Literary Redhead's Reviews > No Cure for Being Human: And Other Truths I Need to Hear

At 35, Kate Bowler was happily married, mother of a toddler, Duke Divinity School associate professor, and a highly respected author. She felt blessed and that life would continue to bring good things. Until she was diagnosed with incurable colon cancer and life as she knew it screeched to a halt.

In her latest, No Cure for Being Human (and Other Truths I Need to Hear), Kate considers life six years on. Yes, she is still alive but how long will experimental treatment keep her that way? No one knows.

So she’s left with living with uncertainty while still trying to maintain purpose and hope and connection. And that she does triumphantly, with wit and bracing truth.

I read this story greedily, wondering how she makes peace with finitude. There are no pat answers. Sharing the questions is what makes Kate’s new book so apt for all of us. Sometimes, she says, life can only be lived in segments, like the three months between scans that tell if treatment is shrinking her tumors. Or a stolen afternoon swim with her son.

I wept and cheered and wept again as I read, so taken with Kate’s humor, candor and personhood. She’s a wonder and so is her wise, heartbreaking, and ever inspirational book.

5 of 5 Stars
Pub Date 28 Sep 2021
#NoCureForBeingHuman #NetGalley

Thanks to the author, Random House Publishing Group - Random House, and NetGalley for the review copy. Opinions are mine.