Welcome to Litsy!

4 ⭐. Religious memoir about the author's diagnosis with stage 4 cancer.

This week I discovered a new-to-me podcast, entitled Everything Happens with Kate Bowler. Kate Bowler is the author of several books, including Everything Happens for a Reason, and Other Lies I‘ve Loved. Before I decide to follow a podcast, I like to scroll through and see what topics are discussed and who their guests are. Her very first guest back back in February 2018 was one of my favorite authors, Nadia Bolz-Weber. I‘m hooked.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2. My sister-in-law read this when she went through a really tough time last year, and passed it along to me this year. Even though the book is about grief and the author‘s personal story of her cancer diagnosis, it‘s such a comfort to read. Plus I love her snarky humor. I highly recommend.

I have become a full-on fan girl of Kate Bowler as I'm obsessed with her podcast Everything Happens. Having experienced the loss of two people close to me in four months, Kate's messages about grief, hope, life and being human resonate. Her book is so vulnerable and honest and even though I read it, I could hear her voice in my head. Even though I already knew Kate's story, this book was well worth the read.

Something thoughtful to listen to on a cold December day. I was in the mood for something slightly substantial and this was perfect.

⭐️⭐️⭐️ I did this backward. I read Bowler‘s newest book “No Cure for Being Human” first. In it, she references this one, but now having read both in the same month, they‘ve run together. Too much repetition. So, don‘t be like me. Here, Bowler openly speaks of her diagnosis and treatment for late stage cancer. As a religious scholar, wife, and new mother, she tries to reconcile her life. It‘s obviously a tough read, but poignant, and worthwhile.

it's very sad. i got tired of waiting to read something positive, something insightful. it was only the last 2 pages which had some positivity and then the book was over. this was a disappointment.

I‘ve enjoyed her podcast long before having time to read and enjoy her book.

4/5

A really interesting novel about Kate Bowler's experience of grief amid her own stage 4 cancer diagnosis and treatment. I really enjoy her podcast, and this book dives really deep into her personal experience with pain and grief. It's a wonderful book, that doesn't shy away from hard questions.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

“See?” I say to my dad. “I‘m not a normal person.”
“No,” he says softly, reaching out to pull me to him. “You‘re a superhero. But I wish you didn‘t have to be.”

Kate Bowler was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer. She also happens to be a professor at Duke Divinity School, studying the prosperity gospel. This is a memoir about her journey from diagnosis through treatment. It‘s funny one page and heartbreaking the next.

Beautiful.

I LOVED this memoir by a woman who was diagnosed with Stage IV colon cancer in her early 30s, and found it to be enlightening, funny, bold, sassy, and endearing. Other critiques didn‘t like the prosperity gospel tidbits throughout the book, but I found it somewhat true of our culture at large, with the prevalent idea that you “deserve” good things if you work hard and believe even harder. I found her comebacks to that premise strong and solid.

This wasn‘t quite what I was expecting but I admit I went in cold. What I am leaving with is finally understanding what a prosperity church is all about. I didn‘t realize that‘s what those mega churches are all about. There are a number of problems with their thinking, not the least of which is that if you have cancer it‘s your own fault. She highlights how that affected her throughout her treatment.

Day 1 - #Reason #QuotsySept19

I will die, yes, but not today

I have taken 3 naps today, starting at 10 am, with heating pads draped over various joints of my body - this is a forced [fibro] rest day. Highlight of the day so far was sitting on the front porch with #Pippin reading the first 1/3 of this book for an hour, before I got too sore from sitting and had to come in. Maybe tomorrow I can squeeze in a run/walk before church!🤞#BookFitnessChallenge #BFC @wanderinglynn #bostonterriersoflitsy #dogsoflitsy

"It was certainty, plain and simple, that God had a worthy plan for my life in which every setback would also be a step forward. I wanted God to make me good and make me faithful, with just a few shining accolades along the way. Anything would do if hardships were only detours on my long life's journey. I believed God would make a way.

I don't believe that anymore."

I guess Bill Gates and I have different taste in books. Meh. Not what I was expecting, and too much of what I wasn't expecting.

I do feel like I can judge in a more non-biased view given my own diagnosis. Every cancer memoir that is published is going to influence people‘s view about our illness, mortality, etc. None of us can know what‘s to come, religion won‘t tell us the truth. To me, she explored (and over shared) her religion. This was more of a religious book then a cancer memoir. Was she still a televangelist and believed in the prosperity gospel? I don‘t know. 2/5.

A complex and beautiful memoir. Kate tells a story of being in the middle of hard things, the questions we ask, what is important, and whom and what matters without trivializing her experience. #bookclubreads

Live unburdened. Live free. Live without forevers that don‘t always come 😷🏥⏳

“...we just can‘t know...our brains fill in all the details, for good or for ill. We want to tell ourselves a story - any story- so we can get back to certainty.”

I enjoyed this book very much. Kind of a quick read but mainly because I didn‘t want to put it down. We are all dying, it was insightful to hear more about her journey.

Another jesusy one! Why is this happening to meeeeeeeee

I really thought this was going to be ANTI jesusy, from the title, and the description. And even the first, like 60% of it. Alas, no.

It was certainty, plain and simple that God had a worthy plan for my life in which every set back would also be a step forward.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/26/opinion/sunday/cancer-what-to-say.html
#memoir
Kate Bowler, a professor of Christian history at Duke University who specials in the history of the Prosperity Gospel, discovers she has Stage IV colon cancer at the age of 35. This is her memoir. I have no background in the Prosperity Gospel, but as I read I could recognize it in American culture. This is raw,funny, gut wrenching, uplifting.

It was a little confusing. I do not agree with the Prosperity Gospel and I was not even sure Kate did, but she wrote a dissertation on it so it was the basis for a this book on her finding out she had colon cancer and the struggle she had fighting it. Enjoyed parts.

Really enjoyed the first chapter and a couple chapters towards the end, but the middle of this book was super boring. I feel like this whole book would have been better served as a blog post.

Things not to say to people experiencing terrible times.

Love this!!

Yes!! This!!

#bothand #theology

😂😂😂

#truth #preach #prosperitygospel #control

😂😂😂

#savedbythebell

One of the many reasons I hate prosperity gospel.

#badtheology #theology #prosperitygospel

#readingbuddy #catsoflitsy #cat #kitty

Excellent read. Echoes of “The Bright Hour” and even “When Breath Becomes Air”. The author is living with stage IV cancer and her insights are poignant and funny. A Christian perspective, but not preachy. For anyone, but especially people with loved ones with cancer.

"What if rich did not have to mean wealthy, and whole did not have to mean healed? What of being people of "the gospel"meant we are simply people with good news? God is here. We are loved. It is enough."

I have mixed feelings about this book. While the book wrecked me emotionally (see: she tells her husband he's her bucket list 😭😭😭) it also felt disjointed in places and I sometimes had a hard time following.

Takeaways: Never tell a terminally ill person that everything happens for a reason, God needs an angel, or it could be worse.

First, ALAN ALDA HAS A PODCAST!
Second, this interview with Kate Bowler about the tagged book was excellent. She is an amazing human. Has anyone read the book?

Poignant, and somehow lovely and fortifying.

“... they feel the English language has reached its limit in a time of inarticulate sorrow.”

"I had my own prosperity gospel. A flowering weed grown in with all the rest."

This was an interesting memoir of a woman diagnosed with colon cancer. She is a historian of the "prosperity gospel" and sprinkles facts about this along the way. As a person who has struggled with my own health issues and my faith I found this book struck a chord with me. There were tears, times I chuckled out loud, rolled my eyes and nodded in agreement.

The promise of heaven to me is this: someday I will get a new set of lungs and I will swim away. But first I will drown.

I am preparing for death and everyone else is on Instagram.

🤷‍♀️? 😇? 😔?

This #audiobook is amazing. Oh my gosh, it‘s sad, but the author‘s voice brings her experience so close. Kate Bowler‘s research into prosperity gospel and her frank discussion of her cancer diagnosis and treatment results in a moving, compelling memoir.

Just got this from the library. I can't count how many people have recommended it to me.

Kate Bowler writes honestly about living with an incurable form of cancer. She lives from as she says “scan to scan” and tries to savor every minute she has with her family. Bowler discusses living in this in between space of not knowing how much time she has. This book isn‘t a downer. I love that she includes a section on what to say and what NOT to say to those going through a rough time.

In this short memoir, author & cancer patient Kate Bowler gets right to the point— staring down one‘s inevitable death is daunting, and yet through her faith and the support of her family she glares in the face of the cancer that‘s killing her and keeps fighting. Although I wish I‘d gotten a little more detail out of this (á la When Breath Becomes Air) this is still a quick, emotional read.