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Reviews tagging 'Death of parent'
How to Stay Married: The Most Insane Love Story Ever Told by Harrison Scott Key
8 reviews
kristapeters's review against another edition
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cursing, Pregnancy, and Infidelity
Minor: Death of parent
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
lyricallit's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
funny
fast-paced
4.0
Both funny and intensely heart-rending. I am glad I listened to the audio; Key reads it and his deadpan delivery had me stifling giggles over and over. He is very upfront about his faith and the role it will play in this memoir. Still, I wasn't totally ready for it. If you have any kind of religious trauma from American evangelicalism, you may need to tread lightly. But the inclusion is not all syrup and sunshine -- sometimes it is present to point out the very ways in which the hypocrisy of religious individuals AND communities added to their pain. There's a little of the familiar culture-war proselytizing in the end wrap-up I could have done without (oh yes and the frequent body shaming/fatphobia. Yes, Key, it still counts even when it's aimed at yourself)... but overall, an insightful, funny, reflective memoir.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Fatphobia and Body shaming
Moderate: Abandonment and Death of parent
rljenn's review
emotional
funny
sad
medium-paced
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Infidelity
Moderate: Death of parent, Death, Miscarriage, and Cancer
arianna_w's review against another edition
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
Perhaps my favorite read of 2023. Laugh out loud funny. Beautiful prose; almost unparalleled use of metaphors and similes. This is my first book by Harrison Scott Key. Now, I gotta go read his previous two.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Infidelity
Minor: Death of parent and Miscarriage
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
hannahcomer4d's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
5.0
I'm not sure how to explain this book.
It's like hearing a really juicy story about a tragedy, a marriage falling apart—but parts of the story feel so relatable that it's scary. You can't stop listening because you keep getting hints that worse things are going to happen, but also the title is literally about staying married, so somehow this has to work out, right?
It's beautifully written, funny, and gripping. I felt like the author talked about his faith as part of his life without it becoming preachy.
All in all, an excellent book. I highly recommend it.
It's like hearing a really juicy story about a tragedy, a marriage falling apart—but parts of the story feel so relatable that it's scary. You can't stop listening because you keep getting hints that worse things are going to happen, but also the title is literally about staying married, so somehow this has to work out, right?
It's beautifully written, funny, and gripping. I felt like the author talked about his faith as part of his life without it becoming preachy.
All in all, an excellent book. I highly recommend it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Infidelity and Mental illness
Moderate: Cancer, Death of parent, Suicidal thoughts, and Miscarriage
marcidarling's review against another edition
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
medium-paced
3.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Infidelity
Moderate: Cancer and Death of parent
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