It's Not Supposed to Be This Way: Finding Unexpected Strength When Disappointments Leave You Shattered
At a glance
LuvemBooks Verdict
Best for
Practising Protestant Christians — particularly women in a church community — who are navigating a genuine crisis such as a broken marriage, a serious medical diagnosis, or a collapsed friendship, and who want faith-grounded perspective rather than clinical or secular comfort.
Worth it if
Worth reading if you are already within a Christian faith framework and want an honest, confessional voice that actively dismantles easy platitudes about suffering rather than offering soft reassurance — especially if you plan to work through it alongside a small group or Bible study.
Skip if
Skip it if you are outside a Protestant Christian framework, in an early or questioning stage of faith, or seeking grief and disappointment support rooted in secular psychology or broadly spiritual (rather than specifically scriptural) approaches, as the book's entire architecture assumes an active faith relationship with God.
What readers & critics say
Publishers Weekly praised TerKeurst's "transparency, wit, and spiritual insight," describing the book as reading like "time spent in honest conversation with a trusted friend" and calling it a "skillfully crafted volume," while noting that its Scripture-heavy density may challenge readers outside an active Christian faith. Reader and blogger sources at shelfreflection.com and saltsparrow.com echo that assessment, highlighting TerKeurst's honesty about pain alongside her unflinching engagement with biblical truth.
“TerKeurst's transparency, wit, and spiritual insight make this a skillfully crafted volume that reads like honest conversation with a trusted friend.”
— Publishers WeeklyAsk LuvemBooks
Was this helpful?
- Is it worth reading?
- For readers who share TerKeurst's Protestant Christian faith and are navigating a genuine personal crisis — a broken marriage, a medical diagnosis, or a collapsed friendship — It's Not Supposed to Be This Way is structured to meet them where they are. Its credibility rests on TerKeurst's willingness to make her own documented pain the primary case study, and Publishers Weekly's verdict that her "transparency, wit, and spiritual insight" make this a "skillfully crafted volume" carries real weight for that audience. The chapter-ending "Going to the Well" apparatus also makes it a natural choice for church small groups or women's Bible studies. Readers outside a Protestant Christian framework, or those seeking clinically grounded or secular perspectives on grief, will find the Scripture-heavy architecture a poor fit.
- Similar books
- Readers drawn to It's Not Supposed to Be This Way for its faith-inflected approach to vulnerability and personal crisis may also respond to Jennie Allen's Get Out of Your Head: Stopping the Spiral of Toxic Thoughts, which similarly addresses internal struggles from a Christian perspective with a practical, accessible structure. For those interested in the broader theme of vulnerability and shame — approached from a research and secular self-help angle — Brené Brown's Daring Greatly is a natural companion. Lori Gottlieb's Maybe You Should Talk to Someone offers a different angle again, using memoir and psychotherapy to explore how people process grief and disappointment, making it a strong choice for readers who want the personal honesty of TerKeurst's confessional style but in a secular framework. Lysa TerKeurst's other work, Uninvited: Living Loved When You Feel Less Than, Left Out, and Lonely, is a close cousin in theme and voice for readers who want to stay within her body of work.
- Who should read this?
- It's Not Supposed to Be This Way is written specifically for readers within a Protestant Christian faith tradition who are navigating serious personal crises — broken marriages, medical diagnoses, collapsed friendships, or the pain of unanswered prayers. Its group-study scaffolding makes it a natural fit for church small groups, women's Bible studies, and faith-based support communities. Readers in an early or questioning stage of belief may find the theological architecture more challenging than supportive, and those seeking secular or clinically grounded frameworks for grief and disappointment should look elsewhere.
- About Lysa TerKeurst
- Lysa TerKeurst is an American speaker and author of Christian non-fiction.
- What are the main themes?
- It's Not Supposed to Be This Way centers on disappointment, suffering, and spiritual growth — specifically the question of how a person of faith makes sense of circumstances that feel catastrophic or God-ordained suffering that feels unbearable. TerKeurst addresses unanswered prayer, the silence of God, betrayal by trusted people, and the gap between the life one expected and the life one has. A recurring thread challenges the comforting but, in TerKeurst's view, theologically misleading idea that "God will never give you more than you can handle." The book also uses the biblical figure of Eve as a lens on the human impulse to distrust God's plan, with TerKeurst writing: "Eve's disobedience seems to point to the same struggle I have when I don't like God's plan: surely I can do this better than God."
- How does this compare to her other books?
- Among the TerKeurst titles LuvemBooks has reviewed, It's Not Supposed to Be This Way is the more emotionally and theologically weighty work — its subject matter is crisis-level suffering, and it is grounded in TerKeurst's own documented experiences of marital infidelity and breast cancer. I'll Start Again Monday: Break the Cycle of Unhealthy Eating Habits applies her accessible Christian voice to a more bounded personal challenge. Both books share TerKeurst's conversational prose style and faith-based framework, but readers in the middle of a serious personal crisis will find It's Not Supposed to Be This Way the more directly relevant title.
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Age & Reading Level
Recommended age
Adult
Reading level
Adult
Content to know about
Skip if You are looking for secular, clinically grounded, or broadly spiritual (non-scriptural) approaches to grief and disappointment.
Editorial Review
Published by Thomas Nelson in November 2018, It's Not Supposed to Be This Way is a Christian nonfiction work in which Lysa TerKeurst draws on her own experiences of her husband's infidelity and her battle with breast cancer — including a double mastectomy — to reframe how readers understand disappointment through a faith lens. Publishers Weekly praised TerKeurst's "transparency, wit, and spiritual insight," calling it a "skillfully crafted volume" that reads like honest conversation with a trusted friend. The book is designed for readers navigating life-shattering circumstances and is structured with chapter-ending "Going to the Well" sections that include Scripture, discussion questions, and prayer prompts, making it a practical resource for both personal and group study.
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