Thank you to Net Galley and the publisher for this copy.

I liked reading this book, even though I may not fall into the target audience. We as women hear such stories around us so often, that we find is easier to empathize, as I did with the author here. The writing is excellent, and surprisingly breezy, even with the heavy subject matter.
I was inspired by the author's display of resilience through the entire situation, which really can be applicable in any tough situation. Her self reflection and desire to find a way out not just for her, but everyone involved is great and just proves how much she stands apart from her husband as a person who cares for everyone including herself, and wants to build a better future.

All in all it is a good read, and I would definitely recommend it to people going through a separation or divorce.

Sometimes books like this are hard for me to read going through a divorce myself, but I thought it was intense, raw and emotional. It definitely makes you take a step back and look through the situations that you may have at hand through a different lens.

After a couple rough starts, I settled into this book last night. It was honest, though provoking, and a great read. I could not put it down and finished about 1:30 this morning!! Thank you NetGalley for the ARC of this book.

What an extraordinary read! I read this mostly on an airplane and it was the perfect engrossing read. The story isn't new, but the writing is fresh, raw and real. I'll definitely be ordering a copy for my library's collection.

The Buddha at My Table is an intensely felt memoir of betrayal, divorce, and redemption. The author’s journey to wholeness is unsparing in its candor and inspiring to all scarred by infidelity’s wounds. 5 Stars

Thanks to She Writes Press and NetGalley for the review copy. Opinions are fully mine.

#TheBuddhaAtMyTable #NetGalley

Readers will be captivated by the bold storytelling and colorful expression, The Buddha at My Table is an honest journey through the death of a marriage and rebirth of one of life’s most unnurtured forces: resilience.

Going through a divorce at the time of reading this book, I found myself more in conversation with Tammy. She provided an in-depth look into her divorce, how the marriage ended, how she processed it and the impact it had on all around her.

I found this book to be extremely helpful in processing where I was in my divorce and the end of over a two decade relationship with my wife. I appreciate Tammy's candid and open book story she shared.

This is a title that you find yourself wanting to highlight and reflect upon, and re-read with a different eye than you started with. On it's face it is the story of a husband, Dave, appearing strongly narcissistic and cruel, casually dumping the mother load of pain on his unsuspecting wife and mother of his three children, Tammy. Has never been faithful and has decided that he isn't made to be a monogamist......just ask his current girlfriend. Tammy is so blind-sided that she literally is brought to her knees. And there she remains for much of the story in ways literal and figurative, cycling through all the stages of grief that one does with a loss. As a counselor myself, I have tried to help people unravel themselves from their history with this person to see the path to this new journey that has been thrust upon them......to mindfully take joy in the smaller moments of now and treasure them. I will also admit to an inward cheer for Tammy when the mediator tells Dave that she can't help him because what he is saying makes no sense. Finally someone who says out loud what Tammy has been fighting since the nightmare began! Tammy is honest......not only with herself but with her children......and makes her way to what she wants in this new life as she discovers it. A story of pain, of self-doubt, of re-discovery, of digging into your strength and finding healing in the every day. Beautiful.

Thank you to the publisher and to Net Galley for the ARC for review. My review is my own opinion.

I was interested in reading this book because my husband of 25 years met someone young on a golf course and ended our marriage abruptly in a similar situation to the author. I to was shocked as she was and experienced many of the same emotions and issues she did. However her ability to let her ex live with her is beyond my scope of understanding. Somehow they cohabited while they worked out the divorce. This book is about how she reaches inside of her and builds her life over with courage and resilience. How a Buddha at the table guides her inner self and shows her what she can be. I am very impressed by her writing style and by this book that truly resonates with all of us that have been betrayed by our husbands. Very well done.

I enjoyed reading this book. I empathized with tbe author. I'm glad she was able to get through her situations and come out stronger. Thank you Netgalley and publisher for providing me with a review copy.

Whenever someone says to me, “I have to tell you something,” my stomach knots up and I have a bit of an anxiety attack. To me, prefacing “news” this way says that it is going to be bad and/or hurtful so “brace yourself.” I always end up wishing they had told me straight out instead of warning me.

I wonder if Tammy Letherer, the author of “The Buddha At My Table,” felt the same way, even though she was dozing at the time. At the start of this novel, her husband (Dave) is making himself a Scotch on the rocks. Friends will comment later to Tammy that he should have offered her one. Was that a Tell right there? A foreshadowing? Dave proceeds to say:

“I have to tell you something and I want you to let me get through it without interrupting me because it will be hard for me.”

Dave reels off three things in quick succession — he had an affair, he sees escorts when on business trips and he met someone three weeks ago that he wants to be with (he spent 12 hours with her and is in love). No wonder the first chapter is titled “The Blow.” Later Tammy will learn that he has doubts about monogamy and he was never passionately loved her. You can’t help but feel heartache for this woman and can only imagine the shock she must have felt after learning that most of her 12 year marriage was a lie. Making the whole thing worse is that her father left her mother when Tammy was a teen and subsequently got divorced. She describes her initial response:

“Dizzy, I scramble on the floor in a sort of stunned crab-crawl. White-hot, blinding terror envelops me like a blanket: This must be what death feels like. Dave does nothing to help me and that’s when, for a brief moment, I wonder if I ever existed.”

Like many who are shocked, Tammy reacts with denial. She believes she can help her husband through this and “fix it.” She doesn’t want her three young children to have a similar experience to her own.

“Okay, then. I can do this. I can restore his reason. I won’t allow my children to be products of divorce, to feel the confusion, anger, and self-blame that I felt as a teenager. I’ve been handed a divine task, a chance to do things differently than my parents. To be better. Dave has always said he wants us to be extraordinary, so this is our gift. We’ll take a devastating event and rise above it. What an example we’ll be.”

About a third of the way into the book, Tammy again describes “the blow” and her evolved thinking, suggesting she understands and accepts it or at least is well on her way there.

“...the way it was delivered to me, as a one-two-three punch? Affair. Ker-pow! Escorts. Wham! Las Vegas love. Ouf! Yes, I’ve considered skipping all that, but I need to keep speaking this trifecta to remind myself where I place in this horse race. It’s only when I let all three things sink in that I know all bets are off. My marriage is over.”

This set up an expectation for me that most of the following two-thirds left in the book would be about her move onward from there. In addition, right before her “acceptance” noted above, she has the encounter with a Buddhist Monk who is sitting at her kitchen table. It turns out he is a friend of the babysitter’s and he doesn’t speak any English. Perhaps he is included in the story to symbolize her “awakening” and the start of her spiritual journey. But Tammy’s reaction suggests she still has a long way to go.

“I take his presence as a message, because really, how many people have had a monk at their table? Maybe he’s here to encourage a Zen-like detachment in me, but it’s not getting through the raging hatefulness I feel.”

I kept waiting and expecting to read more about the Buddhist Monk. Based on the title, “The Buddha At My Table,” had me anticipating a lot more about Buddhism and Buddhist beliefs — in fact, that notion actually attracted me to the book. Granted, Tammy does become more spiritual in her vocation, in the last third of the book, but it was much less than I expected.

The other issue I had with “The Buddhist At My Table” was that it became somewhat tedious for me to read. I found myself hoping for her to have the big insight or somehow find some semblance of peace but it took a very long time. That is not to minimize what Ms. Letherer went through. In fact, there were many times I just wanted to hug her. I could feel her pain — she describes her evolving situation, feelings and thought process so vividly. The questions she asks herself are extremely revealing and insightful as to what she is going through and it’s progression. There can be no doubt that what Ms. Letherer went through was a heartbreaking ordeal that can only be described as tortuous, tragic, agonizing, and hurtful. To lose your best friend and so suddenly is deeply traumatic.

At the same time, I felt like I couldn’t take much more of her negative emotions, indecision and conflicted feelings. I kept wanting the story to lighten up and for her to move forward with some conviction.

The intended audience for this book, according to the publisher, is the 30 million married women facing a cheating husband or divorce plus all the others who have been betrayed. Since I do not fit into this definition of the target, that could contribute to why I was unable to rate this book higher than three stars. However, there were redeeming aspects, just not enough of them.

The writing is excellent. I kept reading, wanting to know what would finally happen. There were some universal truths that she wrote about towards the end of the book that grabbed me, such as:

“No matter our age, we can’t stop believing in love. Time and time again we reach for roses, knowing that our hands will bleed.”

“I’m beginning to see a pattern with many people, including myself. We don’t stop to acknowledge our accomplishments or to honor our own processes.”

I just wanted more.

Thank you to She Writes Press and NetGalley for an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Loved this book. Great that she became powerful and strong eventually. Great job!
Thanks to author,publisher and NetGalley for the chance to read this book. While I got the book for free,it had no bearing on the rating i gave it.

Thank you to Net Galley, Tammy Letherer and She Writes Press for providing me with my digital copy in exchange for a fair and honest review.

The Buddha at My Table by Tammy Letherer

The author hears those dreaded words from her husband Dave.
"I have to tell you something and I want you to let me get through it without interrupting me
because it will be hard for me."
He begins to tell her that about ten years ago he had an affair that he ended pretty quickly. Then he tells her he has been using escort services. Then he tells her that three weeks ago when he was in Las Vegas he met someone.

Wow! To say that the author experiences the feeling she is going to be sick is an understatement. I found her husband to be very selfish and narcissistic. This woman is in shock and primal panic. She is in shock and this book is about her resilience in rebuilding her life. Anybody that hears a confession like her husband just made would be as knocked for a loop as much as she was.

He has plans to move into the apartment upstairs within four weeks, only the tenant currently living there doesn't know eviction is near. The reaction that she has is understandable. She and he continue to live together for a time. She seems to need him and the writing and descriptions are somewhat hard to focus on because she is in denial and thinks that she can fix their marriage by bringing up the question of how to tell the children.

The following chapter she is visualizing how she is going to redecorate and remodel for the up coming holidays. Her imagination into past holidays and all of her thinking processes took away from the blow that hearing this kind of news and made the narrative some what disjointed from her situation. Dave the authors husband has his girlfriend listed in his phone as his boss named Ken.

The writing is witty at times like when the author hears her husband's phone and she runs in the locked closet with a message from "Ken." She responds by asking, "are you or are you not going to leave my husband alone? Should I send you a pic of our kids?" How these husband and wife could remain cohabiting in the same house after his life altering confession is beyond me. It was overall not what I was expecting, but still inspirational to see this author rebuild her life and become the best version of herself..