Love Warrior

Genre: Non-Fiction

I gave this book ***

This is the true story (and self-help guide, of sorts) of Melton’s life and marriage. Melton starts her story, as she says, from the beginning. She starts with the words, “I was loved”, and by all accounts she was, only she didn’t love herself. With many addictions, first bulimia then anorexia, drinking and drugs, Melton describes a childhood, teens and early adulthood of pure self- loathing and feeling untethered. Soon after marrying her husband she learns that he’s been cheating on her and this leads her on a journey of self-discovery. This journey includes yoga, meditation, God and self-exploration. After her first yoga class when she has a particularly meaningful session, she returns home and opens her bible in an effort to find meaning and she finds the passage where a woman is described as “Ezer K’negdo”, literally translated to “helper for him”. After much research, Melton makes the leap that this means Warrior. She believes that woman was not made by God to assist man, but rather that she is a warrior, a Love Warrior. Melton eventually allows her husband to return home and they recommit to each other and renew their vows.

Never have I had such conflicting feelings about a book. On the one hand, Melton is so insightful and such a word-smith that when I initially read (this is my second time around) this book, I wrote down so many moving passages that I just about filled a notebook. Talking about Bulimia, she says, “I hold my breath all day at school and when I get home I relax with pounds of food and the toilet”. About her addictions she says, “…Life is about telling our own truth, whatever it is, and if there is no one to listen or we don’t know how to tell our truth, we find other ways to tell it.” When she talks about using addictions to mask the pain, she says, “In skipping the pain, I was missing my lessons.” Amazing, right? She analyzes herself so deeply and with such sensitivity, unlike anything I’ve ever read before. And yet, I have this nagging feeling that she is disingenuous and isn’t true to herself. I’m not sure why I say this. Is it the overwhelming effort to analyze every minutia (and I mean every detail!) of her life? Is it the overwhelming need to explain why she let her husband back into her life? I’m not sure, but I know that after my second read, I still feel the same. Meanwhile, Love Warrior has become a movement so maybe I'm wrong about this one. Read this book and tell me what you think in the comments below.