He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not: A Memoir of Finding Faith, Hope, and Happily Ever After [Hardcover]

Trish Ryan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 30, 2008

Trish Ryan was the quintessential successful thirtysomething woman -- she had a career as an attorney, a nice car, and a succession of men clamoring for her affection. But despite all her accomplishments, the things by which she defined her life continually left her disappointed, especially when it came to dating. Like the heroines of chick-lit novels and Sex and the City, she couldn't escape her bad luck with men: men who cheated, who left her, who made her a lesser version of herself. After years of trying everything out there to make love work -- new age philosophy, feminist empowerment, myriad of self-help programs -- she finally, hesitantly, decided to give God a try. This is Ryan's story of how her search for the right guy turned into the search for the right God, and (spoiler alert!) how she ended up with the happily-ever-after ending.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Ryan's winsome memoir and writing debut traces her desperate search for a man—specifically a husband—and for a spirituality that works for her. En route, her heart is broken in every possible way: her college fiancé cheats on her; her first husband abuses her; and she dates a succession of alternately nice and creepy noncommittal guys. She attempts to talk herself out of her desire for marriage, hoping that crystals, feng shui and astrology will provide the guidance she needs to sort out the mess of her life. When she ends up unemployed and broke in Boston, she channel surfs across a Joyce Meyer program one afternoon and is shocked to hear that the Bible promises good things. She visits an evangelical church, joins a small group and ever so tentatively explores the idea of Jesus, eventually giving him her broken life and asking him to fix it. God promises her a husband and delivers (with a tinge of prosperity gospel that will appeal to Meyer fans), but not without cost. In spite of her desperation and a string of horrible choices, Ryan is eminently likable and vulnerable, and her sharp writing will appeal to faithful and irreverent readers alike. (Apr. 30)
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Review

"Trish Ryan's He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not is the beautiful and honest story of one pilgrim's progress. It will inspire you and challenge you and you will fall in love with it and with her." (David Kuo, author of Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction )

"You don't have to be looking for spiritual enlightenment to dive into Trish Ryan's HE LOVES ME, HE LOVES ME NOT: A Memoir of Finding Faith, Hope, and Happily Ever After. Honest, funny and poignant, Ryan's is a story of one woman searching for the right path, and in sharing her journey, she might help you find your own way, whatever that way might be." (Allison Winn Scotch, author of "The Department of Lost and Found" )

"Trish Ryan delivers a razor sharp memoir: funny, thoughtful, poignant and unflinchingly honest. HE LOVES ME, HE LOVES ME NOT is a must-read for anyone who's struggled with life's Big Questions." (Cara Lockwood, bestselling author of "I Do (But I Don't)" )

"Poignant, honest, and intriguing ... This book is for anyone who longs to experience the abundance, joy, and peace that only comes through a relationship with the one true God of the universe." (Denise Jackson, New York Times bestselling author of "It's All About Him" )

"Trish Ryan is a woman on a search. She's honest, vulnerable, funny and frank and simply will not settle for a life without greater meaning or a man without a generous heart. Her story will connect with all those who quest for true love and a greater purpose or pattern for the way they live their lives."

(Margaret Sartor, New York Times' bestselling author of "Miss American Pie: A Diary of Love, Secrets, and Growing Up in the 1970s" )

"This is one riveting story. Like many people, I can identify with what it feels like to look in all the wrong places -- and then realize down the road that God has been writing a story that is so much bigger and better than I could have ever imagined. It's not often that someone can make me read into the wee hours -- and then laugh so hard that I wake my poor husband up from a sound sleep." (Shaunti Feldhahn, bestsellingauthor of "For Women Only: What You Need to Know About the Inner Lives of Men" )

"Trish Ryan gives readers a literary two-for-one deal that is hard to resist. Her simultaneous quests for the right guy and the right spiritual path are funny, moving, disarmingly frank and ultimately uplifting. Each makes a great tale, but together, her cup runneth over." (AJ Jacobs, author of "The Know-It-All" and "The Year of Living Biblically" )

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: FaithWords (April 30, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1599957132
• ISBN-13: 978-1599957135
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 1.1 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #276,888 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

My dream, ever since I was a little girl, was to be a super hero. Specifically, I wanted to be one of the Wonder Twins, meeting with Superman and Wonder Woman at the Hall of Justice on Saturday mornings to fight evil and save the world. Lacking a twin, I got a law degree instead, thinking it would give me evil-fighting super hero powers. As it turns out, I was wrong.
Shortly after realizing that I hated billable hours, I ended (read: fled) my career in law, and spent the next few years trying to make sense of the world. I couldn't shake the belief that things could/should/would be different - better, somehow - if only I could figure out what really mattered. I wanted to know how things like spirituality and luck and intuition worked, and how I could make them work for me. So I embarked on a quest to find the right God, but spent much of my time trying to find the right guy. At a certain point, after accumulating a heaping pile of mistakes on both counts, I came to see that the two might be intertwined.
The good news is, after much trial and error, I finally found them both: the God, and the guy.
Now I live in Cambridge, Massachusetts with my super hero-husband Steve, and our genetically-improbable mixed-breed dog. I wrote a book about my search, "He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not: A Memoir of Finding Faith, Hope, and Happily Ever After," published by Hachette Book Group in 2008. The follow up, "A Maze of Grace: A Memoir of Second Chances" will be in stores in June 2010. And while I sit at my laptop typing each day, the Wonder Twin dream lives on...

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars LOVED this book, May 23, 2008

By 

Caroline Coleman "a writer" (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not: A Memoir of Finding Faith, Hope, and Happily Ever After (Hardcover)

This is a great book. Smart, funny, honest, and well written. You want to give it to every friend you know who is looking for freedom, joy, peace and love by rearranging their furniture, and also to everyone who is having trouble believing in miracles. I can't recommend it enough.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Poetic Sarcasm and Sweet Surrender, April 28, 2008

By 

Kelly Klepfer (Iowa) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not: A Memoir of Finding Faith, Hope, and Happily Ever After (Hardcover)

He Loves Me, Loves Me Not is a well-written and engaging memoir along the lines of those penned by Donald Miller, and reminding me very much of Lauren Winner's Girl Meets God.

Trish Ryan lays out her journey from stars and crystals to a tentative step forward, three-step- back, and final two-handed grasp of the truth of Jesus as her source of spiritual fulfillment. The road is winding and full of poetic sarcasm and sweet, struggling surrender.

Miller fans, women who despair of finding that perfect Christian man, those on the brink of a spiritual journey, or ones beaten down by religion and empty promises may find soul-balm in this book. Baby-steppers in Jesus, wheel-spinners, spiritual quicksand dwellers and ditch rollers may find fresh air and relief from the struggle in the truths that Trish discovered while wrestling spirituality.

However, warning to the sensitive. Trish is transparently generous with her thoughts and not all will please more conservative readers. Trish has embraced freedom in Christ and though I highly recommend and sometimes long for that path, my Baptist upbringing cautions me far too often. So, if you are easily offended by the idea of a Christian drinking alcohol or sharing thoughts that wouldn't pass the prim Sunday School teacher appropriateness test....do yourself a favor and don't go there. Because, if you do go there you are going to not glean the truth from the book but get hung up in the details.

Sensitive parents will also want to review the book before allowing OLDER teens to read it because Trish delves into dysfunctional relationships, including her own issues.

The chapters covering Trish's growth into wife material really should be must-reading for all females who love Jesus and want a husband real bad.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Laugh-out loud funny., April 27, 2008

By 

P. Griffiths (Boston, MA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not: A Memoir of Finding Faith, Hope, and Happily Ever After (Hardcover)

Memoir is not my favorite genre, but my wife loves it and she chortled her way all afternoon through the first half of this book, I wondered what I was missing out on. I found out when I stole it to catch up and then we read the rest of the book side-by-side: a laugh-out loud, disarmingly real look at the life of a single woman in America and her quest for happiness. Imagine if Anne Lamott wrote a how-to for finding a mate: witty, deep, spiritual, and awkwardly funny. You can't help but want Trish to triumph in the end.