{"product_id":"everything-happens-for-a-reason-and-other-lies-ive-loved-1","title":"Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I've Loved","description":"NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “A meditation on sense-making when there’s no sense to be made, on letting go when we can’t hold on, and on being unafraid even when we’re terrified.”—Lucy Kalanithi\n\nNAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY REAL SIMPLE\n\nKate Bowler is a professor at Duke Divinity School with a modest Christian upbringing, but she specializes in the study of the prosperity gospel, a creed that sees fortune as a blessing from God and misfortune as a mark of God’s disapproval. At thirty-five, everything in her life seems to point toward “blessing.” She is thriving in her job, married to her high school sweetheart, and loves life with her newborn son.\n\nThen she is diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer.\n\nThe prospect of her own mortality forces Kate to realize that she has been tacitly subscribing to the prosperity gospel, living with the conviction that she can control the shape of her life with “a surge of determination.” Even as this type of Christianity celebrates the American can-do spirit, it implies that if you “can’t do” and succumb to illness or misfortune, you are a failure. Kate is very sick, and no amount of positive thinking will shrink her tumors. What does it mean to die, she wonders, in a society that insists everything happens for a reason? Kate is stripped of this certainty only to discover that without it, life is hard but beautiful in a way it never has been before.\n\nFrank and funny, dark and wise, Kate Bowler pulls the reader deeply into her life in an account she populates affectionately with a colorful, often hilarious retinue of friends, mega-church preachers, relatives, and doctors. Everything Happens for a Reason tells her story, offering up her irreverent, hard-won observations on dying and the ways it has taught her to live.\n\nPraise for Everything Happens for a Reason\n\n“I fell hard and fast for Kate Bowler. Her writing is naked, elegant, and gripping—she’s like a Christian Joan Didion. I left Kate’s story feeling more present, more grateful, and a hell of a lot less alone. And what else is art for?”—Glennon Doyle, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Love Warrior and president of Together Rising\u003cbr\u003eASIN: 0399592083\u003cbr\u003eVSKU: DBV.0399592083.A\u003cbr\u003eCondition: Acceptable\u003cbr\u003eAuthor\/Artist:Bowler, Kate\u003cbr\u003eBinding: Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eNote:\u003c\/b\u003e Any images shown are stock photographs and product may differ from what is shown.  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eCondition Notes\u003c\/b\u003e: This copy has clearly been enjoyed—expect noticeable shelf wear and some minor creases to the cover. Binding is strong, and all pages are legible. May contain previous library markings or stamps.  \u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Dream Books Co.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":41445131780154,"sku":"DBV.0399592083.A","price":6.16,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0555\/6011\/0138\/files\/0399592083-0.jpg?v=1780686474","url":"https:\/\/shop.dreambooksco.com\/products\/everything-happens-for-a-reason-and-other-lies-ive-loved-1","provider":"Dream Books Co.","version":"1.0","type":"link"}