Unavailable
Unavailable
Unavailable
Audiobook9 hours
This Is Not The Story You Think It Is...: A Season of Unlikely Happiness
Written by Laura Munson
Narrated by Joyce Bean
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this audiobook
"I don't love you anymore. I'm not sure I ever did."
His words came at me like a speeding fist, like a sucker punch, yet somehow in that moment I was able to duck. And once I recovered and composed myself, I managed to say, "I don't buy it." Because I didn't. He drew back in surprise. Apparently he'd expected me to burst into tears, to rage at him, to threaten him with a custody battle. Or beg him to change his mind. . . . I really wanted to fight. To rage. To cry. But I didn't. Instead, a shroud of calm enveloped me, and I repeated those words: "I don't buy it."
You see, I'd recently committed to a non-negotiable understanding with myself. I'd committed to "The End of Suffering." I'd . . . decided to take responsibility for my own happiness. And I mean all of it.
When Laura Munson's essay appeared in the "Modern Love" column of The New York Times, it created a firestorm. Readers sent it to their friends, therapists gave it to their patients, pastors read it to their congregations. People everywhere were struck by Munson's wisdom. But how was she able to implement this strategy? How was she able to commit herself to an "End of Suffering" at such a critical time?
At forty years old, certain parts of Munson's life were going exactly as planned-she had two wonderful children, a husband she adored, a cherished home. Yet she and her husband, the once golden couple, weren't looking so golden anymore. While she had come to peace with her life, her husband had not.
Poignant, wise, and often exceedingly funny, This Is Not The Story You Think It Is... recounts Munson's journey. Shaken to her core after the death of her beloved father, and having sought guidance and solace in stacks of books and hours of therapy, she finally realized that she had to stop basing her happiness on things outside her control. And once she had this key piece of wisdom, she realized she could withstand almost anything.
Written as she experiences her crisis, moment by moment, sometimes breath by breath, Munson's book is raw and searingly honest in the very best sense. She takes readers by the hand as they embark, together, on a journey whose outcome is not known. Filled with wisdom, truth, and heart-and a great tomato sauce recipe-This Is Not The Story You Think It Is... is ultimately about how to be responsible for your own well-being. It is a candid, powerful, unforgettable memoir.
His words came at me like a speeding fist, like a sucker punch, yet somehow in that moment I was able to duck. And once I recovered and composed myself, I managed to say, "I don't buy it." Because I didn't. He drew back in surprise. Apparently he'd expected me to burst into tears, to rage at him, to threaten him with a custody battle. Or beg him to change his mind. . . . I really wanted to fight. To rage. To cry. But I didn't. Instead, a shroud of calm enveloped me, and I repeated those words: "I don't buy it."
You see, I'd recently committed to a non-negotiable understanding with myself. I'd committed to "The End of Suffering." I'd . . . decided to take responsibility for my own happiness. And I mean all of it.
When Laura Munson's essay appeared in the "Modern Love" column of The New York Times, it created a firestorm. Readers sent it to their friends, therapists gave it to their patients, pastors read it to their congregations. People everywhere were struck by Munson's wisdom. But how was she able to implement this strategy? How was she able to commit herself to an "End of Suffering" at such a critical time?
At forty years old, certain parts of Munson's life were going exactly as planned-she had two wonderful children, a husband she adored, a cherished home. Yet she and her husband, the once golden couple, weren't looking so golden anymore. While she had come to peace with her life, her husband had not.
Poignant, wise, and often exceedingly funny, This Is Not The Story You Think It Is... recounts Munson's journey. Shaken to her core after the death of her beloved father, and having sought guidance and solace in stacks of books and hours of therapy, she finally realized that she had to stop basing her happiness on things outside her control. And once she had this key piece of wisdom, she realized she could withstand almost anything.
Written as she experiences her crisis, moment by moment, sometimes breath by breath, Munson's book is raw and searingly honest in the very best sense. She takes readers by the hand as they embark, together, on a journey whose outcome is not known. Filled with wisdom, truth, and heart-and a great tomato sauce recipe-This Is Not The Story You Think It Is... is ultimately about how to be responsible for your own well-being. It is a candid, powerful, unforgettable memoir.
Unavailable
Author
Laura Munson
Laura Munson is a writer who lives with her husband and children in Montana.
Related to This Is Not The Story You Think It Is...
Related audiobooks
A Year and Six Seconds: A Love Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5There I Am: The Journey from Hopelessness to Healing—A Memoir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Too Good to Be True: A Memoir Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5What Comes Next and How to Like It: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This Story Will Change: After the Happily Ever After Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The New Old Me: My Late-Life Reinvention Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5It's Not Nothing Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Her Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Leaving Season: A Memoir in Essays Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Glass Eye: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5All the Pretty Things: The Story of a Southern Girl Who Went through Fire to Find Her Way Home Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Always Yours, Bee: from accident to affair to the ever-after Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mother Daughter Me Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Prozac Monologues: A Voice from the Edge Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDevotion: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This Is Not A Pity Memoir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Falling Apart in One Piece: One Optimist's Journey Through the Hell of Divorce Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Like Family: Growing Up in Other People's Houses, a Memoir Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Bookends: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Literature Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5All of This: A Memoir of Death and Desire Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Things We Didn't Talk About When I Was a Girl: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Coming Ashore: A Memoir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Autobiography of a Face Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Give Me Everything You Have: On Being Stalked Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWe Are The Winter People: The collected poems of Jenny Rowbory Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFifty First Dates After Fifty: A Memoir Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGrand: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Let's Take the Long Way Home: A Memoir of Friendship Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5American Daughter: A Memoir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Live Through This: A Mother's Memoir of Runaway Daughters and Reclaimed Love Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Women's Biographies For You
The Girl with Seven Names: A North Korean Defector’s Story Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Uncultured: A Memoir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Everything I Know About Love: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Babysitter: My Summers with a Serial Killer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Written in Bone: Hidden Stories in What We Leave Behind Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Down the Drain Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sex Cult Nun: Breaking Away from the Children of God, a Wild, Radical Religious Cult Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Year of Magical Thinking Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Psychopath: A True Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tell Me Everything: A Memoir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Code Name Blue Wren: The True Story of America's Most Dangerous Female Spy—and the Sister She Betrayed Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Own It All: How to Stop Waiting for Change and Start Creating It. Because Your Life Belongs to You. Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Women We Buried, Women We Burned: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5EVERYTHING/NOTHING/SOMEONE: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Finding Me: A Memoir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5In the Dream House: A Memoir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Last Castle: The Epic Story of Love, Loss, and American Royalty in the Nation’s Largest Home Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Love, Pamela: A Memoir of Prose, Poetry, and Truth Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Hello, Molly!: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Diana: Her True Story in Her Own Words Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5We Are the Luckiest: The Surprising Magic of a Sober Life Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Stories We Tell: Every Piece of Your Story Matters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5You Got Anything Stronger?: Stories Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Wake Up With Purpose!: What I’ve Learned in my First Hundred Years Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Glass Castle: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5We're Going to Need More Wine: Stories That Are Funny, Complicated, and True Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Reviews for This Is Not The Story You Think It Is...
Rating: 3.620000008 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
50 ratings7 reviews
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A decent memoir, but not what I expected. Much less zen detachment than advertised.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5read the article that prompted the book, so decided to give it a try when I saw this at a used book store. Worth the effort, I wanted to finish, interesting that she never gives her husband a name, I think it does serve to keep the story about her, which I suspect is part of the reason for it.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5read the article that prompted the book, so decided to give it a try when I saw this at a used book store. Worth the effort, I wanted to finish, interesting that she never gives her husband a name, I think it does serve to keep the story about her, which I suspect is part of the reason for it.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5An interesting premise, but I just couldn't get through it. Not exactly sure why. Too introspective? Too slow? Though one should not expect anything more than a moderate pace in a book such as this. It was tough to connect to the narrator. Despite her real problem and her extraordinary success, the first 50 pages just weren't that interesting.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I loved her piece for Modern Love in the New York Times and I wanted to like her book but I found it disappointing. I'm not sure why - it may be a case of less is more. She seemed to want to over control her husband's search for equanimity and that bothered me.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I am not certain that I can do justice to this book. It had such a profound impact on my approach to life, to my marriage, that I am still processing what to do with this information. Ms. Munson presents her story in such a forthright manner, her pain and terror at what is occurring in her marriage is palable and at times very uncomfortable to read. I alternated between not wanting to put myself through the anguish but curiosity to see how her philosophy worked in the end. I forced myself to read one page at a time, as it was meant to be read. After all, if she did not know how her experiment was going to end when she started it, how fair is it for the reader to jump ahead and read her conclusions? The journey Ms. Munson goes on during this one summer is the beauty of the story.How can I describe This Is Not The Story You Think It Is? The frontpiece of the novel informs the reader that it is a memoir. Of that, there is no doubt. However, it is so much more than just a memoir. It is a change of life, a new philosophy that Ms. Munson uncovers one summer as she struggles to find happiness in a situation she never considered she would face. It is a self-help book in every essence of the word, as Ms. Munson shares with the reader her own effort to help herself find happiness and peace.There are so many gems in this book; I found myself wanting to break out the highlighter to showcase sentence after sentence that resonated with me at a deep level. "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent." (pg. 61) "It's when you stop wanting outside of your control, that you'll be happy." (pg. 4) "Our happiness is not outside ourselves. It's all here. In us. It always was." (pg. 116)For someone with low self-esteem, what life-changing words! Words are just words and can only upset us if we let them. We each generate our own happiness. If you take them to heart, can you imagine the peace, the relief you would feel? I can. Make no mistake, Ms. Munson fought this lesson. It was a battle that took her four months to win, and even then, it was a day-to-day victory. But the end result was worth the battle, and that is what counts.This Is Not The Story You Think It Is: A Season of Unlikely Happiness is an amazing story of patience, fortitude and love - love of life, love of self, love of family. Whether she believes it or not, Laura Munson is a wise woman, and we would do well to heed her words of wisdom.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5In writing This Is Not The Story You Think It Is, Laura reflects on the early days with her husband. She delves into their connection and the caring moments the two have shared. They lived in Boston, then Seattle—where her husband ran a successful brewery-- and finally moved to the wide plains of Montana. Laura has written 14 novels and has never had one published. She does manage to publish the occasional article but not nearly often enough. Laura also reflects on the successful marriage of her well-to-do parents. She was a daddy’s girl and feels good about it. And by caring for her own well-being and providing her husband with support in silence and space, Laura and her husband come to an understanding.