I ordered her next book -- out in August -- before I completed [b:Carry On, Warrior: Thoughts on Life Unarmed|15802944|Carry On, Warrior Thoughts on Life Unarmed|Glennon Doyle Melton|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1359054516s/15802944.jpg|21526100]. So, yes, she can write. And I'm almost jealous of her skill -- Jeez, I'd love to write that stuff! But Glennon's stuff grows from so much addiction & woundedness -- like nothing I've ever known -- that I'm just glankful (glad & thankful) that someone has the courage and heart to do it. I laughed right out loud more than once and came close to tears just as often.

"Hi, I'm Glennon. I'm a recovering, well, everything, and most recently I've been struggling with isolation and intimacy with my husband and I've been getting quite angry with my kids for no reason. I feel awful about these things. But yoga is helping. Also deep breaths and baths. How are you?"

"Since brokenness is the way of folks the only way to live peacefully is to forgive everyone constantly, including yourself."

"Life is hard -- not because we're doing it wrong, just because it's hard."

"So that's why I write. My memories change ever so slightly. Reality and writing work together to create my memories, and the final result is that I remember events more beautifully than they actually happened. Or maybe in writing them down, I'm able to see for the first time how beautiful they really were."

"Grief is not something to be fixed. It's something to be borne, together. And when the time is right, there is always something that is born from it. After real grief, we are reborn as people with wider and deeper vision and greater compassion for the pain of others."

If you love Anne Lamott, think [b:Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith|10890|Traveling Mercies Some Thoughts on Faith|Anne Lamott|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1403182174s/10890.jpg|14837], I know you'll want to hang out with Glennon. ( )

2.5 stars. This was much more a collection of essays than a memoir, and they didn't really come together in a way that made a cohesive whole. There was no sense of timeline. I liked some of what she had to say. I sort of disagree with the blurb that calls it "hilairious and poignant." One of the things that drew me to the book was Melton's notion that it's important to be our true selves and share our stories. It's just that in the actual reading, she still often came off as trite. ( )

I like a few of Glennon's parenting posts but most of her "honest" musings don't ring very honest to me. And she really lost me with the birthday pity rant. Blech. ( )

Glennon Doyle Melton is a born-again Christian, and I am--at most--an agnostic, so why did I love this book so much? First of all, she is hilariously funny, even when I suspect she is playing up her ditziness for effect. She could not be this good of a writer, and actually be quite as flighty as she describes herself to be sometimes. I laughed a lot while reading this, and I love to laugh. Second, she is born-again, as I put it to my dear minister friend when I recommended the book to her, "in the best possible way." For Melton, loving Jesus is all about striving to be the best, most compassionate person she can be, and being honest and open about just about everything (her weaknesses as a mom and as a human being, her checkered past) on her Momastery blog (where many of these essays originally ran). In a really interesting chapter called The Golden Coin, in which she reflects on confidence and humility in the context of her faith, she concludes: "Be confident because you are a child of God. Be humble because everyone else is too." Those are words I can certainly get behind, without actually joining the flock. And I don't want to give anything away (can you do that in a book of essays?), but I love, love, loved this bit towards the end: " . . . there is as much beauty in your destiny as there was in your dream. Let go and believe that whatever it is, it will be beautiful." Amen. ( )

Glennon is the most transparent, authentic, heartfelt, and inspiring woman! I can’t read a single page of her books without feeling those familiar tugs on the strings of my heart. She reminds us who God is and who we are and encourages and inspires. Glennon says early on, “I want to die used up and emptied out.” And I couldn’t agree more. This book is beautiful and I think everyone...especially every woman should read it! ( )