Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

I found such similarities in my own life. I could not put this book down. I have followed the same paths in my own life, the crystals, astrology, Hinduism etc, etc. But now I am follow a similar path in Christianity and wonder if oneday my prayers will be answered. I found this book funny at times then at times sad & poignant at Trish's quest to find her true happiness. It makes me believe that maybe my own dreams can come true!

When I first read the book jacket on He Loves Me, He Loves Me NOT (HLMHLMN), I thought I was in for some light-hearted chick lit or a God on a Harley type ride. Trish Ryan's desperate hubby hunt turned faith quest ended up far more meaningful than finding Prince Charming.

Spirituality/Religion can be a heavy topic and can put many a reader on the defense, but Trish reveals her journey with such candor and humor, I, for one, walked away appreciating her process.

In her twenties, Trish threw around the common disclaimer that she was "spiritual, but not religious." She embraced everything from A Course in Miracles, astrology, tarot cards, feng shui, crystals, chakras, Native American spirituality--you name it, she tried it. If she hadn't already made her choice, you better bet, Trish would be first in line to buy Oprah's Book Club pick, Eckhart Tolle's A New Earth Awakening To Your Life's Purpose. With painful self-dissection and heartache, all that changed...

Even if you're not exploring enlightenment, you can glean clarity from Trish's memoir. I appreciate her willingness to allow us a glimpse into her spiritual and psychological trenches--she admits her insecurities and speaks openly about the dreaded "D-word," depression. Don't be detered--HLMHLMN is by no means a downer. Think Sex in The City meets Women of Faith ~ Trish's relentless self-effacing humor inspires quick page turning.

I doubt we'll find many people, especially women, who won't find themselves relating to Trish, at least on some level. She reminds me of our tendency to project our ideals onto our latest man crush--the biggest trap we can set for ourselves. Instead of seeing others--specifically, prospective mates--for what they truly are, we throw our notions of perfection at them in hopes they'll stick, so we'll finally find our elusive soul mate glazed in shiny flawlessness. Then, "Life Happens," and inevitably things heat up and that glaze begins to melt, slowly dripping off to reveal the faulty individual underneath...and we're left with our disappointment wondering "What happened? Why did THEY change? I appreciate Trish's comitment to digging deep in HLMHLMN to determine that the hole she thought she could fill with a man truly could not be satiated by someone of this world.

I must admit, I was left wanting her to explore just a bit more:

**WHY she had such a deep sense of insecurity in the first place ~ From her account, she comes from a strong Catholic in-tact loving family--anything BUT dysfunctional compared to today's standards--so where does this deep internal abyss originate? Without God, does that unfillable hole reside in us all?

**Like Trish, in my twenties, I fell into the trap of thinking my boyfriend could complete me . On page 26 of HLMHLMN she admits: "Dating Josh marked an evolution for me: it was my first experience with lying about who I was and what I wanted, of guessing what a guy wanted and then pretending to be eactly that." That was me. I didn't know myself or what I wanted and I thought finding a guy would fill that void--in was unconscious, unintentional. After reading HLMHLMN, I found myself wanting Trish to explore her own individual passions and purpose apart from her quest for landing a man. Hmmm, maybe visiting her website will provide those answers. You can also visit Trish's Forty Days of Faith website.
Just a sidenote: As a young twenty-something "yankee," living very much like Trish--very defensive to condescending "Christianese." I had a number of Born Agains hit me with well-intended phrases like "Don't you want to be washed in the blood of the lamb?" and "My heart is burdened for your salvation" ~ Huh? That, quite frankly, felt far from loving--only sanctimonious--and turned me OFF from Christianity. It's no wonder Christianity gets a bad rap these days. Conversely, I think Trish does a superb job of articulating the Christian tenets in a nonthreatening conversational tone--very much like a discussion you may have with a nonjudgmental loving girlfriend. Admittedly, I've lived in the southern Bible Belt for nearly fifteen years now and embrace the Christian perspective, so maybe I'm immune at this point, but I'd be interested to hear how you recieve Trish's message.

What are your impressions? Let's start a conversation..Feel free to visit my website at www.WordsToMouth.com and leave a comment or call and leave a voice mail.

Bottom line: HLMHLMN obviously evokes much introspection. I recommend it and would love to hear your thoughts on the book and the points I've raised in this post.

This memoir is about Trish's journey through many different spiritual practices and relationships, while searching for happiness, and ultimately a husband. Her candid sense of humor comes through in her casual, yet gripping style of writing. I appreciated her ability to communicate that not all (in fact probably most) Christians do not fall into the stereotypes that are thrown at them, whether it be that they are Republicans, Bible-thumpers, etc. Her style/experience with faith is one that draws people in wanting to experience it for themselves. I'm not a fast reader, but finished this book in two days because I couldn't put it down.

great book! I could relate to some of my younger years and all the crying and laughing that she allowed for me to feel of my crazy adventures before I found the love of my life. Yes, and finding Jesus as the one true savior and Lord saved me too, from my own follies.

When Trish Ryan was in the midst of her idyllic childhood, she knew two things: God loved her, and one day he would send her a Handsome Prince. But, her thoughts on God and men were pretty much self-generated and quickly intermingled to a single passion. Her quest for spiritual fulfillment centered around finding a man and her happily ever after. Born Catholic, she went through years trying astrology, feng shui and any other spiritual road that offered fulfillment if only she could bend the universe to her thinking. Increasingly despondent, she heard God speak. Could she "take Jesus seriously?"

This is an extraordinarily powerful book in the right hands. For all of the women's lib many of us were raised under, still most women at least secretly harbor the hope that a handsome prince will seek us out and love us for who we are, cinders and all. We ache to be loved. And we clamor for peace. Trish writes this in a thoroughly enchanting way.

She is brutally honest about her spiritual quest and her quest for a husbandâ"and the distinct parallels between the two. Not only that, but the heartbreak she suffers at each crossroads. And when she begins to describe "Christians," she doesn't throw the lingo around assuming readers understand. She beaks it down into what it really means in everyday language. And she is believable because she lived it.

I think this book is great for two audiences: The Christians and the "Decidedly Not" Christians. Christians should read this to see what the world's understanding of spirituality really is and how ridiculous the "lingo" sounds when you don't understand it. And for those spiritual seekers out there, always looking to achieve spirituality but not quite finding it, oh, I hope they will also pick it up.

This book is just a phenomenal resource on so many levels. Don't assume it isn't for you, because there is a fair chance that it is.

Armchair Interview says: A book worth checking out.

Trish Ryan's HE LOVES ME HE LOVES ME NOT is a must read for ANY WOMAN who has ever made even one bad decision at love, even more so, for any woman who has ever searched for the meaning of life or love. Not since Lauren Winner's Girl Meets God: A Memoir have I loved a writer's "voice" and style so much. This is the kind of book you will want to grab and cuddle up with on your couch, at your poolside, or any place you can be alone to enter the author's world and devour its pages. You don't have to love memoirs to love HE LOVES ME HE LOVES ME NOT. Sure, you will see portions of yourself, but more importantly, if you're looking for God, you will find him here! For ladies still searching for God, Trish will show you to way to find him. For those of you who already met God, you'll be humbled to see how our words and deeds affect those around us for good or for evil--yikes. I look forward to many more books written by Trish Ryan. In the meantime, I hope millions of you pick up this book and continue on your own journey to love and to God.

I loved this book more than I have ever loved a book. This book came upon me at exactly the right time.