When was the last time you read a genre-bending book? Meet my latest.
Book Details:
Author: Jen Hatmaker
Publish Date: 4/21/2020
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Pages: 256
Genre: Christian Self Help
Synopsis
New York Times bestselling author Jen Hatmaker, with cheeky candor and fearlessness, guides readers to a deep dive into how they are wired and provides them with the tools to walk in that identity with freedom and guts.
Stuck in people-pleasing or fear, many women hide and pretend, then end up sidelined in their own lives. But what they want is to be brave, to claim every gift, dream, quirk, and emotion inside, to stop performing and start living.
Beloved New York Times bestselling author Jen Hatmaker understands the struggle to find firm footing in a culture that operates from stereotypes and often unreachable expectations. In this new book, she offers women encouragement, challenge, and humor as she helps them identify everything that makes them tick and gain the confidence to live it all out. She leads them through five self-reflective categories—who I am, what I need, what I want, what I believe, and how I connect—and helps them:
- identify the exact ways they pretend, and learn instead how to be genuine at all times, in all ways, in all contexts;
- be empowered to say yes and no without guilt;
- learn to voice both their spiritual questions and convictions; and
- opt out of drama and into healthy adult relationships.
With wry humor, earnest passion, and been-there insight, Jen calls women to the life-giving freedom of leaning into the identity, convictions, and community they’ve been given.
Review
Enneagrams, Anne Lamott, Tina Fey, RBG – these are a few of my favorites things. And they are all in this book.
Each reader will find something different here. Some struggle with being too much, others not enough. Some have had the patriarchy so ingrained in them that breaking out of that mindset seems impossible. Others have stood up for what is right, despite what their social and religious circles have insisted on, and paid dearly.
I’ve followed Jen Hatmaker for years and I have seen the vicious attacks by the religious mean girls. I remember when she lost her book deal – after the books were on the shelves – when her husband and her spoke in support of their LGBTQ brothers and sisters.
So to have the opportunity to read and review her new book has been like coming home to a remodeled home – one that breaks the mold and encourages women to take up all the space they need.
I read this book in less than twelve hours. Like I said, each reader will find something different for their life. For me, there were several things but the most resounding was the encouragement for spiritual curiosity.
By nature readers are typically intellectually curious individuals. I also firmly believe that those who do not read or at least embrace the company of readers are missing out on a big part of the world. So why should that curiosity stop with secular texts that we read?
For those of us who were raised around religion that answer is simple: because they said so. They being pastors, teachers, mentors, etc.
This book systematically reconstructed my religious experience as a youth and as an adult and then swiftly tore it down with an answer for every piece of framework it removed. The freeing part? Hatmaker didn’t rebuild anything. That’s where the curiosity becomes important. And I didn’t necessarily need someone to tell me that it’s acceptable to question Scripture but it certainly did not hurt to hear the encouragement either.
There are plenty of other points of encouragement as well which ultimately lead the reader to create 12 statements about themself. These are obviously different for everyone and I am looking forward to creating my own.
This book is perfect for nearly anyone – from the person who has been hurt by religion, to the exhausted mom, to the person who is in a career transition, to the individual worn down by the hatred in our world, or simply someone who is so tired of modern-day religion that insists that there is one belief system and if you dare to ask questions then you simply do not fit.
Thank you to TLC Book Tours, Thomas Nelson, and Jen Hatmaker for my gifted copy of this book, both on eNetGalley and hard copy formats in exchange for my honest review.
This book is available today from your local bookstore or you can enter to win one of two copies here!
Giveaway ends Sunday, 4/26 at midnight. Sorry, US entrants only. Due to COVID, please be patient with shipping times. Giveaway not affiliated with Instagram.
Purchase Links
About Jen Hatmaker
Jen Hatmaker is the author of the New York Times bestseller Of Mess and Moxie (plus twelve other books) and the host of the For the Love! with Jen Hatmaker podcast. She and her husband, Brandon, founded the Legacy Collective and also starred in the popular series My Big Family Renovation on HGTV. Jen is a mom to five, a sought-after speaker, and a delighted resident of Austin, Texas, where she and her family are helping keep Austin weird.
Connect with Jen
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