No Cure For Being Human makes my top 10 list for 2021 reads. It's deeply vulnerable, insightful, and wise. All I can say is just read it. You won't be sorry, and you might be changed.

This book came into my life at the exact perfect timing, and for that I will be forever grateful. I had read Bowler's very popular title 'Everything Happens for a Reason (and other lies I've loved" when it came out and her writing really strikes the perfect chord for me. I'm going to be buying this for some friends who are going through a lot, and will be buying several copies for the library. We have a lot of patrons who are going to find solace and a friendly voice within the pages of "No Cure for Being Human."

Kate writes a deeply vulnerable and honest book, as good as her debut work. I didn't realize the timing of picking up my advance copy would coincide with my wife's colon cancer diagnosis and surgery. But there is hope - both in the medical advances of the day and in a God who knows us, loves us and cares about what we go through. Yet not without raw and deep emotions since we are only "being human". Whether you are personally in the middle of a battle with disease or only know someone who is, pick up this book and allow Kate's intimacy and candor become your friend in your journey. I was advanced a copy of the book through NetGalley with no commitment on delivering a positive review.

We live in a culture that promises that we can control our lives--we can get that dream job, lose those pesky ten pounds, and find love if we just follow certain steps. But of course, nothing is certain. Kate Bowler was 35 years old when she was told she had stage four colon cancer and just a fourteen percent chance of living for the next two years. Like the professor and scholar that she is, she set off to figure out how to live when life is precious but not guaranteed.

This is Kate's second book about her experiences with cancer (you should also read her book Everything Happens for a Reason). No Cure For Being Human focuses on her time in a clinical trial, when she got on a plane to Georgia every week to receive harsh drugs that might save her life. A large part of this narrative is Kate trying to understand what it means to be a good patient when her doctors leave her in the dark about a test result or her mother begs her to rest.

Reading Kate Bowler's words feels like a gift each and every time because she gives us all permission to admit that we are not in control. She is brilliant, hilarious, and earnest, like when she recalls arguing with the manager of a hospital gift shop about selling books that promise she will get better. Just a few pages later, she writes about leaving the hospital and tearfully asking her dad how she will know she is living the right way in light of her limited time.

In writing this review, I basically re-read this book and wrote down lines from every other page. This book recognizes that sometimes having faith is not enough. We need to speak out loud the reality that we are scared that we won't have enough time, that we won't accomplish everything we hoped to, that our children or friends won't know how much we loved them. While most of us are not wondering if we will see next year, the reality is that time is finite for all of us. "No matter how carefully we schedule our days, master our emotions, and try to wring our best life now from our better selves, we cannot solve the problem of finitude. We will always want more." If we focus on this truth instead of the catchy slogans about living our best life, will we actually see what is important? Kate Bowler (and I) think we just might.



No Cure for Being Human
(And Other Truths I Needed to Hear)
By Kate Bowler
Random House September 2021
224 pages
Read via Netgalley

No Cure for Being Human by Kate Bowler is about how the author's cancer diagnosis completely changed her life and her perspective on life. Bowler is very honest about her thoughts and feelings throughout this time frame. I found this passage particulary inspiring: "Time really is a circle; I can see that now. We are trapped between a past we can't return to and a future that is uncertain. And it takes guts to live here, in the hard space between anticipation and realization. How quickly we believe that nothing can be new again but then, look." I appreciated so much her candor and her outlook throughout this very difficult time in her life. Thanks to NetGalley for the free digital review copy. All opinions are my own.

Kate Bowler is one of the most gifted writers and storytellers of our time. She has managed to make a life-altering diagnosis into a message that we all understand, appreciate and can relate to.

"Everyone wants to believe that they are headed toward good, better, best. But what happens when the life you hoped for is put on hold indefinitely?"

Kate beautifully tackles this subject while giving us needed permission NOT to be ok and NOT to feel the need to make lemon out of lemonade all the time. We're human. We are all just trying out best- and it's ok to cut out the noise of the world that says to work harder and try better.

This book is so glorious that I went out and bought myself my own hard copy for my shelf! I am honored to have it alongside my other treasured books!

Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

This book about death and dying isn't morbid after all. Because, well, Kate does live...there's that.

But she writes from the finitude that if not now, someday she'll die, so she wants to live life realistically while she's here. Not in some big "American Dream" way of wealth and prosperity. But of meaning and values.

Kate writes,

“We find it especially difficult to talk about anything chronic—meaning any kind of pain, emotional or physical, that abides and lives with us constantly. The sustaining myth of the American Dream rests on a hearty can-do spirit surmounting all obstacles, but not all problems can be overcome.“

Kate chronicles her mindset as she hears she has two years left to live, and then as she decides to try an experimental treatment.

Her insights along the way prove useful for all to hear.

“But no matter how carefully we schedule our days, master our emotions, and try to wring our best life now from our better selves, we cannot solve the problem of finitude. We will always want more.”

And this conclusion: “There is no cure for being human.”

But the book isn’t fatalistic. Just realistic.

“Time itself will be wrapped up with a bow, and God will draw us all into the eternal moment where there will be no suffering, no disease, no email. In the meantime, we are stuck with our beautiful, terrible finitude.”

And in this beautiful, terrible finitude, we all continue living, loving, taking one day at a time.

I highly recommend using part of your limited time here to read Kate's book.

My thanks to NetGalley and Random House for the review copy of this book.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

This book was so unlike anything I've ever read. It is so raw and stripped down, so human. An absolutely necessary read during the time of Covid. And that last line will stay with me for awhile.

Kate Bowler is one of my favorite writers right now. She has a such a way of cutting through the crap, but with such a gentle way. She is also not afraid to show her own vulnerabilities and it is extremely refreshing. Everyone should pick this one up!

Thank you to Random House and NetGalley for the review copy of this book.

You always hear the saying at least you have your health, and it is only when something is amiss do you really stop and ponder that. In those long hours where sleep eludes you, you find yourself pondering mortality, faith and emotions are raw and at the surface. This book made me think back to a short term hospital stay, and it really resonated with me.

After a diagnosis of stage 4 cancer, Kate Bowler reflects on what it means to live with uncertainty, when her length of life was no longer assured. She examines questions of whether it's possible to be content when one's days are numbered, and how that feeling of finitude, of having all things in perspective, is fleeting. When she discusses the birthday script she and her son act out, it nearly brings me to tears, and she is willing to let us in on her intimate conversations with her family, with her close friends, and with her medical professionals, even when it isn't always flattering.

These insights, while gained through a diagnosis not all will face, have a feeling of universality. What is the purpose of our professional selves when our final days are upon us, for instance? She wrestled with whether or not to work on her academic book, knowing it would take time from her family when that itself was uncertain (a colleague wisely said, "If the worst happens and this book is the last thing you ever do, Zach can still find you there").

Bowler writes with heart and with vulnerability, sharing her thoughts and words from that immediate time as well as how the pandemic impacted everything after: "The truth of the pandemic is the truth of all suffering: that it is unjustly distributed."

Through my own experiences, I have wondered how to come to terms that certain tragedies have so viscerally impacted and changed me, that while I hate that they happened, I just couldn't quite get to the point to wish them away because of how they transformed me. Bowler also has that epiphany:
"...we fully agree that we stumbled into the heart of a mystery -- that there were moments of suffering that felt unmistakably like gifts."

Even with a serious subject matter, Bowler's humor is present; this book exudes hope and joy and it was a gift to read.

(I received a digital ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.)

Kate Bowler holds nothing back diagnosed with stage four dance in her thirties a young mother wife and scholar she shares her journey.She is brave real emotional strong and her writing is so clear so well done.This is the second book I’ve read by her and each are special books .Her family and friends gather round to support her she has a very special community to rely on.Hughly recommend this book this author.#netgalley #randomhouse

When Kate Bowler was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer, she started to really think about the meaning of life. In her book, "No Cure of Being Human", Bowler explains this time in her life and the lessons she learned along the way. I appreciated the short chapters and the transparency that Bowler displayed in her book. While some of it was hard to read, I enjoyed this book and would recommend it to anyone going through a difficult medical journey.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC. All opinions are my own.

Kate Bowler is a blessing to read. She is down to earth, witty and thoughtful. I love her take on the prosperity gospel and the anecdote she recounts from the hospital giftshop. A honest look at cancer and participating in a study while clinging in desperation to motherhood. I want to read her other books as she writes in a way I can relate to.

Copy provided by the publisher and NetGalley

Flew through it as if it were fiction! I didn't underline anything and I do wish it had been organized differently... there's no clear main takeaway that flows throughout... but the writing itself is very compelling.

I am not familiar with Kate Bowler, but after reading her beautiful memoir I learned she is a bit of a goddess in the circles she is in. I can see why. She is smart, funny, articulate, kind, and fiery. You can get a tense of all these traits and more in No Cure for Being Human. This is the touching story of Bowler’s journey with stage 4 cancer as an academic, mother, wife, and woman of faith.

I highly recommend this book and see it doing extremely well. My only critique is that I wish I saw a bit more acknowledgement of Bowler’s privilege as a white woman, and academic. I think these are keys that warranted a bit of discussion.

"No Cure for Being Human" is at once a memoir and a take-down of the cultural scripts that tell us we can perfect our lives, control our fates--if we only do this, buy that. I flew through this book in a few sittings, and I'll be returning to its wisdom again and again. This is the kind of book you read, highlighting every page, then make a list of people to buy it for so you can talk about it with them.

Another brilliant book by Kate Bowler, who looks unflinchingly at illness,, the business of medicine, the body and the way our culture talks about sickness and disability. A must read.

Wow. Kate Bowler. Thanks for making me sob through a book.
No self help cliches here and no pick yourself up by the bootstraps jargon. In fact no cliches at all. Just real down in the dirt in your guts honest truth. But somehow that truth will give you hope. Will focus you like a laser beam on what’s real and what’s really important and worthwhile.
This is a book I sped through in a morning and will buy as as soon as it comes out because I will want to read it again and again and mark it up from cover to cover. It’s one of those books that sits with you a long time. It will make you ponder and even changes you. Not because you’re psyched up and on another self help kick you’re starting on Monday but because it’s true and profound and funny ( Kate is really funny by the way and she made me laugh and cry ) and beautiful and real and it’s meant to be thoughtfully and slowly and mindfully pondered . It’s a little like the Velveteen rabbit in someone’s personal story form. Read this book my friends. I highly recommend it. Preorder it. Buy it when it comes out. Read it slowly. Again and again till it sinks in deeply and all the fur rubs off in all the best ways. You will not be sorry.

Full disclosure- I adore author Kate Bowler. She is the only writer I know who routinely makes me sob at the beautiful truths that she lays down and simultaneously laugh through my tears as she reveals the absurdity of it all- and by "it all", I mean... life.

In her most personal book yet, Bowler shares her continuing journey through a stage four cancer diagnosis as a young mother and her subsequent treatment. I've never had cancer, but she paints with strokes that we all recognize- bucket lists and dreams for our children... and wondering if we are wasting our most precious commodity— time... This book is incredibly precious and oh so relatable.

I read a lot and I like to think that I usually do a decent job of putting words together, but when I finish a book like this one, I feel absolutely incapable of sharing my thoughts adequately. Kate's words are just too lovely and real. I can only say that I absolutely loved this book. Read it.

My thanks to the author, publisher, and #NetGalley for the opportunity to read an advanced reader copy of this beautiful book.
#NoCureForBeingHuman