for me to spend a good chunk of a day reading it. And it is not uncommon for me to finish the book and feel like I have just concluded a 3 hour prayer session. I am quiet and contemplative; but also, this profound peace settles into me, kind of like when you have awakened from a long nap in the late afternoon and you wonder if you accidentally slept through a whole day rather than just an hour.

He said some stuff in there that made me instantly start underlining. He made me laugh a little too hard for the library setting. Throughout the next week, I will casually open the book a few more times to re-read my underlinings- the jokes and the theological sentiments that have impressed me. Now is the first time I am doing this (even though I finished it 8 minutes ago), and I take great delight in it. I would like to share a few of my favorites, and I will try me best to make it a few:

• Stephen Shields’s wife has found TOaD uproariously funny:

Although it’s written for men, I was laughing so hard, my husband kept telling me, “Be quiet, you’re going to wake the girls!” Thoughtful and honest, Miller details his insecurities and foibles with poignancy, and says to the rest of us perhaps the most “Christian” thing we can say to one another: “You’re not alone.”

• Josh Bobbitt finds a lot of himself in Don’s discussions about personal vulnerability in relationships:

You see, there’s a tendency that I’ve been recognizing in myself lately, and it’s something that I have not yet been able to exactly articulate. And because I can’t yet articulate it, I haven’t figured out what to do about it. You might have experienced it firsthand. It’s in the way that I will rarely challenge you if you say something that I disagree with. And if I do challenge you, I’m usually content to back down fairly quickly. It’s the way that I have a lot of trouble talking about the things that are most important to me — when I get quiet and the conversation often degenerates into a lot of “y’know” and “um” and sentences that end with, “I don’t know.” It’s the way that I hate praying out loud, because I just can’t do it. I’ve been recognizing all of those things in myself, and I’ve been becoming increasingly frustrated with all of them, but completely unaware of what the problem was, or what to do about any of it.

It is at this point that I must defer to a man who said it better.

I notice I pull out of a conversation when it gets too personal. And depsite the strongest of invitations to connect, I feel, intrinsically, that the other person will eventually be burdened by his or her relationship with me. I find myself doing a great job at small talk, trying to be charming and all, but when it comes time for a person to actually know me, I run for the hills. Any ability I have to be charming also comes from this desire not to be a burden. If I am light and easy to be around, my community won’t throw me out, or they won’t meditate at night on what a wonderful world theirs would be if I were not involved. – Don Miller, To Own a Dragon

There it was, in black and white. A big chunk of what I had been struggling to articulate had been written on a page, and written well. I can’t possibly say it any better or add very much. I think this explains a lot about me, and why I’ve been struggling with some of the things that I have lately.

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