This Is Not The Story You Think It Is: A Season of Unlikely Happiness

I was really excited to read this book after finding the original article, "Those Aren't Fighting Words, Dear," so mesmerizing. But Ms. Munson should have stopped there. Her talent lies in short, witty, vulnerable prose, but when she extends it to the length of a book, it just doesn't fly. It feels like a writing assignment that has been padded with all kinds of fluff so it would meet the required number of pages.

Her journal is choppy and self-indulgent, and she is embarrassingly disconnected with reality. I find it hard to relate to someone who constantly complains about their massive debt and financial situation, yet travels to Italy, has a horse and a boat, and never considers getting a paying job. She doesn't even seem remotely interested in where the money is coming from to buy the organic vegetables she uses for canning tomato sauce, a process we had to read about ad nauseum as she tried to paint a picture of what a great mother looks like. And she is annoyingly self-important, talking about her gift of "creating beauty around her," as if the rest of the world is full of hacks who have no idea how to arrange flowers or set a table.

I did not find Ms. Munson to be an empathetic or relatable person in this book. Although her husband is equally unattractive given his bad behavior, I found myself rooting for him to make the break so he wouldn't have to listen to how awesome she is for the rest of his life, strutting around the house in her chaps and arranging her grandma's silver. I continued reading the book in hopes that there would be some pearls of wisdom somewhere (there weren't). Finally, an "end to suffering" when I finished it.

Laura Munson is spoiled, self-absorbed, and totally difficult to believe or relate to. Her life takes a melodramatic tumble for 4 1/2 months while her shallow, immature husband struggles with his lack of financial success by telling her he does not love her any more and (gasp) failing to say hello or goodbye when he leaves the house. In the meantime, she takes a month long trip to Italy, tends her four gardens and 20-acre house in Montana, and describes her beautifully crafted meals served on heirloom china in exhaustive detail. As someone who has struggled with poverty and a husband's alcoholism throughout my marriage, and even I know how lucky I am by the standards of 3/4 of the world's population, I found it hard to relate. Pure drivel...don't waste your money.

"This is Not the Story you Think it is" is like receiving a Christmas letter from a woman you may have met, but you can't remember very well. Laura Munson's description of her journey through her dark nights of the soul, her husband's pain, and the months she rescued her family is self congratulatory, full of detail about their achievements since college, their beautiful home (including the family heirlooms in her china cabinet) her horse, the sisterhood of her terrific friends, her extensive travels (her life in Seattle, Boston, and Italy) and how she led her husband back to their marvellous children and their fabulous life by keeping her cool and following the wisdom of her favourite authors (she lists their works at the end of the book). Throughout her memoir she seems more deeply wounded by her lack of publishing success than the unravelling of her relationship with her husband. He sets off the book by saying he doesn't love her anymore and he's thinking of moving out. Throughout the summer he disappears without calling her, vanishes for days and doesn't show up to spend the Fourth of July with their children (she takes this very personally as the fourth of July was her late father's favorite holiday, and the husband knows what it means to her). She has to buy the fireworks and light them for her kids. On the few occasions he comes home the husband is moody and makes a few cutting remarks to her. They spend a tense day together on her birthday- she points out that she pulled out all the stops for his birthday. Slowly he comes to realize that he's putting his own search for happiness and his issues with resentment before the children's well being. Anyone thinking they're going to read about horribly abusive incidents or destructive behaviour isn't going to find them here. The narrator keeps telling her husband to grow up: not to his face however, in her account. Both the wife and the husband relate their disappointment that in their middle age they haven't found the success that there were sure they would find, being such a golden couple. In the end it turns out what set the husband off into his depression was financial trouble. The narrator makes a comment once during a discussion with him that he never shared any information about their finances with her and refused to go to a financial advisor. Surely someone would be more insistant about finding out what was going on with their financial situation, especially if they had children to worry about. I would have resentment issues with her if I were married to her too: he supports the family and their lifestyle while she writes novel after novel that goes unpublished, he listens to her ideas for her next plot, and he encourages her to take her one month long dream trip to Italy. I found it hard to sympathise with a couple who have a huge house and property in Montana, a boat, a horse, and seemingly plenty of savings - as she says, if they're in a rough spot she can give up the horse. They're not at risk of starving or losing their house. At the end of the book she pays for a horse trailer without them worrying too much about it and one of the things that wins back the husband is the prospect of building a "man cave" in the space above the garage with a home entertainment centre and lots of sports channels. The narrator has her cake and eats it too. She becomes responsible for her own happiness and keeps her responses neutral and calm in their discussions, but records her smart retorts to hubby in her journal. And the book has a happy ending. His bad behaviour not only provides her with her long hoped for publishing success, he gives its publication his approval and agrees to read it. He trusts her, since it's about helping people retraining the way they think and choosing happiness over suffering. This book is perfect for a movie for a cable channel that shows a family suffering their way to enlightenment while living in a stunning house in beautiful surroundings (she keeps bragging that they live close to a national park that's been featured in several movies, so the filming locations are already highlighted), the type of movie where the children are angels and the mother is a saint. I'll say one thing for "This is not the Story you think it is": it will help many women not take the tone of embittered victim in their Christmas letters, and list detail after detail about how their ex Destroyed their Trust, Betrayed their Commitment, and Broke their Spirit. Instead, it will help them see their pain as a journey towards spiritual growth and not basing their personal happiness on things outside their control.

One terrible day in early summer Laura Munson's husband reveals terrible secrets. His business, which supports their family, has failed. They may lose their home, the only one their children have ever known. They are in terrible, overwhelming debt. Then her husband says that he is miserable and thinks he never loved her. This revelation comes after weeks of mysterious disappearances, late nights during which he claims to have "fallen asleep" on the office sofa, nights spent drinking in town.

What you might ask, should a woman do in this situation? Try to save their home for their children, by getting a job? Get a complete accounting of their financial picture so she can begin to solve the problems? Try to get her husband medical help for what appears to be severe depression? Throw him out altogether?

Ah no.

Laura Munson concentrates on not feeling bad. She has written this book to share that wisdom.

In this depressing and self-absorbed memoir, Laura Munson tells us far more about herself than she realizes is being revealed. This is a book about a woman with 17 rejected manuscripts in her desk, who talks about being a "writer of books." This is a book about a woman who talks constantly about her and her husband's failed careers--while describing exactly how neither of them would make the normal compromises that even moderately successful people make. This book is about a woman who takes no responsibility for her family's being able to eat from day to day--and buys herself a $2000 horse trailer when the mortgage is in doubt. (Hey, her husband said it was okay.)

Why did I keep reading? The fate of Munson's children, the innocents in this mess, kept me turning the pages. The end of the book provides a short term answer but not a satisfying one. For someone who is supposedly interested in personal growth, Munson seems to have lived a life of denial and nothing about the book's conclusion made me believe that that would change.

Embarrassingly narcissistic and smug. The other one-star reviewers have hit it on the head; I just wanted to enter a review to lower the star rating.

I just started [[ASIN:B005DI75DE This Is Not the Story You Think It Is...: A Season of Unlikely Happiness]] this book after being reminded of the author's wonderful essay on NYT's Modern Love.

I don't think I can read any more pages without getting annoyed.

I understand that the author is taking us to those exact moments when she heard her husband say he doesn't love her anymore. I also understand that she needs to give us more of a background.

But the book reads like you're listening to a friend who is "venting" non stop for hours about the same thing without giving you a chance to breathe.

In fact, all I got from the book in the first 4 chapters of the book is that she dreamed of being a writer/is a writer/always wanted to be a writer/will always be a writer/can't wait to be a writer.

I must admit, when I picked up this book I devoured the first few chapters hungrily. I involved a highlighter on the areas where she wisely seperated her husband's mid-life crisis from her own value and identity. Unfortunately, by mid-book it was clear there was nothing more to say. Nothing inspiring. Just filler. She had shared the wisdom she relied upon (and reminded us 17 times that she's not picky about her sources of wisdom) but stopped doing any differently. There were no more AHA! moments - just more of the same lip biting. The writing quality, not great to begin with, went south. She lectured a bit and seemed like she was trying to fill space with WAY too much information about her local NIMBY campaign and the horse trailer they couldn't afford. I'm not going to judge her choices - as others did in reviews - I am only here to judge her book and ultimately I think editors failed to keep her on course. On the up-side there are a great list of reference books that she shares...so there's that.

For anyone who is going through a similar crisis in their marriage, this book can be a great comfort. I read her New York Times article and had so many questions - what was presented in the article seemed like such a linear process and I wanted to know more. How delighted I was to see that she had written a memoir on her experience. Despite some of the other reviews that chastise Ms. Munson for being a bit of a pushover and not facing reality during those six months, I do believe that there is a gift to oneself, when facing such a tramautic situation, to be able to let go and surrender to the process. I found her "short term" plan of allowing herself six months to get through, quite refreshing. In the midst of fallout after your husband says that he doesn't want to be married, I've found it so difficult to stay away from getting lost in dreaded thoughts. What will my life be, how will I survive, what will happen to my children, what does my "new" future look like. Giving ourselves a short time frame to just be dealing with the present is a comfort and, I believe, also provides a husband some needed space. True love and respect, I believe, may require a selfless giving over of freedom at times. I think what many may not understand is that this can be a gift, both to your spouse, and to yourself. I am in the midst of a similar situation right now and find each day a challenge to live. Over and over again, I find myself feeling the need to "let go", but don't know how to do this. This book provided me some insight on how I might chart a path for letting go and I'm feeling more confident and stronger because of it.

I purchased this book after watching an interview of Laura Munson on one of the morning daily news shows(walked in on the very end of the interview). I cant tell you why, I was immediately drawn to the idea of this book, I grabbed my Kindle and purchased this book. Okay so in the beginning, I was sure I had paid for a book that was a big mistake, then I read page 2 and said Wow this is going to be great. I loved this book and am so grateful to Laura and her family for allowing us into a very private part of their lives. I laughed out loud and I cried. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is married, has been married, or is considering marriage. I do not care who you are or how much you love someone, marriage is hard at times, feelings get hurt and walls get built. I also know that falling in love is easy, staying in love requires a daily commitment from both parties. This book gives us a very raw look into what appeared to be a fairytale love that took the bumpy road of life and came out intact, possibly bumped and bruised, however still in one piece, knowing the bumps and bruises will subside. I look forward to reading more of Laura Munson's work.

Laura Munson's writing is a little on the mediocre side, and a little self-indulgent in my opinion, but it helped to think of it more as a diary than a novel. It is an interesting story that is helpful to hear if you are also going through a difficult time with your husband. I think it is very helpful for women to share their stories and listen to each others stories so we can understand that we are never alone in our struggles! It gave me hope, and reinforced the message that "you create your own happiness."