No Happy Endings: A Memoir
Written by Nora McInerny
Narrated by Nora McInerny
4.5/5
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About this audiobook
The author of It’s Okay to Laugh and host of the popular podcast Terrible, Thanks for Asking—interviews that are “a gift to be able to listen [to]” (New York Times)—returns with more hilarious meditations on her messy, wonderful, bittersweet, and unconventional life.
Life has a million different ways to kick you right in the chops. We lose love, lose jobs, lose our sense of self. For Nora McInerny, it was losing her husband, her father, and her unborn second child in one catastrophic year.
But in the wake of loss, we get to assemble something new from whatever is left behind. Some circles call finding happiness after loss “Chapter 2”—the continuation of something else. Today, Nora is remarried and mothers four children aged 16 months to 16 years. While her new circumstances bring her extraordinary joy, they are also tinged with sadness over the loved ones she’s lost.
Life has made Nora a reluctant expert in hard conversations. On her wildly popular podcast, she talks about painful experiences we inevitably face, and exposes the absurdity of the question “how are you?” that people often ask when we’re coping with the aftermath of emotional catastrophe. She knows intimately that when your life falls apart, there’s a mad rush to be okay—to find a silver lining, to get to the happy ending. In this, her second memoir, Nora offers a tragicomic exploration of the tension between finding happiness and holding space for the unhappy experiences that have shaped us.
No Happy Endings is a book for people living life after life has fallen apart. It’s a book for people who know that they’re moving forward, not moving on. It’s a book for people who know life isn’t always happy, but it isn’t the end: there will be unimaginable joy and incomprehensible tragedy. As Nora reminds us, there will be no happy endings—but there will be new beginnings.
Nora McInerny
Nora McInerny was voted Most Humorous by the Annunciation Catholic School Class of 1997. Since then, she’s written the bestselling memoirs It’s Okay to Laugh (Crying Is Cool Too) and No Happy Endings, as well as The Hot Young Widows Club and Bad Moms. She hosts the award-winning podcast Terrible, Thanks for Asking, has spoken on TED’s mainstage, and has contributed to publications like The New York Times, Time, Slate, and Vox. She is very tall.
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Reviews for No Happy Endings
116 ratings10 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5She taught me how to see and feel differently about loss
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5I couldn’t get through the book, to me the main character is just so unrelatable in virtually every way. She seems pretty entitled as well, like it’s all about her feelings all the time. This is not reality for most people so I’m surprised it got such rave reviews.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Nora is a gem. She has you laughing, crying, and crying while you're laughing. If it has her name on it, grab it but this one is my favorite.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Wow, Nora is so incredibly gifted and has such a way with words. Her style of writing kept me hooked to her story. What a perfect name for a book and not only that, a true framework of belief to apply to our lives.. thanks Nora!
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Great book my entire family read/listened to it, can’t wait to listen to the next one
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Nora has an amazing gift of putting words to grief I've always felt is indescribable, while also making me laugh out loud so hard that I annoyed my dog. This is the highest praise I can give any author.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Love her honesty, humor, and style period. Cheers Nora! Great book.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This book has a high overall rating yet I see tons of two and three star reviews. I'm not familiar with the author at ALL, but I found her funny and earnest and really liked this book. It felt like the right book at the right time for me.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This is a well written, painfully honest book. I did not finish it, not because of the writing or subject, but because I couldn't really relate to the things she was dealing with (kids, dating, etc). I have no doubt that someone in a similar period of their life (which I am well past) will find this well worth their time.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5It seems that this summer I’m reading lots of book that fit memoir with a dash of self-help. I’ve been following Nora’s story off-and-on for many years since we lived in MN. Her husband died from a brain tumor at 35, not long after she had a miscarriage and a few weeks after her dad died. Yes, ridiculously sad, but her thoughts on life and grief and how she picks up the pieces are so good. Plus, she’s very very funny. She’s one of my favorite instagram accounts by far.