Diane's Reviews > Love Warrior

This was such a powerful memoir of addiction and healing that I read it twice.

I admit I didn't know who Glennon Doyle Melton was when I decided to read this book. A friend had said she liked her blog (called Momastery) and was excited about her new book, so I grabbed a copy for a buddy read.

Glennon is so open and honest about her struggles with alcoholism and bulimia that you feel like her new best friend, and wow, are we having a heavy talk today. Love Warrior opens with her wedding to a man named Craig, and then her story jumps back to childhood and we witness how she fell into the traps of binge eating and purging, of drinking too much, and of thinking that being liked by boys was the most important thing. She meets and starts dating Craig, and they have two unplanned pregnancies. The first ends in abortion, the second she decides to keep. Glennon knows she has to get sober if she wants to become a mother, so that's what she does. She and Craig get married and have several children.

The second half of this memoir focuses more on Glennon's marriage and their intimacy problems. Glennon says she never felt safe during sex, and when she learns Craig had been unfaithful to her and that he had a porn addiction, they separate. By the end of the book the two have reconciled. (Around the time that Love Warrior was published last fall, Glennon posted that she and Craig had separated again. Last month, Glennon's engagement to soccer star Abby Wambach was announced.)

I liked this book because it gets at some fundamental problems facing girls in our society: the pressure to be pretty, thin, and easygoing, plus the fear of being thought too domineering, too smart or too needy. It's a staggering set of demands, and it's no wonder so many girls get lost in the muddle.

I would recommend this book to those who like addiction memoirs, or those who want to read about trying to heal a marriage. One of my big takeaways from this book is that Glennon advocates for directly dealing with your pain, whatever it is. Don't try to numb it with booze or escape it with food, because the pain will stay there until you address it. Dealing with those emotions is the path of the warrior.

Another big takeway for me was how when Glennon was feeling overwhelmed by pain, depression or anxiety, she'd focus on doing the "next right thing." Sometimes this was as simple as brushing her teeth or making breakfast; other times it meant doing yoga or just sitting still and trying to breathe deeply. This strategy has been a big help to me when I've felt depressed and overwhelmed. Just focus on doing the next right thing, and you'll find your way home.

First read: October 2016
Second read: March 2017

Favorite Quotes
"I'm an early reader and, at four, converse like an adult. But I soon realize that smart is more complicated than beautiful. Strangers come close and pat my curls, but when I speak to them with confidence and clarity, their eyes widen and they pull back. They are drawn in by my smile but repelled by my boldness ... They wanted to adore me and I complicated things by inserting myself into their experience of me. I begin to understand that beauty warms people and smart cools people."

"My fury is for every woman who's been told by the church that God values her marriage more than her soul, her safety, her freedom. My fury is for every woman who has been taught that God is man and man is God. My fury is for every woman who has been told that her bad marriage is the cross upon which she should hang herself."

"I stop explaining myself, because I learn that making decisions is never about doing the right thing or the wrong thing. It's about doing the precise thing. The precise thing is always incredibly personal and often makes no sense to anyone else."

"I want a truce. I want to be whole. I want to learn to live in this body, in this world, with my people. I don't want to be trapped inside myself forever. I want to be in love."

[talking to her daughters]
"Women who are concerned with being pretty think about what they look like, but women who are concerned with being beautiful think about what they are looking at. They are taking it all in. They are taking in the whole beautiful world and making all that beauty theirs to give away to others."