No Cure for Being Human

(And Other Truths I Need to Hear)

By: Kate Bowler

Narrated by: Kate Bowler

Length: 4 hrs and 44 mins

Publisher's summary

New York Times Best Seller

The best-selling author of Everything Happens for a Reason (And Other Lies I’ve Loved) asks, how do you move forward with a life you didn’t choose?

“Kate Bowler is the only one we can trust to tell us the truth.” (Glennon Doyle, author of the number one New York Times best seller Untamed)

It’s hard to give up on the feeling that the life you really want is just out of reach. A beach body by summer. A trip to Disneyland around the corner. A promotion on the horizon. Everyone wants to believe that they are headed toward good, better, best. But what happens when the life you hoped for is put on hold indefinitely?

Kate Bowler believed that life was a series of unlimited choices, until she discovered, at age 35, that her body was wracked with cancer. In No Cure for Being Human, she searches for a way forward as she mines the wisdom (and absurdity) of today’s “best life now” advice industry, which insists on exhausting positivity and on trying to convince us that we can out-eat, out-learn, and out-perform our humanness. We are, she finds, as fragile as the day we were born.

With dry wit and unflinching honesty, Kate Bowler grapples with her diagnosis, her ambition, and her faith as she tries to come to terms with her limitations in a culture that says anything is possible. She finds that we need one another if we’re going to tell the truth: Life is beautiful and terrible, full of hope and despair and everything in between—and there’s no cure for being human.

©2021 Kate Bowler (P)2021 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

“I began reading No Cure for Being Human after dinner one evening and didn’t move until I finished the last gorgeous page. As I finally put this masterpiece down, I thought Kate Bowler is the only one we can trust to tell us the truth. Bowler is a prophet and her new offering is another true gift to the world. This book will open minds and warm hearts.”—Glennon Doyle, author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Untamed

“With grace, wisdom, and humor, Kate Bowler encourages us to cut back on self-help Kool-Aid and teaches us what it means to be human.”—Adam Grant, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Think Again

“Bowler offers an alternative to the good vibes/prosperity gospel approach: honesty with room for mystery and humor.”—The New York Times

Wisdom and humor

I have been taken by Kate Bowler since first reading her New York Times opinion piece a few years ago. I have followed up with her first book, her podcast, and now her new book. She continues to impress me with her wisdom and authenticity while facing her mortality as a young new mom. In addition, her delightful sense of humor and her tender descriptions of her son and his activities touch me deeply.

Honest memoir and brilliant theological reflection

The author is a skilled writer and trained theologian who has the gift of distilling complicated truths into beautiful prose. very moving. should be required reading for ministers. rev. Paula buford, pastoral counselor

Phenomenal

Absolutely enjoyed this book - and learned so much from Kate Bowler. I do with each one of her books. And I absolutely love that she reads the audiobook!

I just can't get enough of Kate Bowler.

I have enjoyed every minute of this book and the one I read before it by the same author. While chronicling her very specific individual journey through cancer and remission, she manages to share her life in such a way that she taps into universal truths. The vocabulary she uses to discuss them is as incisive and gorgeous as I can imagine. This book is very much Kate and, at the same time, very much everyone else who navigates the world with a keen mind and introspection.

You know the feeling you have when you complete an excellent work of fiction and the book is complete? There is a sort of ungentle wrenching out of a reality you very much want to stay in. I can't remember when else I've experienced that reading nonfiction, but I have done so here. I will be waiting with bated breath for whatever Kate wants to share with us next.

Just beautiful in every way!

This book is a must and has opened my worn heart to feel into new places that I didn’t think were still possible.

Profound wisdoms suspended on these pages

After a colon cancer diagnosis of my own I remembered a podcast with Kate and became curious about her books. Nothing here is revolutionary...per se... but the act of capturing it all so vividly through her own experience...I have taken much to heart. I am grateful for Kate Bowler's willingness to devote part of the precious, brief time we have creating something beautiful for others.

Loved this audiobook!

This was my second time to listen to this book. The first time was before my brother was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. The second time was after he passed away, four months after his diagnosis. The second time brought a whole new level of meaning to it but both times through it were life-altering.

Highly recommend.

Kate writes (and reads the book) with such authenticity and grace. She beautifully intertwines the heartaches of being human with irony, sarcasm, and humble grace. From beginning to end, she carries the reader through short stories of past, present, and future experiences, joys, and sorrows. Kate reminds us that it’s okay to not be okay.

Brilliant!

Kate Bowler never disappoints in her honest, vulnerable and brutal wrestling towards acceptance of her limited humanity.

Stunning—a must for both new & familiar fans

In less than 24 hours, through cycles of tears, laughter, copious head nods and at least ten whisperings of “Oh, Kate,” I find myself at the book’s end. Listening to the author’s narration is like a precious conversation with a dear friend—coated in honesty, depth and wildly beautiful wit, gloriously redemptive sarcasm! As someone with a season filled with more questions than answers and a background in both ministry and wellness culture, it has been voices of brave woman like Kate Bowler that have helped me put language around how suffering, love and faith can co-exist and why the scars caused by toxic positivity and prosperity preaching are so cruel and deep. In this book, Kate’s call to presence and love shines brightly like hope and feels like coming home. I am so thankful I opted for the audio version first; the author’s charming personality shines. Fans of her podcast will no doubt love this audiobook, and new listeners will find a community that welcomes the totality of our stories, the morning and the night.