I thoroughly enjoyed this book! Part memoir, part theological application of lessons from the liturgical calendar to our daily lives, Smith’s insights are thoughtful and almost poetic. She openly shares the heartbreaking loss of her first pregnancy and the joys and trepidations of her next, coinciding with the significant seasons of Advent and Lent. Her allusions to tessering fit perfectly with her exploration of faith and pain, and especially appealed to this longtime L’Engle fan. I’ve read other reviews that describe this as “gorgeous,” and I completely agree.
Thanks to Booklist and NetGalley for the arc!

This memoir does something unusual - it pairs the church calendar with Stephanie's cycle of pregnancy loss and then carrying a pregnancy to term. This is a creative way to look both at the serious issues of miscarriage (and postpartum physical struggles) and also the church calendar.

Recommended for Christians who have experienced and continue to struggle with pregnancy loss.

I found this book both meaningful and a little bit frustrating. I loved the examples of miscarriage and motherhood and related to them, but I think it was overdone and would not be for many readers.

Love is risky. We know that after the first disappointment, the first heartbreak. Yet are we willing to stay open to new people and fresh experiences when those things happen and those people crush our expectations (not in a good way ...)?

I came late to the Christian calendar, growing up in a low-Protestant environment where liturgy and church feasts were suspect. This book reconciles the human need for connection and being a conduit for living water with the reality of a broken world.

Smith makes personal the idea of having hope amid distractions and disappointments. She offers stories and pathways to see life as abundant and glorious even in seasons of pain. She invites the reader to connect to the life of Christ and the life of others: of "joining" this unfolding of the Kingdom of God.

I enjoyed it. I recommend it to spiritual seekers, those distrustful of Christ's community of faith, and to those maturing and opening their hearts to the joy offered in the Body of Christ.

Wow! The poetic, beautiful way Stephanie writes draws you in. I appreciate her honest thoughts and feelings working through pregnancy loss and becoming new parents. I learned so much about Jesus and the liturgical year. Beautifully written and will stick with me for a long time!

“There is no experience of love, loss, or liminality that is stranded outside of this divine witness and with-us empathy.”

This book is beautifully crafted, weaving memoir with reflection on the liturgical year. Stephanie Duncan Smith applies theological beliefs into lived experience in simultaneously transcendent and relatable ways. This book is for you if you need to be reminded of God’s with-ness, of presence and purpose when life feels like far too much. I am already looking forward to revisiting this book in future seasons of life.

I found the author to be approachable and kind in her manner of writing, which is particularly important for a subject matter like this one. Nothing remarkable from the book itself, but still felt that it was a worthwhile read.

A thoughtful and honest reflection on holding onto faith even amidst challenges and discouragement. Thought-provoking and genuine.

(I received a free digital copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review)

Even After Everything is one of those books that feels like it should be a must read for anyone. We've all been hurt, and the power to trust ourselves to open our hearts again to love can be a terrifying thought. This book helps provide a guide on how to allow yourself to trust, open up, and love again.

Flowery writing. Meaningful.
Thanks to author, publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book. While I got the book for free it had no bearing on the rating I gave it.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the e-ARC. This is the MOST stunning book, gorgeously crafted, theologically rich and pastorally wise. I'd reccomend this to anyone and everyone.

I can't relate. I have never been pregnant, never had a baby, never had a miscarriage. I have never been married or tried to navigate a move across many states for the next season of my life. I was not struggling through any major personal events while the world was wrapped in the biggest struggle it has faced in my lifetime. In the details of this book, I simply can't relate.

And yet...I found this to be the most relatable book that I have read all year.

Something about the way that the author approaches the liturgical cycle, which - here again, I cannot relate - is not something that my church is familiar with, something about the gentleness with which she approaches all things, something about the deep, intimate connectedness of it all, it resonates in my soul. Somehow. It speaks to something deep inside of me that needed this particular book in this particular moment, in this weirdness of what the author has introduced me to as simply, ordinary time - the days that I am just counting.

What I also appreciate is that this book doesn't simply make one cycle through time, as though that would be enough to introduce us to the idea. Surely, it would, but at the same time, it profoundly would not. If we want to say that time is circular, not linear, then it doesn't do to start in one season and end at the season that comes just before it; that feels too linear to my brain, to my soul that gets sucked into the narrative of the world and when you say to this linear soul that it all simply starts over again, that seems to introduce a sort of rewind, a sort of rut. But if the goal is to show the circularity of time, of experience, of life as we live it, then you MUST, as this author has done, complete more than one full circle of it; you must show the way that it spirals. I found that very refreshing and wonderful in its approach.