Awake by Jen Hatmaker Book Review

About the Book:

At 2:30 a.m. on July 11, 2020, Jen Hatmaker woke up to her husband of twenty-six years whispering in his phone to another woman from their bed. It was the end of life as she knew it. In the months that followed, she went from being a shiny, funny, popular leader to a divorced wreck on antidepressants and antianxiety meds, parenting five kids alone with no clue about the functioning of her own bank accounts. Having led millions of women for over a decade—urging them to embrace authenticity, find radical agency, and create healthy relationship—she felt like a catastrophic failure.

In Awake, Jen shares for the first time what happened when she found herself completely lost at sea—and how she made it to shore. In candid, sur­prisingly funny vignettes spanning forty years of girlhood, marriage, and parenting, Jen lays bare the disorienting upheaval of midlife—the implosion of a marriage, the unraveling of religious and cultural systems, and the grief that accompanies change you didn’t ask for. And, drawing on all resources—from without and within—Jen dares to question the systems beneath the whole house of cards, and to reckon with the myths, half-truths, and lies that brought her to this point.

My Review:

This is an entertaining and enlightening memoir. Hatmaker is refreshingly honest about the breakup of her marriage. It is a good account of someone whose life is suddenly upended yet manages to come through the experience with understanding. I was amazed at the extent of support she had from family and friends. I was a little surprised that she did not reveal overly much of her own possible causes for the split. I was happy to see that she did not trash talk her husband too. She includes some surprising humor.

Hatmaker's situation is a bit unique in that she is a well known Christian author. She adds some swearing and wine drinking here to perhaps show her next stage of life. She jumps around a bit, giving a short chapter on current events, then one going back in history. It almost felt like random journal entries.

The book is well written but I am not sure how much help it will be to women facing a similar life experience, Hatmaker being well known and with such a large support system.

My rating: 4/5 stars.

About the Author:

Jen Hatmaker is the author of fourteen books, including four New York Times bestsellers, and the host of the award-winning podcast For the Love. She is an author, podcaster, speaker, advocate, educator, mother, and a textbook Enneagram 3. Photograph by Mackenzie Smith.

Avid Reader Press, 320 pages.

I received a complimentary egalley of this book from the publisher. My comments are an independent  review.

(My star ratings: 5-I love it, 4-I like it, 3-It's OK, 2-I don't like it, 1-I hate it.)