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Jo's avatar

Really excellent reflection, Christy. I found the book so challenging to think about for many of the same reasons you mention here. It was particularly tough to resist the cultural knee-jerk acceptance of infidelity as a justification for divorce while reading because Key’s wife acted so downright stupidly over and over again. As the story develops we learn this is rooted in some deep family wounds that shed additional light in her weaknesses and motivations, but, ugh.

The writing was brilliant, especially when chapters mirror the structure and style of different parts of scripture. I especially appreciated hearing such a vulnerable sharing of his emotional & spiritual journey as a man/husband/father, which is also rare in media these days. There are a surprising number of Goodreads reviews complaining that the book was too “Jesus-y,” which made me super depressed about our society’s colossal ignorance of scripture, both as a religious text but also its significance as literature. I don’t know what they were expecting, but lots of readers totally missing the entire point of the book, as well as how Key masterfully crafted the story stylistically. Usually I don’t pay much attention to other reviews but this really got under my skin. I kept thinking, “Hello people-Have you never heard of Job or Hosea?!”

I hesitate to say I *enjoyed* this book, because it details a lot of ugly realities of human nature that, for lack of a better phrase, just “feel icky”. While we do need to find more ways to honestly discuss the realities and challenges of marriage in our current culture, it takes immense virtue to do so in a delicate way that doesn’t turn into fatalistic ruminations that ogle at the tragedy of broken marriages and families more than foster hope and encouragement in pursuing that never-ending forgiveness and purification in our relationships. My husband and I recently started participating in the mentor couple program at our parish, and I was surprised at how hard it was to be encouraging without being saccharine and also highlight challenges without being discouraging. We haven’t been married nearly as long as you have, but definitely feeling that the mystery of it all continues to deepen with time. I could go on, but the book offers a lot of food for thought.

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Leisha's avatar

So glad you picked up this book and wrote about it and why it's galvanizing. I so appreciate it and you'd have made an excellent canon lawyer. (For so many reasons, this book was needed, is needed, and I hope we keep talking about it. Whether you are on the outside looking in, found yourself on the driveway in a heap with Lauren or on the couch with Harrison, this memoir is for every married, once married, or discerning person. It had me so invested and the dividends are paying off in my own marriage. What a beautiful and real story of redemption and what marriage does and can look like. Brutally funny and gut-wrenchingly honest. My favourite "adult" read this year.

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