I know a book is a winner when I'm pausing every few pages to write down a quote or to linger with something that is resonating with my heart. The Night Is Normal is just such a book. I'm so grateful for the way Alicia Britt Chole writes, normalizing the hard seasons of our life and what that means for our faith. This is a gentle, encouraging, challenging book that I highly recommend.

I'm a fan of Dr. Alicia Britt Chole's work, and this is no exception. The Night is Normal is a guide through spiritual pain and disillusionment. So often, these emotions are negated, judged, or outright rejected in the church, but Dr. Chole sheds light on the very normal experience of spiritual pain in the process of spiritual growth and how to walk through that darkness into greater intimacy and knowledge of our Creator.

Some might find it a bit repetitive in parts, but I really enjoyed it throughout.

Thank you to NetGalley and Tyndale for a digital arc. All opinions are my own.

Another insightful read from Alicia! While I feel I took away more from her previous book Anonymous, this book was a beautiful exploration of dark nights of the soul. She shines a light on scripture, stories, and reflections that focus on what can be learned during dark seasons of life. I liked the shorter chapters but felt like the thesis was a little disorganized. Overall still well worth the read!

This book is wonderful. You can tell that the author has grown incredibly over the course of her work, and the way she tackles such a sensitive topic is profound, convicting and impactful. She doesn’t shy away from the emotional components of walking through the “dark night of the soul,” but does so with the tenacity and thoroughness of a researcher - pulling in sources and backing up her words with theological clarity.

The only downside to this was the format - it made it incredibly challenging for me to read and felt like it chopped the book up. I tried it both on the netgalley app and the kindle app and neither was helpful.

Broken into the four sections listed below, The Night Is Normal includes 51 chapters that are about 5-6 pages each. The bite-size chapters helped keep the book moving and made a potentially overwhelming topic more approachable. That said, the book would be stronger if it were cut by about 25%-30%. It became repetitive and I found myself thinking "why was this chapter included? what does it add?" multiple times.

That said, there were a few quotes that definitely stood out. Two examples:

“Throughout the Gospels, Jesus’ “Follow me” never included GPS coordinates. Following has always been more about who we are with than where we are going. This is why our trust muscles get more of a workout in the night (when we cannot self‑ guide) than in the day (when we think we can).”

“Sincere questions are not half as lethal to our faith as denied doubt.”

Book sections:
1. Navigating the Night
2. Disillusionment with God
3. Disillusionment with Self
4. Disillusionment with Others

This book does a good job of defining and discussing the term "disillusionment" in terms of spiritual growth. When one loses something they were disillusioned with, G-d is opening the door to be more grounded in reality and a chance to grow. Defining this and giving a few solid examples is what Chloe does well (and her dissertation was basically on it, so that's not surprising!). This is such good and hard work that doesn't get talked about in the church because failure, loss, or new layers of ways to see G-d and a deeper relationship with G-d can be scary, isolating, or even driving away from other Christians. However, she is so incredibly long winded--this book should've been at least a hundred pages less. You'll really enjoy this book if you like lots of details and definitions of terms to the point of tedium. Yet, there's also dangerous precedent in some of her conclusions that can possibly be set as groundwork for gaslighting within the church and oneself. The majority of highlight-able quotes I had came from other theologians and thinkers like St. John of the Cross or Oswald Chambers in postulating on dark nights of the soul and other hard spiritual disappointment and growth.

Thanks to NetGalley for the e-arc. This is a stunning book exploring the reality of spiritual darkness with hope and faith. It’s the kind of book I want to give to all my friends and have on my nightstand to return to time and again for its wisdom and kindness.