church of his day and the church that my family attended have a lot in common. Music was considered evil, women wearing slacks was considered evil, women cutting their hair was considered evil, dancing was considered evil. There was a lot of things that those of us who attended the church school were sheltered from and never dreamed happened until we went out and sought them out for ourselves -- as Tobis did. Had Torode set this novel in any other time period or framed him in any other way, he would have been hard to believe. The reader sits back and says, "No one is that stupid." Tobias allows a prostitute to steal all of his money and then when her Madame forces her to return the money, he gives it right back to her! No one does that! Tobias does. Tobias is written in such a sweet, charming and innocent way that it's easy to believe that he would do the sweet, charming, innocent and colossally stupid things he does. We see a change in him throughout the book as he grows and learns to deal with things outside of his previous scope of knowledge. The Dirty Parts of the Bible: A Novel is simple, southern, fiction. It's bright and colorful and shines from the page with humor. I don't want to mislead you; you've read this book before. There are 101 books out there just like this one but, for me, Tobias, Crew, the Pastor, Ada, etc...they