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Something Other than God: How I Passionately Sought Happiness and Accidentally Found It
Goodreads Choice Award
Nominee for Readers' Favorite Memoir & Autobiography (2014)Jennifer Fulwiler told herself she was happy. Why wouldn't she be? She made good money as a programmer at a hot tech start-up, had just married a guy with a stack of Ivy League degrees, and lived in a twenty-first-floor condo where she could sip sauvignon blanc while watching the sun set behind the hills of Austin. Raised in a happy, atheist home, Jennifer had the freedom to think for herself and play by her own rules. Yet a creeping darkness followed her all of her life. Finally, one winter night, it drove her to the edge of her balcony, making her ask once and for all why anything mattered. At that moment everything she knew and believed was shattered. Asking the unflinching questions about life and death, good and evil, led Jennifer to Christianity, the religion she had reviled since she was an awkward, sceptical child growing up in the Bible Belt. Mortified by this turn of events, she hid her quest from everyone except her husband, concealing religious books in opaque bags as if they were porn and locking herself in public bathroom stalls to read the Bible. Just when Jennifer had a profound epiphany that gave her the courage to convert, she was diagnosed with a life-threatening medical condition--and the only treatment was directly at odds with the doctrines of her new-found faith. Something Other Than God is a poignant, profound and often funny tale of one woman who set out to find the meaning of life and discovered that true happiness sometimes requires losing it all.
256 pages, Hardcover
First published April 29, 2014
193 people are currently reading
5307 people want to read
About the author
Jennifer Fulwiler
16 books293 followersJennifer Fulwiler is a mom of six, a standup comic, and the host of a daily talk show on SiriusXM. She’s a bestselling author whose new book is Your Blue Flame: Drop the Guilt and Do What Makes You Come Alive. After being told that there wasn’t an audience for standup comedy done by a minivan-driving woman from the suburbs, she self-produced her own tour, which is selling out venues across the country. Follow her on Instagram at @JenniferFulwiler.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 452 reviews
December 3, 2014
SHORT VERSION:
I can think of an awful lot of people who I'd give this book to:
Christians trying to understand atheists (like a pal of mine who said, "I just don't know how those people don't believe in God." I almost shoved my copy into her hands. Almost.)
Atheists trying to understand Christians.
Protestants trying to understand Catholic teachings.
Catholics trying to understand Church teachings.
Catholics who understand but struggle with following Church teachings.
Anyone wanting an inspirational story of change and redemption.
Yes, that really is an awful lot of people ...
LONG VERSION
Jennifer Fulwiler was raised by loving parents who didn't push their atheism on her or do more than tell her to think for herself. However, that in itself was enough to produce a dedicated atheist, especially when told to an intelligent youngster who applied herself with the passion that only youth can muster to facts and logical conclusions.
When Fulwiler became a wife and mother, the life-altering love she experienced tipped the scale against atheism. It defied logic. It defied scientific explanations. With this realization, she began searching for the truth. That truth led her to a place she'd never have expected, conversion to Catholicism.
On the surface, this is Fulwiler's story of her conversion. However, because she required so much reflection, connection, and research before relinquishing her old beliefs, it is also a primer on logical investigation and thought. Finally, it is a exploration of Catholic teachings and how they apply to modern life. Because Fulwiler had to thoroughly understand what she was learning, she takes care to make sure the reader also understands what she's objecting to or accepting.
This isn't done in a dry or preachy way. Au contraire, I often found myself laughing, especially at the time she sat in a bathroom stall for hours, reading a Bible furiously searching for answers and just as furiously spinning the toilet paper roll to send away people who knocked on the door. And there are moving and insightful moments such as when she is reading C. S. Lewis, listening to Tupak Shakur, and melding her thoughts about both into realizations about hell, heaven, and purgatory.
I recently read St. Augustine's Confessions, the first autobiography ever written. It is a moving and completely honest book about one man's search for ultimate truth. On many levels Fulwiler conveys the same passionate desire to know what is true, what can be trusted, as that young African seeker did 1,600 years ago.
Augustine's book is a classic because it spoke so directly to the people of his time and yet resounds its message through the ages. Other Christian classics do the same. Francis de Sales with his Introduction to the Devout Life, Teresa of Avila with her Interior Castle, and Thérèse of Lisieux with The Story of a Soul all addressed problems of their time with advice that is still applicable and invaluable today. They reach us now because the human soul always struggles with the same problems and they speak in a way that transcends their own particular eras.
Why do I bring them up? Only time will tell if this book is a classic that transcends our time. I think it is nuanced, well written, and relatable enough that it could.
What I do know is that, like those classics, this book was written for our time. Right here, right now, our country and the Western world are crying out for a way to make the world make sense. Jennifer Fulwiler's book spells it out in a way that cannot be ignored by any honest truth seeker. She tells of the truth that transcends mere facts while speaking the language that our modern, science loving, atheistic world understands.
It is truly a classic for our times.
I can think of an awful lot of people who I'd give this book to:
Christians trying to understand atheists (like a pal of mine who said, "I just don't know how those people don't believe in God." I almost shoved my copy into her hands. Almost.)
Atheists trying to understand Christians.
Protestants trying to understand Catholic teachings.
Catholics trying to understand Church teachings.
Catholics who understand but struggle with following Church teachings.
Anyone wanting an inspirational story of change and redemption.
Yes, that really is an awful lot of people ...
LONG VERSION
Jennifer Fulwiler was raised by loving parents who didn't push their atheism on her or do more than tell her to think for herself. However, that in itself was enough to produce a dedicated atheist, especially when told to an intelligent youngster who applied herself with the passion that only youth can muster to facts and logical conclusions.
I looked at the ammonite settled in between my soggy sneakers and I understood for the first time that my fate was no different than its own.Her only encounters with Christians were, frankly, off-putting and tended to be with friends who were not at all equipped to discuss faith versus scientific truth and logic. So Fulwiler spent many years losing herself in fun to distract herself from the awareness of mortality.
I had always thought of these creatures as being fundamentally different from me. They were the dead things, I was the alive thing, and that's how it would be forever. Now I wondered what had kept me from understanding that to look at these long-dead life-forms was to look at a crystal ball of what lay in store for me—except that, unless I happened to die by falling into some soft mud, I wouldn't end up a fossil. Ten million years from now, there would be nothing left of me.
[...]
There was no solution to my problem, because it wasn't even a problem; it was just a new awareness of reality. But as I took one last glance at the pickup before it disappeared from view. I felt like there was some answer in that brief flash of happiness I'd experienced while driving the truck. The grim truth I'd uncovered hadn't gone away, but it was somehow rendered less significant when I'd been immersed in the distraction of having fun.
When Fulwiler became a wife and mother, the life-altering love she experienced tipped the scale against atheism. It defied logic. It defied scientific explanations. With this realization, she began searching for the truth. That truth led her to a place she'd never have expected, conversion to Catholicism.
On the surface, this is Fulwiler's story of her conversion. However, because she required so much reflection, connection, and research before relinquishing her old beliefs, it is also a primer on logical investigation and thought. Finally, it is a exploration of Catholic teachings and how they apply to modern life. Because Fulwiler had to thoroughly understand what she was learning, she takes care to make sure the reader also understands what she's objecting to or accepting.
This isn't done in a dry or preachy way. Au contraire, I often found myself laughing, especially at the time she sat in a bathroom stall for hours, reading a Bible furiously searching for answers and just as furiously spinning the toilet paper roll to send away people who knocked on the door. And there are moving and insightful moments such as when she is reading C. S. Lewis, listening to Tupak Shakur, and melding her thoughts about both into realizations about hell, heaven, and purgatory.
I recently read St. Augustine's Confessions, the first autobiography ever written. It is a moving and completely honest book about one man's search for ultimate truth. On many levels Fulwiler conveys the same passionate desire to know what is true, what can be trusted, as that young African seeker did 1,600 years ago.
Augustine's book is a classic because it spoke so directly to the people of his time and yet resounds its message through the ages. Other Christian classics do the same. Francis de Sales with his Introduction to the Devout Life, Teresa of Avila with her Interior Castle, and Thérèse of Lisieux with The Story of a Soul all addressed problems of their time with advice that is still applicable and invaluable today. They reach us now because the human soul always struggles with the same problems and they speak in a way that transcends their own particular eras.
Why do I bring them up? Only time will tell if this book is a classic that transcends our time. I think it is nuanced, well written, and relatable enough that it could.
What I do know is that, like those classics, this book was written for our time. Right here, right now, our country and the Western world are crying out for a way to make the world make sense. Jennifer Fulwiler's book spells it out in a way that cannot be ignored by any honest truth seeker. She tells of the truth that transcends mere facts while speaking the language that our modern, science loving, atheistic world understands.
It is truly a classic for our times.
May 11, 2014
While I was very moved by Ms. Fulwiler's story, and often found myself evaluating my own faith while reading (raised Catholic all my life, but in a very liberal church community), I was occasionally distraught by the author's logical "leaps" along the way. She starts her journey with a strong desire to use reason as her guide, and ends up abandoning that reason whenever it suits her. I was particularly struck by the fact that she only seemed to look at a few very extreme and violent court cases when she was investigating the morality of abortion, and at her assumption that correlation equals causation when she realized that divorce rates in the country went up when contraception was made legal in the US. I was also surprised that, in all her pondering of earthly suffering, she never turned to the whirlwind speech in Job. It can be tempting to look for moral absolutes, laws written in stone to give us comfort, but sometimes it is worth noting that life is complex; sometimes faith is about accepting that God's reasons are beyond human comprehension. Maybe this is easy for me to do since I have been swimming in this water all my life and Ms. Fulwiler is new to this pond, but faith is about not having all the answers, but trying to reach out to God on a daily basis and knowing that He is pleased that we want to please him. I have come to this conclusion through reason myself: since humankind is imperfect, God's perfect words will always be a bit distorted when they echo in our ears and come through our mouths and pen--much like looking at an image through colored glass, we will see the essence, but not all the details, and we are not able to convey to others with total accuracy what they see.
December 26, 2015
Some people have amazing life stories, but no skills in conveying that story to others. Some people have great storytelling skills, but no fascinating stories of their own to tell. Fulwiler has that wonderful gift of being able to not only tell her own very interesting story in an engaging way, but also to convey the humor in the more mundane moments in everyday life that typically fall into that “guess you just had to be there” category for the rest of us. I found myself chuckling at quite a few of her imaginative descriptions throughout the book. Remembering when she first became pregnant, she says, “In the back of my mind I’d almost started to believe that new human life was created in a cloning room at the back of a Starbucks, people coming into the world well into their twenties, complete with lattes and wire-rimmed glasses.” It made for a funny visual for me at least. Or when her husband opens the door unexpectedly while she’s researching Christianity: “you surfing Jesus sites again?” “No. I was looking at porn. I swear!” Anyway, her wit may not appeal to everyone, but I thought it made for a more lighthearted look at an otherwise serious and thought-provoking journey from happy atheist to troubled agnostic to contented Christian. Her story of starting a blog to seek input on why she should become a Christian reminds me that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Technology improves and enables new forms of communication while overshadowing more traditional forms, and yet we all still seek the same answers we’ve sought for millennia. Who am I? What makes me “me”? Why am I here? Is there a purpose in life? Is there anything beyond this frantic and often all-too-short life? Good questions, and I thought she did a good job of documenting her struggle to work through them.
I haven’t really been able to just devour a book since my more carefree days growing up. The last several books I’ve read have been completed a few pages at a time over office lunch breaks and ridiculously long traffic lights over the course of several months each. But this one was just such a page-turner. I happened to get off work early one Friday and had finished it by Saturday evening in just two sittings. The story flowed smoothly and just had a good mix of humor and somber introspection that made for a compelling read. I would recommend it for a) atheists wanting to understand what could make an “otherwise intelligent person” choose Christianity, b) Christians wanting to understand where their atheist or agnostic friends might be coming from, and c) Protestants wanting to understand why a friend might go down the Catholic road. As a Protestant myself, I would still disagree with some of the doctrines she would hold to as a Catholic, but I think it still provides some interesting insight that will hopefully open doors of communication. She was very open about her search for truth, her doubts, her misgivings, and the changes she and her husband went through, telling them in a sometimes humorous, sometimes somber – but always honest – manner. Check it out.
I haven’t really been able to just devour a book since my more carefree days growing up. The last several books I’ve read have been completed a few pages at a time over office lunch breaks and ridiculously long traffic lights over the course of several months each. But this one was just such a page-turner. I happened to get off work early one Friday and had finished it by Saturday evening in just two sittings. The story flowed smoothly and just had a good mix of humor and somber introspection that made for a compelling read. I would recommend it for a) atheists wanting to understand what could make an “otherwise intelligent person” choose Christianity, b) Christians wanting to understand where their atheist or agnostic friends might be coming from, and c) Protestants wanting to understand why a friend might go down the Catholic road. As a Protestant myself, I would still disagree with some of the doctrines she would hold to as a Catholic, but I think it still provides some interesting insight that will hopefully open doors of communication. She was very open about her search for truth, her doubts, her misgivings, and the changes she and her husband went through, telling them in a sometimes humorous, sometimes somber – but always honest – manner. Check it out.
June 22, 2014
There has been much chatter about Something Other Than God so I caved and purchased a copy. Having never read her blog I wasn't sure what to expect from her book. It came across as a bit of spoiled girl whining -- giving up all the first class travel, moving out of the luxury condo, and in with her mother while her husband gets his law firm off the ground -- and immediately turned me off so know, this book and I started off on the wrong foot. And of course there is the fact that every single quotation in the book was done incorrectly. Example: "So you're getting way too bogged down here", he said." Can anyone explain why that comma comes after the closing quotation mark? Drove my inner editor and grammar geek absolutely crazy. In short, it's another conversion story, not even entirely unique, it's overpriced and overhyped.
May 28, 2015
This was a hard read for me.
She gets points for her humor, and her appreciation for reason in approaching Christianity. As a Christian who studied philosophy, I can appreciate that. But like the other fewer-starred reviews I've read, what she thinks was reason and what actually is weren't quite the same. She gets suckered into what I can only describe as appeal to emotion. A pregnant woman reading about what happens during an abortion is definitely setting up for least rational conditions for thought, but seems to be her biggest a-ha! moments regarding abortion and contraception debates. And I'll grant, that it's a lot easier to analyze whether someone ELSE is being rational. But still. I think in the editing process that would have been a big red flag. But I honestly don't think that was the point anyway.
I didn't care that she finds Catholicism to be the answer and I'm not Catholic, good for her anyway. What really gives this book only 2 stars, is that she was so heavy-handed in her praise of the Church. And not just church, but CHURCH. As someone without a church, really, and always open to learning about my "options" as it were, I was hoping this book would provide some insight. Maybe there is something to it after all? She seems reasonable in the entire first half of the book, maybe I could learn a think or two. And then BAM. She just seems to lose it, or maybe I just couldn't keep up anymore. I don't want to offend anyone that agrees with her conclusions, so I'll just say that her particular reasoning for those conclusions was very problematic in terms of the big leaps she makes from her premises, and the implications of assuming those premises true. But again, not the point, I guess...
I guess the conclusion I'll make is that this book is interesting until the end, and is probably best for those who already know where they stand and want to see other views out of mere curiosity, or already agree with her. Because as a rational Christian [raised protestant] who was uncomfortable with her actually using purgatory in a sentence, I can't recommend it otherwise.
P.S. - I also didn't care about her house. At all.
She gets points for her humor, and her appreciation for reason in approaching Christianity. As a Christian who studied philosophy, I can appreciate that. But like the other fewer-starred reviews I've read, what she thinks was reason and what actually is weren't quite the same. She gets suckered into what I can only describe as appeal to emotion. A pregnant woman reading about what happens during an abortion is definitely setting up for least rational conditions for thought, but seems to be her biggest a-ha! moments regarding abortion and contraception debates. And I'll grant, that it's a lot easier to analyze whether someone ELSE is being rational. But still. I think in the editing process that would have been a big red flag. But I honestly don't think that was the point anyway.
I didn't care that she finds Catholicism to be the answer and I'm not Catholic, good for her anyway. What really gives this book only 2 stars, is that she was so heavy-handed in her praise of the Church. And not just church, but CHURCH. As someone without a church, really, and always open to learning about my "options" as it were, I was hoping this book would provide some insight. Maybe there is something to it after all? She seems reasonable in the entire first half of the book, maybe I could learn a think or two. And then BAM. She just seems to lose it, or maybe I just couldn't keep up anymore. I don't want to offend anyone that agrees with her conclusions, so I'll just say that her particular reasoning for those conclusions was very problematic in terms of the big leaps she makes from her premises, and the implications of assuming those premises true. But again, not the point, I guess...
I guess the conclusion I'll make is that this book is interesting until the end, and is probably best for those who already know where they stand and want to see other views out of mere curiosity, or already agree with her. Because as a rational Christian [raised protestant] who was uncomfortable with her actually using purgatory in a sentence, I can't recommend it otherwise.
P.S. - I also didn't care about her house. At all.
April 28, 2014
This is sort of the perfect conversion story, because Jennifer shows the messy underpinnings of it. She comes to belief slowly, almost dragged into it by her husband, but then she realizes--wait. Jesus Christ is REAL. Once this is realized, it leads her to a Catholic church, while at the same time, she's being told she has to use contraception in order to prevent life threatening pregnancy complications. Jennifer's story is real, and that's what I like the best about it. It's not a neat little "God appeared to me on a fluffy cloud!" story. It's a real story of a life, a family, a husband and wife, struggling toward what is True and Good and Real.
Basically, it's amazing.
Basically, it's amazing.
February 2, 2015
I very sporadically read Fulwiler's blog and didn't know much of her story beyond the fact that she grew up atheist and converted to Catholicism as an adult. Unfortunately, her conversion story is told with a honeymoon glow and her reasoning suffers for it. I had a hard time believing she did such an about face on her most stout non-religious opinions, especially when she based her new beliefs on spurious research. I also struggled with the book's tone. This was a disappointing read.
December 28, 2019
Like Jennifer Fulwiler, I was baptised in the Roman Catholic Church, but grew up without instruction and became a default atheist. I always thought that there were two ways that people found faith, and neither of them happened to me. The first way is to be reasoned into belief by logical arguments about Prime Movers, the nature of consciousness, and so on. The second way is to have a revelation - to feel God in your heart and know. A third way occurred to me recently: a church is a ready-made friendship group of unusual diversity that you'd be hard-pressed to assemble in any other way. When I moved to a new city part of me enviously wished that I could walk into a church and immediately find a welcome. I was profoundly wistful when I read to the end of Jenny's story, how she joined the church and was welcomed into the Catholic community, instantly improving her relationship with the nanny and gaining a whole new social circle of fellow mums dropping round to help her move house. I felt a bit like Elif Batuman in this essay talking about how she felt herself drawn to the hijab, just because of the loving encouragement of the people around her.
This is Jennifer Fulwiler's account of her conversion from atheism to RC but it only gives tantalising clues as to how she found her faith. The book is more biography than apologetics, and it's a sweet and funny read. Fulwiler is admirably open about her faults and failings and describes her younger self with affectionate mockery: her glamorous, fun, but shallow jet-setting lifestyle of first-class travel and wild parties, the struggle of setting up a business and her discontent at the privations associated, her first child, and the gradual growth of her faith. There are some hilarious moments, like when Jennifer gets caught browsing Christian websites at work:
As a reader, I get a sort of uncomfortable feeling reviewing the book. Biography naturally invites the reader to judge the author, and a biography of religious conversion naturally invites one to speculate on the author's character and motives despite this being a terribly rude thing to do in general. But, oh well, it's a publicly published book so I'm going to do it anyway.
So it's funny and relatable, but it's not persuasive. It seems like Jenny wants to present her conversion as largely motivated by reason. Each chapter includes an anecdote about an 'aha' moment that clarified the truth of Christianity.
The first of these is the moment that she and her husband, Joe, are on a plane that passes through a majestic cumulonimbus cloud leaving them in awe at the glory of existence. Her husband, already a Christian, credits God, and when she scoffs at his faith he whips out the old 'junkyard tornado' argument. Jenny secretly thinks this is a really good argument for God but disputes halfheartedly until he says: 'Are you aware that people have been writing about these kinds of questions for, oh, six thousand years? And that they've pooled their wisdom to come up with some pretty compelling conclusions? It's called philosophy.' Checkmate, atheists!
This scene really works as a beat in the narrative of her life, but it fails as a persuasive argument for God! There's no discussion of probability or how natural selection works. Joe might reject abiogensis out of hand, but there's plenty of well-informed evolutionary biologists who don't! And as for the six thousand years of philosophy supporting God - there's a matching six thousand years of philosophy against the concept and we're none the wiser!
Many of the subsequent anecdotes follow the same pattern: Joe is converted from non-denominational Christianity to Catholicism after 1 internet argument and 4 hours research. Jenny switches from pro-choice to pro-life after reading the details of 1 court case on extreme late term abortions. There's no exploration of counter-arguments. There's no middle way (eg. it is possible to be, as many people are, strongly against abortion after 20 weeks but absolutely fine with it before 12 weeks).
I suspect that in reality their conversion was slower and more deliberate. Jenny is clearly very intelligent and very well-read on the subject, and it wouldn't do to include heavy debate which would seriously hamper the comedy - but on the other hand, without convincing arguments, Jenny's conversion doesn't seem to be quite as rationally motivated as one might like.
Early in the book she describes the moment in her childhood when she really grasps that fact that we're all going to die. She's depressed and horrified by the thought and tries her best to suppress it with hedonism. But after the birth of her first child, she's sent into a tailspin of post-partum craziness, so obsessed by the thought that her child could die that she won't even let anyone hold him near a window or over a stone floor. It's after months of obsessing over his mortality that she begins to feel that death can't really be the end. It just can't. And she opens her heart to the possibility that there is something more.
For the sceptical outsider, it seems like Jenny is pointing towards a fourth way to discover faith: faith as flight from mortality. For Jenny the choices were to accept that her child will one day die, and suffer terrible depression and OCD as a consequence, or believe that there's something more and have a shot at sanity.
Even after she accepts God, accepts Jesus, joins the Roman church, she's still angry at God for allowing suffering and death. The very final anecdote of her spiritual journey is the one where she fully accepts the concept of heaven and can forgive God for letting little children die because she knows that they're going to an infinitely better place.
So, it's with a little hesitation that I agree with other reviewers, this is a good book to recommend to atheists. I don't think for a minute that this is a book to inspire conversion, but I think it will inspire empathy. Jenny is a sweet, flawed person who has clearly given some serious thought to her faith, even if she hasn't shared all of that thought in this book. There are plenty of atheists who believe very silly things about Christianity, God, and Catholicism specifically. Since Jenny has believed many of those things too, and worked through them, I think this will do a good job to promote understanding.
Like many of the angry atheists that you meet online, Jenny grew up surrounded by fundamentalists who try to guilt-trip others into faith, so it's good to see that one can embrace Christianity while rejecting bullying. Likewise, starting from American Protestant traditions, Jenny ties herself in knots trying to ferret out definitive moral absolutes from reading the Bible alone. It's good to know that there are Christian faiths that use tradition and reason and don't take the Bible to be entirely literally factual.
There were still moments where I found myself frustrated with her: Jenny and her husband can't afford to furnish their home so she prays for help and then is plagued with guilt when her parents step up and give her some second-hand furniture. From everything I've ever experienced or read of the divine I'm pretty sure that God is not a vending machine. You do not put prayers in and get free refrigerators out. God is concerned with your soul not your interior decor. It makes me very uncomfortable to see her treating prayer so materialistically.
But this is a minor quibble. On the whole, this is an easy and engaging read that will be of interest to anyone who is interested in faith or the meaning of life.
This is Jennifer Fulwiler's account of her conversion from atheism to RC but it only gives tantalising clues as to how she found her faith. The book is more biography than apologetics, and it's a sweet and funny read. Fulwiler is admirably open about her faults and failings and describes her younger self with affectionate mockery: her glamorous, fun, but shallow jet-setting lifestyle of first-class travel and wild parties, the struggle of setting up a business and her discontent at the privations associated, her first child, and the gradual growth of her faith. There are some hilarious moments, like when Jennifer gets caught browsing Christian websites at work:
Joe poked his head in to ask a question, and at the sound of his voice I banged on the keyboard to close browser windows again. "It's just me," he assured me. "You surfing Jesus sites again?"
"No. I was looking at porn, I swear!"
As a reader, I get a sort of uncomfortable feeling reviewing the book. Biography naturally invites the reader to judge the author, and a biography of religious conversion naturally invites one to speculate on the author's character and motives despite this being a terribly rude thing to do in general. But, oh well, it's a publicly published book so I'm going to do it anyway.
So it's funny and relatable, but it's not persuasive. It seems like Jenny wants to present her conversion as largely motivated by reason. Each chapter includes an anecdote about an 'aha' moment that clarified the truth of Christianity.
The first of these is the moment that she and her husband, Joe, are on a plane that passes through a majestic cumulonimbus cloud leaving them in awe at the glory of existence. Her husband, already a Christian, credits God, and when she scoffs at his faith he whips out the old 'junkyard tornado' argument. Jenny secretly thinks this is a really good argument for God but disputes halfheartedly until he says: 'Are you aware that people have been writing about these kinds of questions for, oh, six thousand years? And that they've pooled their wisdom to come up with some pretty compelling conclusions? It's called philosophy.' Checkmate, atheists!
This scene really works as a beat in the narrative of her life, but it fails as a persuasive argument for God! There's no discussion of probability or how natural selection works. Joe might reject abiogensis out of hand, but there's plenty of well-informed evolutionary biologists who don't! And as for the six thousand years of philosophy supporting God - there's a matching six thousand years of philosophy against the concept and we're none the wiser!
Many of the subsequent anecdotes follow the same pattern: Joe is converted from non-denominational Christianity to Catholicism after 1 internet argument and 4 hours research. Jenny switches from pro-choice to pro-life after reading the details of 1 court case on extreme late term abortions. There's no exploration of counter-arguments. There's no middle way (eg. it is possible to be, as many people are, strongly against abortion after 20 weeks but absolutely fine with it before 12 weeks).
I suspect that in reality their conversion was slower and more deliberate. Jenny is clearly very intelligent and very well-read on the subject, and it wouldn't do to include heavy debate which would seriously hamper the comedy - but on the other hand, without convincing arguments, Jenny's conversion doesn't seem to be quite as rationally motivated as one might like.
Early in the book she describes the moment in her childhood when she really grasps that fact that we're all going to die. She's depressed and horrified by the thought and tries her best to suppress it with hedonism. But after the birth of her first child, she's sent into a tailspin of post-partum craziness, so obsessed by the thought that her child could die that she won't even let anyone hold him near a window or over a stone floor. It's after months of obsessing over his mortality that she begins to feel that death can't really be the end. It just can't. And she opens her heart to the possibility that there is something more.
For the sceptical outsider, it seems like Jenny is pointing towards a fourth way to discover faith: faith as flight from mortality. For Jenny the choices were to accept that her child will one day die, and suffer terrible depression and OCD as a consequence, or believe that there's something more and have a shot at sanity.
Even after she accepts God, accepts Jesus, joins the Roman church, she's still angry at God for allowing suffering and death. The very final anecdote of her spiritual journey is the one where she fully accepts the concept of heaven and can forgive God for letting little children die because she knows that they're going to an infinitely better place.
So, it's with a little hesitation that I agree with other reviewers, this is a good book to recommend to atheists. I don't think for a minute that this is a book to inspire conversion, but I think it will inspire empathy. Jenny is a sweet, flawed person who has clearly given some serious thought to her faith, even if she hasn't shared all of that thought in this book. There are plenty of atheists who believe very silly things about Christianity, God, and Catholicism specifically. Since Jenny has believed many of those things too, and worked through them, I think this will do a good job to promote understanding.
Like many of the angry atheists that you meet online, Jenny grew up surrounded by fundamentalists who try to guilt-trip others into faith, so it's good to see that one can embrace Christianity while rejecting bullying. Likewise, starting from American Protestant traditions, Jenny ties herself in knots trying to ferret out definitive moral absolutes from reading the Bible alone. It's good to know that there are Christian faiths that use tradition and reason and don't take the Bible to be entirely literally factual.
There were still moments where I found myself frustrated with her: Jenny and her husband can't afford to furnish their home so she prays for help and then is plagued with guilt when her parents step up and give her some second-hand furniture. From everything I've ever experienced or read of the divine I'm pretty sure that God is not a vending machine. You do not put prayers in and get free refrigerators out. God is concerned with your soul not your interior decor. It makes me very uncomfortable to see her treating prayer so materialistically.
But this is a minor quibble. On the whole, this is an easy and engaging read that will be of interest to anyone who is interested in faith or the meaning of life.
July 10, 2023
Great book! And super easy to read! It’s a testimony of an atheist finding Catholicism and is written in the form that feels like a novel. She addresses real questions and concerns that I bet a lot of us have had about life and the Catholic Church. This book reminded me how it’s okay to have questions and not fully understand things sometimes. Highly recommend this read
October 25, 2020
ETA: Bumping up the rating after this re-re-read. I seem to get more out of this book every time.
So, I've got about 10 million other books that I've sworn I'll read and I also swore that I would stop buying books during November and Advent, BUT conversion stories are like crack to me and Jennifer Fulwiler is a really funny, engaging writer, so yes, I bought this on Kindle the other day and, in a very Fulwiler-esque move, stayed up until 2 am to read it (having sworn at 11pm that I was only going to read for 10 minutes before bed!).
It was definitely worth the sleep deprivation. For one thing, JF's personality is sparkling and vivacious, even on paper (or Kindle app, as the case may be). She manages to be totally down-to-earth while never once taking herself too seriously, seeing the funny side of her past mistakes without belittling the gravity of her errors. Some of her anecdotes had me giggling like a maniac in the middle of the night – top highlights include apologising to God for praying on the toilet (that's some Relatable ContentTM), trying to drag unsuspecting waitors into discussions about her latest 'Jesus book' and hiding in a bathroom cubicle to read the Bible for hours. Also hands down, the best acknowledgement that the Resurrection could be possible:
For another, as with other conversion stories I've read, it inspired me and strengthened my own belief. I'm not the kind of person to use 'inspiring' lightly – the things that people usually tout as 'inspiring' tend to come across as nauseatingly sentimental to me. But Fulwiler writes with such simplicity, humour and lack of pretension that she sidesteps the kind of saccharine kitsch that dogs contemporary religious writing entirely. The change of heart that she underwent is entirely believable; taking no shortcuts, she wrestled with every difficult and controversial aspect of the faith (i.e. contraception, sexuality, abortion, the problem of pain, the purpose of prayer, free will, the fairness of blessings received and withheld, even the validity of the papacy) until she received answers that truly satisfied her. As these are questions that can trouble the hearts of the devout as much as would-be converts, I found it very helpful to follow her through the process of resistance to, argument with and ultimate acceptance of the whole truth. And not to be sentimental myself, but the healing she experienced as she entered the Church and the warmth that flourished as she got to know God was deeply moving and beautiful, and on top of making me tear up, gave me one of those little nudges that I need so often, to repent and return and rely on God more.
As apologetics, as devotional literature, as entertainment, this book just works. My next mission is to buy the hard copy so I can flog it to everyone I know.
So, I've got about 10 million other books that I've sworn I'll read and I also swore that I would stop buying books during November and Advent, BUT conversion stories are like crack to me and Jennifer Fulwiler is a really funny, engaging writer, so yes, I bought this on Kindle the other day and, in a very Fulwiler-esque move, stayed up until 2 am to read it (having sworn at 11pm that I was only going to read for 10 minutes before bed!).
It was definitely worth the sleep deprivation. For one thing, JF's personality is sparkling and vivacious, even on paper (or Kindle app, as the case may be). She manages to be totally down-to-earth while never once taking herself too seriously, seeing the funny side of her past mistakes without belittling the gravity of her errors. Some of her anecdotes had me giggling like a maniac in the middle of the night – top highlights include apologising to God for praying on the toilet (that's some Relatable ContentTM), trying to drag unsuspecting waitors into discussions about her latest 'Jesus book' and hiding in a bathroom cubicle to read the Bible for hours. Also hands down, the best acknowledgement that the Resurrection could be possible:
If some kind of God does exist, then presumably he could hook up that sort of thing.
For another, as with other conversion stories I've read, it inspired me and strengthened my own belief. I'm not the kind of person to use 'inspiring' lightly – the things that people usually tout as 'inspiring' tend to come across as nauseatingly sentimental to me. But Fulwiler writes with such simplicity, humour and lack of pretension that she sidesteps the kind of saccharine kitsch that dogs contemporary religious writing entirely. The change of heart that she underwent is entirely believable; taking no shortcuts, she wrestled with every difficult and controversial aspect of the faith (i.e. contraception, sexuality, abortion, the problem of pain, the purpose of prayer, free will, the fairness of blessings received and withheld, even the validity of the papacy) until she received answers that truly satisfied her. As these are questions that can trouble the hearts of the devout as much as would-be converts, I found it very helpful to follow her through the process of resistance to, argument with and ultimate acceptance of the whole truth. And not to be sentimental myself, but the healing she experienced as she entered the Church and the warmth that flourished as she got to know God was deeply moving and beautiful, and on top of making me tear up, gave me one of those little nudges that I need so often, to repent and return and rely on God more.
As apologetics, as devotional literature, as entertainment, this book just works. My next mission is to buy the hard copy so I can flog it to everyone I know.
February 20, 2016
I'd thought this was going to be about a woman's spiritual searching, but it reads more like thinly veiled Catholic propaganda. I'm sure that the author's conversion to Catholicism was authentic for her and I absolutely respect the solace and joy that comes from faith regardless of the religion [and let me just add that as an art historian I'm endlessly grateful for the Catholic church!], but my problem is with the writing in this book. Each chapter, especially about one-third into the book, basically has the theme of "OMG! the Catholics were right all along!" I did finish it though -- by about two-thirds through I was thinking, "Seriously???" and at that point I was curious to see how each hurdle in the author's life would be solved by seeing things through Catholic goggles. And hey, there's nothing wrong with "goggles" -- we could all use some help getting through our days and nights. But Fulwiler's narrative (and I'll clarify again that I'm critical of her writing, not her choice) is too much of an endorsement of the Catholic church's precepts and how they fit almost seamlessly with her relatively privileged life for me to find appealing.
November 15, 2017
Like most of the internet, I got sucked in and didn't put this one down until I finished. I think I remember reading a blog post in which the author said she didn't just want to write a good "conversion story." She wanted to write a good STORY story. This is definitely a good story.
This book is vivid and engaging and fast paced. It isn't a typical conversion story in that she doesn't spend a lot of time explaining or defending the doctrines of the faith that she eventually embraces. She does weave some in, explaining how they influenced her shift from atheist to Christian, but it never feels like an apologetics lesson. Instead, her growing understanding of doctrine unfolds alongside her personal encounters with God as a person which makes for a very compelling read. This is a story about how God made Himself known to the author through both faith AND reason, through human love AND knowledge. It was told with humility and humor and was a very fun and thoughtful read.
This book is vivid and engaging and fast paced. It isn't a typical conversion story in that she doesn't spend a lot of time explaining or defending the doctrines of the faith that she eventually embraces. She does weave some in, explaining how they influenced her shift from atheist to Christian, but it never feels like an apologetics lesson. Instead, her growing understanding of doctrine unfolds alongside her personal encounters with God as a person which makes for a very compelling read. This is a story about how God made Himself known to the author through both faith AND reason, through human love AND knowledge. It was told with humility and humor and was a very fun and thoughtful read.
January 1, 2015
I'm reading some pretty great books right now and all of them are on hold because this book is the only thing I've been reading since it arrived on my doorstep. Been looking forward to it for years, as a long time reader of Jennifer Fulwiler's blog, and so far it has been worth the wait.
Update 5/12/14 - I finished this and I was right: it was worth the wait. I related to some parts of this and other parts presented an experience completely new to me. I laughed at parts, I cried a few times, and once I just had to shut the book and walk away for a few hours. I agreed, I disagreed, and I've been considering points of view I had not before. And, now that I'm finished, I can't stop thinking about this book.
In other words, this memoir is all of the things I always hope a memoir will be.
Update 5/12/14 - I finished this and I was right: it was worth the wait. I related to some parts of this and other parts presented an experience completely new to me. I laughed at parts, I cried a few times, and once I just had to shut the book and walk away for a few hours. I agreed, I disagreed, and I've been considering points of view I had not before. And, now that I'm finished, I can't stop thinking about this book.
In other words, this memoir is all of the things I always hope a memoir will be.
May 11, 2014
4 stars because she says offensive things about cilantro ;)
I was honestly very surprised how much I enjoyed this book. I know it's been a labor of love and through the editorial wringer multiple times for a few years, and I thought the result was a very well written, tightly edited spiritual memoir. What I appreciated most was Fulwiler's dogged persistence in grappling with the "problem of pain," as C.S. Lewis would put it, especially as the suffering within her own family's history seems to serve as her last stumbling block before she fully embraces faith.
I was honestly very surprised how much I enjoyed this book. I know it's been a labor of love and through the editorial wringer multiple times for a few years, and I thought the result was a very well written, tightly edited spiritual memoir. What I appreciated most was Fulwiler's dogged persistence in grappling with the "problem of pain," as C.S. Lewis would put it, especially as the suffering within her own family's history seems to serve as her last stumbling block before she fully embraces faith.
May 13, 2014
A beautifully written story of how seeking truth takes you to surprising places. Reason brings Jennifer to faith, but her story is told so well that the reader is caught up in all the emotions of how such life changing decisions effect every part of out life.
Inspiring. Approachable. Relatable. A perfect book for those who haven't thought twice about faith or those of us who want to see the beauty of faith anew.
Inspiring. Approachable. Relatable. A perfect book for those who haven't thought twice about faith or those of us who want to see the beauty of faith anew.
June 6, 2024
I devoured this book it was so wonderful to go on this journey.
June 23, 2018
I've read my fair share of books about Catholic moms and add to that by listening to Podcasts about being a Catholic mom. After a while you start to hear the same things in a different voice. This book did not fit that mold. Something Other than God tells the conversion story of Jennifer Fulwiler. She is honest and funny in this book. She doesn't just preach of how she went from being a "sinner" to a great Catholic and how all the rest of us need to get on board. She honestly examines questions she has about life and faith and the idea of putting all your trust into a higher being that allows for suffering and tragedy to touch this world. What I really love about this book was that she examined many of the questions that I myself had grappled with at some point in my faith life. I think my favorite part is when she seriously considers the fate of the soul of Tupac (I love Tupac) and wonders what happens to someone who was by no means a saint, but she also wouldn't classify as evil. It was relatable and funny in the sense that most people wouldn't admit to contemplating such a thing, but it's a real question. Great read for anyone of faith.
July 16, 2014
Dramatic, brutally honest conversion story from a woman born to and raised by atheist parents. Ms. Fulwiler describes, in some detail, the role apologetics (including the work of J.P. Moreland and Lee Strobel) had in pointing her towards the ultimate truth of Christianity. In an account that reads like a well-written novel, she walks you though her personal journey from hostile atheism to Roman Catholicism. Her fascinating story, intelligent insights, and dry witt made the book a real page-turner.
October 27, 2014
Got to the half-way point but couldn't stick it. The author came across as self-centered and shallow and not nearly as bright as you'd expect. The husband wasn't much better. I just didn't want to spend any more time with those people. One man's meat is another man's poison...
November 15, 2014
I found this book while browsing the nonfiction titles at the public library. Since I now work in a (Presbyterian, not Catholic) seminary library, it caught my attention. It was published by Ignatius Press, which makes it no surprise that it is,at heart,a book of Catholic apologetics. The hook for this book is that the author was raised by parents who are agnostic and atheist. She opens the book with an experience from her childhood when she went to a summer church camp with friends and was briefly ostracized for being the only girl who wasn't saved by the end of camp. Her search for spiritual answers really began in earnest in her 20s when she married and quickly became pregnant. Her husband, who considered himself a nonpracticing Christian, was also searching for answers. Both of them, through intense reading and interactions online from respondents to the author's blog, found their way to the Roman Catholic Church. Even if you end up at another doorstep and not at that of the Catholic church, I imagine most humans have wondered about and asked the same questions the Fulwilers did. That makes the book an interesting read.
Stepping back from the obvious apologetics function of the book, I thought it was interesting to see the social problems endemic to our culture which this young couple took for granted and didn't seem to question. Having so recently read "Cut Adrift: Families in Insecure Times" by Marianne Cooper, my mind snatched them up like little flashing warning lights. First is the student loan debt they carried from her husband's numerous degrees. Here is a super-smart, hard-working couple who are trying to start a new business but, being burdened by debt, must live with her mother. Next is their health care situation. Because they are opening a business on a shoestring, they opt for a plan without pregnancy coverage. I have to tell you, I was absolutely aghast at that one----as in, what were they thinking? The first child's birth was in a birthing center with a midwife, so was apparently more affordable. The second pregnancy, however, revealed a genetic blood disorder that predisposed the author to deep vein thrombosis and blood clots. This meant she had to see a high risk pregnancy specialist whose services would run $15,000 with $2,000 required up front. Mind you, that is only the doctor's fee and doesn't include hospital charges. You can see the next load of debt hovering over this couple. To top that off, she must give herself injections in her stomach of a drug that costs nearly $1,000 a month for the duration of the pregnancy. They have no prescription drug insurance. In the end, they abandon the idea of starting a business and her husband goes to work for a law firm which provides health insurance. Because they did indeed become Catholic, they have chosen to forgo artificial contraception, even though she must take a blood thinner that causes birth defects for six months after each birth and was warned against having more children since her health situation while pregnant is precarious. According to the book jacket , they now have six children. Her blog says she has been back in the hospital with a pulmonary embolism. They have made choices I probably wouldn't have made, but I don't fault them for their strong faith which allows them to follow a difficult path. What does stand out to me is the crummy job our society does in supporting a hard-working young couple who are willing to raise the next generation. Surely to goodness we can do better than this.
Stepping back from the obvious apologetics function of the book, I thought it was interesting to see the social problems endemic to our culture which this young couple took for granted and didn't seem to question. Having so recently read "Cut Adrift: Families in Insecure Times" by Marianne Cooper, my mind snatched them up like little flashing warning lights. First is the student loan debt they carried from her husband's numerous degrees. Here is a super-smart, hard-working couple who are trying to start a new business but, being burdened by debt, must live with her mother. Next is their health care situation. Because they are opening a business on a shoestring, they opt for a plan without pregnancy coverage. I have to tell you, I was absolutely aghast at that one----as in, what were they thinking? The first child's birth was in a birthing center with a midwife, so was apparently more affordable. The second pregnancy, however, revealed a genetic blood disorder that predisposed the author to deep vein thrombosis and blood clots. This meant she had to see a high risk pregnancy specialist whose services would run $15,000 with $2,000 required up front. Mind you, that is only the doctor's fee and doesn't include hospital charges. You can see the next load of debt hovering over this couple. To top that off, she must give herself injections in her stomach of a drug that costs nearly $1,000 a month for the duration of the pregnancy. They have no prescription drug insurance. In the end, they abandon the idea of starting a business and her husband goes to work for a law firm which provides health insurance. Because they did indeed become Catholic, they have chosen to forgo artificial contraception, even though she must take a blood thinner that causes birth defects for six months after each birth and was warned against having more children since her health situation while pregnant is precarious. According to the book jacket , they now have six children. Her blog says she has been back in the hospital with a pulmonary embolism. They have made choices I probably wouldn't have made, but I don't fault them for their strong faith which allows them to follow a difficult path. What does stand out to me is the crummy job our society does in supporting a hard-working young couple who are willing to raise the next generation. Surely to goodness we can do better than this.
November 27, 2017
Before I read this book, I watched a few videos of her speaking about her conversion and should have made notes, but there seemed to be some dissonance, from what I recall, between her videos about her conversion and what was written early on in the book. (Nothing Earth-shattering, but small seeming inconsistencies.) That said, I was disappointed at how overhyped and overpriced this book ended up being. There was a lot of emotional appealing, and little reasoning, which is why I won't be giving it to any of my atheist friends.
Now I can understand that to an extent, as I more or less read my way into converting to Catholicism. While intellectually, I’m fortunate to now know quite a bit of apologetics, those which convinced me in the process of investigating the Church and then converting, I have to admit that yes, emotional things happened to me as well which made that process go faster. Plus a narrative of just “this is how I understood topic X and why” isn’t nearly as appealing as emotional appeals are.
That said, one of the first things to “convince” her there may be something to Christianity is the old poorly argued, “747 in a junkyard” argument? Granted it was phrased a bit differently, but still…if you’re trying to say Reason was your guide, then discounting pretty much the entire basis of biological sciences on the precept that that argument makes sense, isn’t very reasonable. There were also a number of times where I was reading and going “No, correlation does not equal causation!”
I love conversion stories, but couldn’t get into this one, even though I finished it. Scott and Kimberly Hahn’s “Rome Sweet Home” was a great mix of the emotional and intellectual (on both their parts), whereas “Born Fundamentalist, Born Again Catholic” was intensely dry. However, at least the latter seemed more…genuine. I don’t mean that Ms. Fulwiler is lying, I know she isn’t, but it’s not trying to be something it isn’t, which this book seems to be. My only other criticism is that it seems to be suffering from a common theme amongst conversion narratives: it implies the conversion is over, when we are constantly in the process of conversion, and our journey towards Heaven shall never be complete on this mortal coil.
Now I can understand that to an extent, as I more or less read my way into converting to Catholicism. While intellectually, I’m fortunate to now know quite a bit of apologetics, those which convinced me in the process of investigating the Church and then converting, I have to admit that yes, emotional things happened to me as well which made that process go faster. Plus a narrative of just “this is how I understood topic X and why” isn’t nearly as appealing as emotional appeals are.
That said, one of the first things to “convince” her there may be something to Christianity is the old poorly argued, “747 in a junkyard” argument? Granted it was phrased a bit differently, but still…if you’re trying to say Reason was your guide, then discounting pretty much the entire basis of biological sciences on the precept that that argument makes sense, isn’t very reasonable. There were also a number of times where I was reading and going “No, correlation does not equal causation!”
I love conversion stories, but couldn’t get into this one, even though I finished it. Scott and Kimberly Hahn’s “Rome Sweet Home” was a great mix of the emotional and intellectual (on both their parts), whereas “Born Fundamentalist, Born Again Catholic” was intensely dry. However, at least the latter seemed more…genuine. I don’t mean that Ms. Fulwiler is lying, I know she isn’t, but it’s not trying to be something it isn’t, which this book seems to be. My only other criticism is that it seems to be suffering from a common theme amongst conversion narratives: it implies the conversion is over, when we are constantly in the process of conversion, and our journey towards Heaven shall never be complete on this mortal coil.
August 19, 2016
I can't remember now how this book came up on my radar, but it had been on my list ever since I heard about it. Though I was cautious about the author converting to Catholicism, cautious about her choice of Christian denomination not about the conversion itself, I found the jacket description to speak to me: Someone who didn't believe in God, then believed in God but was super afraid of Him, who then found herself on a path to clear and peaceful belief. Fulwiler seems to have reached a point of strength and support I still have not yet come to, but I relate to her in so many ways... the bubbling belief, the hiding books, wanting to have a conversation about God with someone that didn't really know me, not being able to admit to people my Christian beliefs and my shame at that, prayers being answered, God putting me in a place where I can express myself more freely and putting people in my life as markers leading me down the path to Him.
I'd recommend this book to anyone who ever thinks about God, because no matter how you think about Him, you'll close the book having much to reflect on.
++Still thinking about this book, and thought I'd mention that it provided a perspective on abortion and contraception that had never once crossed my mind and makes a lot of sense to me. Fulwiler dug deep to find out the Catholic stance on these issues beyond just that the church is against them, explained and extrapolated in a way that I could understand and really made it clear to me. I don't think, however, that most people know the reasons behind these beliefs, particularly the anti-contraception part.
I'd recommend this book to anyone who ever thinks about God, because no matter how you think about Him, you'll close the book having much to reflect on.
++Still thinking about this book, and thought I'd mention that it provided a perspective on abortion and contraception that had never once crossed my mind and makes a lot of sense to me. Fulwiler dug deep to find out the Catholic stance on these issues beyond just that the church is against them, explained and extrapolated in a way that I could understand and really made it clear to me. I don't think, however, that most people know the reasons behind these beliefs, particularly the anti-contraception part.
January 30, 2018
I couldn't be more different than Jennifer Fulwiler. She was raised atheist; I was raised Catholic; She traveled the country with her boyfriend; I stayed home alone. She studied the sciences; I studied the arts. She's tall; I'm . . . not. Jennifer's journey to God and her home in the Catholic Church is vastly different than mine. The remarkable thing is this beautiful memoir that reads more like a novel demonstrates the universality of God and his love for each of us. It is just one example - albeit a very eloquent one - of man's search for meaning, and finding the answers to the questions that resound in every human heart. Who am I? Why am I here? Where am I going? And what makes this memoir so remarkable - the answer to How do I get there? is found in an ancient church she was predisposed to dislike. With humor and an engaging, accessible style, Something Other Than God, like God Himself, is for everyone.
November 23, 2017
I first heard about Jennifer Fulwiler through numerous friends and saw her 1-2 times speaking at pro-life events. To read about familiar restaurants, people, names, churches I go to in Austin makes the book even more endearing. I love her sense of humor and raw honesty in reliving her slow yet firm conversion to the Catholic faith. As a former pro-choice, left-leaning, secular and atheist/agnostic convert to the Faith, I vicariously retraced my wild conversion pathway through Jennifer’s story. A powerful story that will inspire you to rethink how you’ve lived the past, where you are now and how you want to live the rest of your life and in eternity.
September 6, 2016
A wonderful conversion story, elegantly written, to which I could personally relate. I find it difficult to get through books quickly these days, but I couldn't put this down, even though I knew--from Ms. Fulwiler's blog, website, and radio show--how it would turn out. Definitely a book I'll be sharing with others.
August 12, 2016
Although this memoir reads like a Babysitter's Club book, there are a handful of eloquent passages, and I did find it to be a useful introduction to Catholicism as a Christian faith (I didn't know much about the denomination beyond popular media depictions).
May 17, 2014
Excellent book. Full review is up at my blog. http://franciscanmom.com/2014/05/16/t...
August 16, 2020
I really love the honesty of Jennifer's conversion story. It is authentic and often hilarious as she tries to find something other than God...
April 23, 2017
Kelsey Low
S. Phillips
Religion IV – 1st hour
23 April 2017
Something Other Than God: Review
As I read the novel Jennifer Fulwiler told herself she was happy. She made good money as a programmer at a tech start-up, had just married a guy with a stack of Ivy League degrees, and lived in a twenty-first-floor condo where she could sip sauvignon blanc while watching the sun set behind the hills of Austin. Mortified by a turn of events, she hid her quest from everyone except her husband, concealing religious books in opaque bags as if they were something bad and locking herself in public bathroom stalls to read the Bible. Something Other Than God is a touching, reflective tale of one woman who set out to find the meaning of life and discovered that true happiness sometimes requires losing it all. The first thing that strikes me about this book is how easy it is to read. It reads like a fiction novel about life, with drama, romance, and questions you want to know the answers to. It doesn't preach at all, and though religion is involved, it isn't "religious". At the same time, it does sprinkle in facts that will make you question and understand religion. It's down to earth and relatable for all.
It helped me look at my own faith and how I live it out and helped me to describe some of the intangibles of that faith that I couldn't put into words quite the right way. I thought it was interesting to read from her standpoint as an atheist because I am a Catholic and to see the mental/logical shift happen long before the spiritual/heart transformation happened, which is how my conversion happened (though I was never an atheist). It brought me back to my own conversion and that moment I could say yes and put my belief into the Catholic Church, and all those wonderful feelings and experiences, and helped to renew my excitement for why I believe what I believe. One of my favorite quotes was p. 232: "Joe and I always had our futures planned out to the last detail, our spreadsheets with our twenty-year goals being linked to the ten-year and five-year spreadsheets, which corresponded with our monthly to-do lists. Now it was all blank. I used to believe that I could control my way into happiness, or at least amass enough distractions that it would feel like something close. Now I had none of my illusions of control, but more happiness than I'd ever known before." I feel as though this quote describes what I feel on a regular basis and I could relate a lot to the quote from the moment I saw it!
S. Phillips
Religion IV – 1st hour
23 April 2017
Something Other Than God: Review
As I read the novel Jennifer Fulwiler told herself she was happy. She made good money as a programmer at a tech start-up, had just married a guy with a stack of Ivy League degrees, and lived in a twenty-first-floor condo where she could sip sauvignon blanc while watching the sun set behind the hills of Austin. Mortified by a turn of events, she hid her quest from everyone except her husband, concealing religious books in opaque bags as if they were something bad and locking herself in public bathroom stalls to read the Bible. Something Other Than God is a touching, reflective tale of one woman who set out to find the meaning of life and discovered that true happiness sometimes requires losing it all. The first thing that strikes me about this book is how easy it is to read. It reads like a fiction novel about life, with drama, romance, and questions you want to know the answers to. It doesn't preach at all, and though religion is involved, it isn't "religious". At the same time, it does sprinkle in facts that will make you question and understand religion. It's down to earth and relatable for all.
It helped me look at my own faith and how I live it out and helped me to describe some of the intangibles of that faith that I couldn't put into words quite the right way. I thought it was interesting to read from her standpoint as an atheist because I am a Catholic and to see the mental/logical shift happen long before the spiritual/heart transformation happened, which is how my conversion happened (though I was never an atheist). It brought me back to my own conversion and that moment I could say yes and put my belief into the Catholic Church, and all those wonderful feelings and experiences, and helped to renew my excitement for why I believe what I believe. One of my favorite quotes was p. 232: "Joe and I always had our futures planned out to the last detail, our spreadsheets with our twenty-year goals being linked to the ten-year and five-year spreadsheets, which corresponded with our monthly to-do lists. Now it was all blank. I used to believe that I could control my way into happiness, or at least amass enough distractions that it would feel like something close. Now I had none of my illusions of control, but more happiness than I'd ever known before." I feel as though this quote describes what I feel on a regular basis and I could relate a lot to the quote from the moment I saw it!
February 18, 2019
I really enjoyed this book. It was fascinating to read about how her perspective towards God and Christianity gradually changed as she searched for answers to the meaning of life. She writes about how she struggled with coming to grips with mortality and the meaninglessness of life as an atheist. Her entire conversion was pushed forward by her search for meaning and answers. The second half of the book focuses more on her and her husband's financial, health, and career struggles, and was a bit less compelling. I felt like she sped through the abortion and contraception topics with a lot less mention of the rational research that propelled the beginning of her journey. Her acceptance of the church's teachings in this area felt a bit premature, so I wish there had been more detail.
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