Brian Zahnd's 46-day devotional through the season of Lent, beginning on Ash Wednesday and ending on Holy Saturday, is helpful, insightful, and overall enjoyable. I have not successfully read through an entire devotional book before, as I am not usually that interested in, but I appreciated this one. The season of Lent is important, and it's the most difficult season we encounter in the Church calendar. This book is a helpful companion during the Lenten journey. It can be rather simplistic at times, and Zahnd does not shy away from discounting and discrediting opposing viewpoints and hermeneutical approaches to the passages he reflects upon. Ultimately, this should not be surprising, given the title of the devotional, "The Unvarnished Jesus"; Zahnd's goal is to strip away the build-up and the lacquer that has covered up the portrait of Jesus he finds in Scripture, and this will ultimately lead him to make claims some might find different or surprising.