Everything Happens
for a Reason
(And Other Lies I’ve Loved)
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
ABOUT THE BOOK
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
Kate 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.
Then she is diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer.
The 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.
Frank 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.
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DISCUSSION
QUESTIONS
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ENDORSEMENTS
“[A] wonderful new memoir . . . Everything Happens belongs on the shelf alongside other terrific books about this difficult subject, like Paul Kalanithi’s When Breath Becomes Air and Atul Gawande’s Being Mortal. . . . It’s inspiring to see this thoughtful woman face such weighty topics with honesty and humor.”
Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
“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? Everything Happens for a Reason is art in its highest form, and Kate Bowler is a true artist—with the pen, and with her life.”
Glennon Doyle, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Love Warrior and president of Together Rising
“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. And it happens to be hilarious. Above all, though, this is a love letter to life, and it’s gorgeous.”
Lucy Kalanithi, MD, FACP, clinical assistant professor of medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine
“Bowler’s lovely prose and sharp wit capture her struggle to find continued joy after her [stage IV cancer] diagnosis. This poignant look at the unpredictable promises of faith will amaze readers.”
Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“[Bowler’s] dry humor and raw, personal accounts help make thinking about our common fate bearable.”
The Wall Street Journal
“A page-turner of lasting force . . . Bowler wields a sharp pen, one that flows seamlessly through comic terrain, pausing for laugh-out-loud one-liners . . . as it probes death and dying young with aching poignancy.”
Chicago Tribune
“This is a beautifully written, intelligent, soulful book, necessary reading for all of us who long to walk faithfully and honestly through the darkest and most desolate of seasons.”
Shauna Niequist, New York Times bestselling author of Present Over Perfect
“The Kate Bowler you will come to know in this book is 100 percent real: honest, brave, holy, ridiculous, profane, hilarious, human—her fierce and beautiful words will make you ugly-cry and laugh out loud inappropriately in public places, and they will make you long for the courage to tell the truth about your life.”
Amy K. Butler, senior minister, The Riverside Church
“[Bowler] delivers raw emotion, realistic description, and candid assessments . . . An inspiring story of finding faith—in God, in family, and in oneself—while walking close to the Valley of the Shadow of Death.”
Kirkus Reviews
The world of Kate Bowler is beautiful.
She’s a four-time New York Times bestselling author, award-winning podcast host, and Professor of Religious History at Duke University. She also has two honorary doctorates, an award from Yale University for service to theological education, and seven books to her credit. Additionally, she is the only person ever to hold the prestigious titles of mother to Zach and wife of Toban.
The world of Kate Bowler is terrible.
At 35, Kate was blindsided by Stage IV cancer and the aftermath of its grueling treatment. After that colossal suck and her subsequent recovery, Kate began to rethink pretty much everything she thought she knew about life, loss, grief, and even joy.
The world of Kate Bowler is as human as it gets.
She is on a mission to unravel our complicated humanness. She’s not looking to add to the cultural library of lovely stories about hard work and positive attitudes and yet-to-be-revealed reasons things happen. Because those lovely stories are fiction, and Kate knows that an ugly truth will always serve us better than a beautiful lie.
