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Reviews tagging 'Pandemic/Epidemic'
How to Stay Married: The Most Insane Love Story Ever Told by Harrison Scott Key
2 reviews
amhud1030's review
challenging
emotional
hopeful
sad
medium-paced
4.0
Definitely agree that is an insane love story.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Miscarriage, Death of parent, Alcohol, Pandemic/Epidemic, Drug use, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Pregnancy, Grief, Addiction, Cancer, Abandonment, Infidelity, and Self harm
taylormargaret's review
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
sad
medium-paced
4.0
Alternatively hilarious and heartbreaking, and then both at the same time. Carrying this around for a couple days had people asking - “are you actually married?” I’m not, but I think this is as good a read for people who aren’t married as advice for those who are. Harrison poignantly says at his marriage’s breaking point: “Have you ever seen a living creature die? I’ve seen many. To see the life force rattle out of a body is a powerful thing, holy and horrible. Sometimes you try to stop it, sometimes you try to hurry it along, but mostly you behold and shutter. I watched something die on that driveway. This woman was no longer my wife. I was no longer her husband. We were just two children of God. That’s it. That’s all anybody is, in the end.”
Marriage is a covenant relationship that binds a man and woman together, but it doesn’t prevent them from being what they are - selfish, hurtful, prideful - it just means that there will always be a witness whose actions their sins impact more than any other person. Why would anyone even want to get married? Why would anyone want to invite another person to see how horrible they really are? Parts of this book had me thinking this very thing as I was shocked by the “Cold War” that Harrison and Lauren live in and the continual betrayals they both make against each other. There aren’t any easy solutions. There is just the truth of God’s love poured out of his people, who betray him over and over again. There is the truth that those who claim the name of Christ, like Harrison, are mystically empowered to pour out that love on their children, their neighbors, their wife’s boyfriend, and even that same wife.
I will be recommending to everyone.
Harrison’s descriptions of Southern life in mainline Protestantism, and Presbyterianism especially, were the comic highlight of the book for me. I don’t know if someone who grew up outwith these contexts would find these parts as enjoyable, but I do hope so.
Some highlighted lines:
✏️“Christmas carols could scarcely be found in our hymnal, with all their pagan compromise. Easter was celebrated, but the more learned among us suggested the bunnies and eggs had a secret affiliation to vernal equinoxes and sex cults” (21)
✏️“A Spotify algorithm had more charm. He had whatever the opposite of a personality is….I could tell you he seemed about as deep as bro country and possessed all the charm of an unsalted potato, but this would be a literary description powered by resentment” (40)
✏️“I think most divorces are merely a failure of imagination: you lose the capacity to conceive of a happy future. The two of you are like a wet pair of matches, hardly able to get the fire back. Why keep trying? The world is full of dry matches. All you need is a new one” (67)
✏️“I would have to leave the church and the good people who’d fed me the most delicious fried chicken and the Word of God, including the parts that nourished you to nourish others, to mow the lawns of the indigent and to carry communion trays of unleavened bread and grape juice to the homes of the destitute.” (80)
✏️“One of my issues with our grand old Waspy church is how they claimed to love prayer, but seemed, at least in the presence of others, too emotionally frigid to pray with the desperate specificity of, say, Jesus, who once begged God not to let him be tortured and murdered. Most Presbyterian petitions, by contrast, ran to the abstract: ‘Our Father in heaven, you are the Absolute Person, the Never-Changing-One, the I-Am-Who-I-Am, First and Last, Ever-Blessed Impassable God, invincible, holy, perfect, absolute, boundless, changeless, stainless, relentless, breathless, sleeveless, strapless, majestic, merciful, perpetual, plenipotentiary, radiant, sacred, sovereign, a meat lover’s supreme, with extra cheese. You are God. Abba. Father. Yahweh. Elohim. Jehovah. Adonai. Lord of Hosts. Ancient of Days. King of Kings and also of Leon.’” (94-95)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Marriage is a covenant relationship that binds a man and woman together, but it doesn’t prevent them from being what they are - selfish, hurtful, prideful - it just means that there will always be a witness whose actions their sins impact more than any other person. Why would anyone even want to get married? Why would anyone want to invite another person to see how horrible they really are? Parts of this book had me thinking this very thing as I was shocked by the “Cold War” that Harrison and Lauren live in and the continual betrayals they both make against each other. There aren’t any easy solutions. There is just the truth of God’s love poured out of his people, who betray him over and over again. There is the truth that those who claim the name of Christ, like Harrison, are mystically empowered to pour out that love on their children, their neighbors, their wife’s boyfriend, and even that same wife.
I will be recommending to everyone.
Harrison’s descriptions of Southern life in mainline Protestantism, and Presbyterianism especially, were the comic highlight of the book for me. I don’t know if someone who grew up outwith these contexts would find these parts as enjoyable, but I do hope so.
Some highlighted lines:
✏️“Christmas carols could scarcely be found in our hymnal, with all their pagan compromise. Easter was celebrated, but the more learned among us suggested the bunnies and eggs had a secret affiliation to vernal equinoxes and sex cults” (21)
✏️“A Spotify algorithm had more charm. He had whatever the opposite of a personality is….I could tell you he seemed about as deep as bro country and possessed all the charm of an unsalted potato, but this would be a literary description powered by resentment” (40)
✏️“I think most divorces are merely a failure of imagination: you lose the capacity to conceive of a happy future. The two of you are like a wet pair of matches, hardly able to get the fire back. Why keep trying? The world is full of dry matches. All you need is a new one” (67)
✏️“I would have to leave the church and the good people who’d fed me the most delicious fried chicken and the Word of God, including the parts that nourished you to nourish others, to mow the lawns of the indigent and to carry communion trays of unleavened bread and grape juice to the homes of the destitute.” (80)
✏️“One of my issues with our grand old Waspy church is how they claimed to love prayer, but seemed, at least in the presence of others, too emotionally frigid to pray with the desperate specificity of, say, Jesus, who once begged God not to let him be tortured and murdered. Most Presbyterian petitions, by contrast, ran to the abstract: ‘Our Father in heaven, you are the Absolute Person, the Never-Changing-One, the I-Am-Who-I-Am, First and Last, Ever-Blessed Impassable God, invincible, holy, perfect, absolute, boundless, changeless, stainless, relentless, breathless, sleeveless, strapless, majestic, merciful, perpetual, plenipotentiary, radiant, sacred, sovereign, a meat lover’s supreme, with extra cheese. You are God. Abba. Father. Yahweh. Elohim. Jehovah. Adonai. Lord of Hosts. Ancient of Days. King of Kings and also of Leon.’” (94-95)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Content Warnings
Graphic: Miscarriage, Infidelity, Grief, and Death of parent
Moderate: Blood, Abandonment, and Cancer
Minor: Mental illness, Addiction, Chronic illness, Alcoholism, Pandemic/Epidemic, and Physical abuse
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