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Something Other Than God: How I Passionately Sought Happiness and Accidentally Found It Hardcover – April 29, 2014
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Editorial Reviews
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"This heartfelt book is a lovely account of a spiritual journey and a charming memoir. The author's epiphanies are wonderfully conveyed and will resonate with readers." --Dean Koontz, #1 New York Times Bestselling Author
"Thought-provoking, honest, and often hilarious. It will strike a chord with anyone who ever posed --or tried unsuccessfully to avoid-- the big questions of life." --Gretchen Rubin, New York Times bestselling author, The Happiness Project
"Fulwiler's story of finding God when you aren't looking for Him is a universal tale which will touch many hearts." --Raymond Arroyo, Host of The World Over
"Thought-provoking, honest, and often hilarious. It will strike a chord with anyone who ever posed --or tried unsuccessfully to avoid-- the big questions of life." --Gretchen Rubin, New York Times bestselling author, The Happiness Project
"Fulwiler's story of finding God when you aren't looking for Him is a universal tale which will touch many hearts." --Raymond Arroyo, Host of The World Over
About the Author
Jennifer Fulwiler is a programmer-turned-writer who chronicles her experiences of faith and family life on her popular blog, ConversionDiary.com. Her articles have also appeared in America, Our Sunday Visitor, Envoy and National Review Online. She has been a guest on the television shows Fox and Friends, Life on the Rock, and The Choices We Face, and and was also the subject of the reality show Minor Revisions. She and her husband, Joe, live in Austin, Texas, with their six young children.
More About the Author
Jennifer Fulwiler is a programmer-turned-writer who chronicles her experiences of faith, motherhood, and a never-ending scorpion infestation on her popular blog, ConversionDiary.com. She's been a guest on national television shows, including Fox and Friends, Life on the Rock, and The Journey Home, and she was also the subject of the reality show Minor Revisions (which is now available on Youtube). She and her husband, Joe, live in Austin, Texas with their six young children.
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108 of 117 people found the following review helpful
By
Brandon Vogt
on April 29, 2014
Format: Hardcover
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In Augustine's "Confessions," the first Western autobiography ever written, we discover the probing journey of a brilliant man, traveling through a maze of philosophies before emerging into the light of Christianity. The destination brought him to tears for though he sensed Christianity to be true, it was the last place he expected to turn.
Years later, when Oxford professor C.S. Lewis embarked on his own pursuit of truth, he too ended up at Christianity, converting with great hesitancy: "I gave in, and admitted that God was God ... perhaps that night the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England."
And then there was Jennifer Fulwiler. When Jennifer stood in a Catholic Church on Easter 2007, preparing to become Catholic, there was hardly a more unlikely convert. Born and raised in a skeptical home, which valued Carl Sagan more than Jesus, Jennifer developed an ardent atheism. She rejected God, mocked religion, promoted abortion, and chased happiness above all through pleasure, work, money, and partying.
But then she met Joe. Joe was brilliant. He had multiple degrees from Ivy League institutions and was rapidly climbing the corporate ladder. Yet, strangely, he identified as a Christian. "How could such a smart man believe something so ridiculous?" Jennifer wondered.
That led her to rigorously examine the claims of Christianity, if only to prove them wrong. She gorged on books. She frequented online comment boxes and discussion boards. She even started a blog which invited Christians to counter her atheism. This painstaking research, combined with difficult questions about meaning, death, and existence, slowly led Jennifer to believe that God existed, and even more that Jesus was God in the flesh.Read more ›
Years later, when Oxford professor C.S. Lewis embarked on his own pursuit of truth, he too ended up at Christianity, converting with great hesitancy: "I gave in, and admitted that God was God ... perhaps that night the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England."
And then there was Jennifer Fulwiler. When Jennifer stood in a Catholic Church on Easter 2007, preparing to become Catholic, there was hardly a more unlikely convert. Born and raised in a skeptical home, which valued Carl Sagan more than Jesus, Jennifer developed an ardent atheism. She rejected God, mocked religion, promoted abortion, and chased happiness above all through pleasure, work, money, and partying.
But then she met Joe. Joe was brilliant. He had multiple degrees from Ivy League institutions and was rapidly climbing the corporate ladder. Yet, strangely, he identified as a Christian. "How could such a smart man believe something so ridiculous?" Jennifer wondered.
That led her to rigorously examine the claims of Christianity, if only to prove them wrong. She gorged on books. She frequented online comment boxes and discussion boards. She even started a blog which invited Christians to counter her atheism. This painstaking research, combined with difficult questions about meaning, death, and existence, slowly led Jennifer to believe that God existed, and even more that Jesus was God in the flesh.Read more ›
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79 of 85 people found the following review helpful
By
Lisa-Jo Baker
on April 29, 2014
Format: Hardcover
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The thing is I’ve been a believer all my life. I can’t remember a time I didn’t believe in Jesus Christ.
Jen’s story could not be more opposite. She grew up a lifelong atheist. She’s now a Roman Catholic mom of six.
But the thing is, that reading her book reminded me all over again about all the reasons I believe.
Because, faith can get heavy. It can feel sluggish for me. It can feel weird, this thing we believe – this wild story of a God who gave up the universe to reach down for us. A God who let go of His own Son in order to catch us as we were falling.
But Jen’s book – it chronicles that radical grip of grace. From the perspective of a skeptic. A deliberate doubter.
Something Other Than God, shocked me all over again at the deliberate story of a God who is interested in us. All of us. All our weird and quirky, mean, shocking, gorgeous parts. Our bodies and our babies, our love stories, our doubts, our callings.
How He is not shocked by us. Instead, he is so enamored with us that He pursues faithfully, tirelessly, patiently.
If you’re in a season of doubt. If you’ve never believed. If you’re overwhelmed by your kids and your life and you just can’t fathom how God could be interested in your five million loads of laundry and the bathroom a kid has had an accident in again – this book is for you.
It’s for the doubters and the believers and all of us who live a lot in the in between.
Jen’s story could not be more opposite. She grew up a lifelong atheist. She’s now a Roman Catholic mom of six.
But the thing is, that reading her book reminded me all over again about all the reasons I believe.
Because, faith can get heavy. It can feel sluggish for me. It can feel weird, this thing we believe – this wild story of a God who gave up the universe to reach down for us. A God who let go of His own Son in order to catch us as we were falling.
But Jen’s book – it chronicles that radical grip of grace. From the perspective of a skeptic. A deliberate doubter.
Something Other Than God, shocked me all over again at the deliberate story of a God who is interested in us. All of us. All our weird and quirky, mean, shocking, gorgeous parts. Our bodies and our babies, our love stories, our doubts, our callings.
How He is not shocked by us. Instead, he is so enamored with us that He pursues faithfully, tirelessly, patiently.
If you’re in a season of doubt. If you’ve never believed. If you’re overwhelmed by your kids and your life and you just can’t fathom how God could be interested in your five million loads of laundry and the bathroom a kid has had an accident in again – this book is for you.
It’s for the doubters and the believers and all of us who live a lot in the in between.
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48 of 52 people found the following review helpful
By
BonnieEngstrom
on April 29, 2014
Format: Hardcover
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Something Other Than God is one of the best memoirs I've read - for me it ranks with A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and The Road from Coorain.
I literally laughed out loud as I read, and several chapters had me crying The writing is excellent, her stories engaging, and she does a fantastic job of bringing other characters into her story to illustrate how her life was changing. Fulwiler's conversion was the result of intelligent conversations and lots of reading and researching. Her book is just as intelligent, and while there are some very moving parts, I appreciate that it is not overly sentimental or gushy.
I highly recommend it.
.
I literally laughed out loud as I read, and several chapters had me crying The writing is excellent, her stories engaging, and she does a fantastic job of bringing other characters into her story to illustrate how her life was changing. Fulwiler's conversion was the result of intelligent conversations and lots of reading and researching. Her book is just as intelligent, and while there are some very moving parts, I appreciate that it is not overly sentimental or gushy.
I highly recommend it.
.
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34 of 36 people found the following review helpful
By
Amy Smith
on April 30, 2014
Format: Hardcover
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You know a book is amazing when you love it enough to re-read it very soon after reading it the first time, and you enjoy it even more during the second reading than the first.
This book made me laugh. It made me cry. It made me think. It made me laugh some more. It is incredibly well done.
As a very recent atheist-to-Catholic convert myself, I appreciate how this book evangelizes. It educates. And most wonderfully, it embraces anyone who has ever struggled with doubt, through its honesty and critical evaluation of the essential issues.
A must-read.
This book made me laugh. It made me cry. It made me think. It made me laugh some more. It is incredibly well done.
As a very recent atheist-to-Catholic convert myself, I appreciate how this book evangelizes. It educates. And most wonderfully, it embraces anyone who has ever struggled with doubt, through its honesty and critical evaluation of the essential issues.
A must-read.
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32 of 35 people found the following review helpful
By
C. Saylor
on April 29, 2014
Format: Hardcover
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I spent most of today reading this book on my Kindle (and my phone when my Kindle died mid-chapter!). I really couldn't put it down. I was most moved by the stories from Jennifer's childhood, where her loving but unbelieving parents taught her to respectfully and relentlessly seek Truth and stand for it, and by the respect her parents showed her when, as an adult, she began walking down a path different than the one they had showed her. The family dynamics were very moving and inspirational, including her mother sharing with her various examples of Catholicism in her family background.
I also really appreciated her honest explanation of her struggle with the Catholic teaching against contraception, which became very real for her when she was diagnosed with a serious medical condition exacerbated by pregnancy and her doctor recommended sterilization. This strand, combining her philosophical searching with very poignant real-life examples, was maybe the strongest part of the book.
All in all, Something Other than God is a compassionate, humble, and elegant story of a passionate search for Truth, which ends with finding Love.
I also really appreciated her honest explanation of her struggle with the Catholic teaching against contraception, which became very real for her when she was diagnosed with a serious medical condition exacerbated by pregnancy and her doctor recommended sterilization. This strand, combining her philosophical searching with very poignant real-life examples, was maybe the strongest part of the book.
All in all, Something Other than God is a compassionate, humble, and elegant story of a passionate search for Truth, which ends with finding Love.
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