This is my Love Warrior fan art. The book is much better.
Glennon Doyle Melton’s astonishingly radiant book, Love Warrior, officially came out into the world on Tuesday, and for very good reason it is the new pick for Oprah’s Book Club.
I hope everyone I know—and everyone I don’t know, for that matter—will read it, because Love Warrior is one of those books that can really, truly change lives.
I want you to know so much about Love Warrior
There is so much I could tell you about this book. I hinted as much back in June, a few months after I first read it. I was immediately eager to share the core messages of Love Warrior because they resonate so immediately with my core.
But I am not going to tell you much about this book. Partly because I don’t need to: since it is receiving a barrage of well-deserved publicity, you can find out plenty through online search.
Another reason I am not going to get into the details of Love Warrior is that I already have.
How I became neurotically intimate with Love Warrior
About a month ago Glennon’s editor asked if I would write the Reading Group Guide for Love Warrior. I enthusiastically agreed. Then I spent the next 72-plus hours re-reading, annotating, and analyzing the heck out of Glennon’s masterpiece.
There are 272 pages in the book. I have read each page an average of four times, some closer to ten. I took copious, detailed notes, chapter by chapter—more than 7,000 words of citations, observations, and questions.
I would most definitely not put in that kind of effort if Love Warrior did not deserve it. But it most definitely does, and so do all the brave people who will read it and dare to consider all it contains.
Hard things take time
The discussion group I’m involved with to better understand the meaning and implications of Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow has taught me a lot about processing.
Six weeks in, we are barely through chapter one, and that’s okay. Merely ingesting information doesn’t much matter if you don’t also process it with purpose.
Digestion, not ingestion, is the important part. And tough topics take time to digest.
Give time time
That’s why it took Glennon three-and-a-half years to write Love Warrior, and why I broke the Reading Group Guide into three parts. Of course we can do hard things—and have courageous conversations. And it helps to have structured opportunities for processing.
To that end, I hope that book clubs will consider meeting multiple times to discuss Glennon’s work, because she gives us plenty to unpack.
Oprah’s Book Club is the icing on the cake
I did not know Love Warrior was going to be an Oprah’s Book Club pick. I’m glad I didn’t know, because I probably would have felt intimidated or pressured to produce a Reading Group Guide that was somehow “Oprah worthy,” whatever that means.
Instead I had the privilege of working from a place of sincerity, passion, and a desire to be of service.
So even before I had the superficial thrill of hearing Gayle King announce the availability of a reader’s guide on CBS This Morning, I had the inner satisfaction of knowing I had done my best, and that it had been enough.
(Actually, more than enough—because although I tried to pretend I didn’t care about getting Glennon’s approval, I totally did care, and when she deemed my work to be “stellar,” I most certainly felt that way.)
Love Warrior takes the cake
I don’t know how many people will end up using the guide I so lovingly (and, let’s be honest, obsessively) crafted to help support the Love Warrior army.
But I’ll be fully gratified if it prompts even one person to reflect a little more deeply. Because if ever there has been a book worthy of reflection, it is this one.
Love > fear,
p.s. I highly recommend reading Love Warrior before you check out the reading guide, because it contains lots of spoilers. But when you’re ready, you can download it from CBS This Morning or see it on Oprah’s Book Club site.