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  • Everything Happens for a Reason

  • And Other Lies I've Loved
  • Written by: Kate Bowler
  • Narrated by: Kate Bowler
  • Length: 4 hrs and 32 mins
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars (73 ratings)

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Everything Happens for a Reason

Written by: Kate Bowler
Narrated by: Kate Bowler
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Publisher's Summary

New York Times best seller

"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." (Lucy Kalanithi)

"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." (Bill Gates)

Named one of the best books of the year by Real Simple

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 35, 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, megachurch 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.

Praise for Everything Happens for a Reason:

“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?” (Glennon Doyle, number-one New York Times best-selling author of Love Warrior and president of Together Rising)

©2018 Kate Bowler (P)2018 Random House Audio

What the critics say

"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, number-one New York Times best-selling author of Love Warrior and president of Together Rising)

"Bowler's dry humor and raw, personal accounts help make thinking about our common fate bearable." (The Wall Street Journal)

"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)

What listeners say about Everything Happens for a Reason

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

raw and real and beautiful.

I loved this book from beginning to end. I'm grateful for Kate Bowlers willingness to tell her story. Thank you for this.

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

So validating! No sunshine & good vibes needed!

Kate Bowler has a way with words that makes you feel like you are listening to a friend. As someone who has spent numerous years uncovering a medical condition and who now lives in a body that isn’t “optimal” it’s been hard to find a perspective that fit with how I feel. It isn’t until faced with illness , and mortality, that we realize how fragile our lives and bodies are. I have listened to all of her podcasts, and books and can’t wait for the next new one. Thank you Kate for allowing us to exhale and not have to “good vibes only” our way in this toxic positivity world!!!

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

The best storyteller and author I've encountered!

Thank you Kate Bowler, I'm glad I added this book to the list of books written from you that I've read! You are magic!

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

A meditation on death.

This book is uncomfortable, unflinching, honest, and above all, beautiful.

I'm coming to this book late, having enjoyed seasons of Kate Bowler's (and her talented team's) podcast, Everything Happens.

This is written right at the onset of a stage 4 diagnosis, and you feel the uncertainty and immediacy of Kate's words.

It is well worth your time, and I'm so thankful that Kate has written this, and performed it herself.

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1 person found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

excellent book! must read

this book was really well done and should be read by everyone. it's relatable and really good advice of one person's experience with cancer. well not everyone's experience will be the same the generalizations are.

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1 person found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Great listen! Also interesting to hear the author

Great overall, had a few cries in the car while listening. A few moments of humour may've not been perfectly delivered but somehow brings a lot of laughs to a very real and sad story.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Good rendition

This audiobook is perfect. The voice over had the emotions that makes the listener to be empathetic. I recommend this for any one who is probing to find some reason in everything. Take life as such and start loving it.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Required reading

Thank you Kate Bowler for your beautiful words and phrases and insights that helped me feel less alone. I am so grateful I found your book when I did. As I listened, I wanted to live inside the words of this book and to never stop hearing your voice narrate your deep personal heartbreaking joyful horrible story - it was funny at times and brilliant and awful. I’m so sorry you endured this struggle. As I listened I felt like you were holding my hand - reminding me that I was not alone. I listened and your voice and story helped me brace myself white knuckling through the hard road of my own life. I found your book just as my six year old son suddenly went blind from his rare brain tumour. For the first time since my son’s diagnosis, I felt seen - in your words. I have so much more to say. But for now- thank you for writing this book and thank you for knowing we are here needing to hear that we are not alone in the fellowship of the afflicted. (And for helping our friends say more sensitive things when trying to help)

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

So needed

Just what I needed while going through what feels like insurmountable grief. No glossing over the hard, refreshingly real.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Suffering

Kate shares with deep vulnerability. The scope of personal suffering and for those nearest and dearest to her is instructive. It makes me wonder how I enter into other’s suffering.

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