Awake

Awake is a 2025 memoir by Jen Hatmaker, an author and former prominent figure within the American Evangelical Church. The book candidly recounts the painful collapse of Hatmaker’s 26-year marriage, her loss of faith in the religious systems that shaped her life, and her eventual rebirth as an independent woman. Through a blend of vignettes, memories, and reflections, the memoir explores the devastation of heartbreak and the challenges of deconstructing and rebuilding one’s identity.

This study guide refers to the Bluebird 2025 e-book edition.

Content Warning: This source material and guide contain depictions of sexual abuse.

Summary

On July 11, 2020, Jen Hatmaker awoke to her husband Brandon whispering, “I just can’t quit you” (3). Realizing that he was messaging another woman, she was devastated and told him to leave. She and Brandon had five children: Gavin, Sydney, Caleb, Ben, and Remy. At the time she discovered her husband’s affair, Gavin and Sydney were young adults, while the youngest three were teens. Filing for divorce, Hatmaker worried about the impact on their children and turned to her parents, siblings, and friends for support.

Interwoven with the depiction of Hatmaker’s marital crisis are flashbacks to her childhood and early adulthood. The author reveals how, at school, she felt unattractive and used humor to win friends. As a teen, she was horrified by her evangelical pastor’s “True Love Waits” sermon (5). Comparing the assembled girls to perfect virginal roses, he plucked the petals from a rose, one by one, to emphasize how sexual activity before marriage would despoil them. The author recalls ignoring the alarm signals of her body around her eighth-grade teacher, Mr. Berman. Years later, she discovered that Mr. Berman had sexually groomed her best friend. The memoir also recounts how Hatmaker married Brandon at age 19 and envisioned a lifelong partnership centered on family and service to the church.

Although still struggling to process her grief and loss, Hatmaker started to acknowledge that her marriage was faltering years before the affair, and that she had been living in denial. She visited a body healer, who guided her through a visualization in which her loved ones rescued her from drowning. She and her friends rebuilt the porch that Brandon had knocked down and failed to repair. During a trip to Telluride, the author resolved to stop “sleepwalking” through her life.

Next, Hatmaker charts her practical and spiritual steps toward recovery. Discovering the extent of her financial ignorance prompted her to seek control over her money and household management. In addition, she chose her own car for the first time. Hatmaker’s friend Amy “smudged” the house by burning sage to cleanse lingering negativity, while other friends surprised her with gifts such as a porch swing and a hanky anointed with prayers and peppermint oil.

Reading Codependent No More by Melody Beattie transformed Hatmaker’s perspective on her marriage. She realized that she had displayed the classic traits of codependency in her marriage by trying to smooth over conflict, maintain appearances, and control Brandon’s behavior. Consequently, she acknowledged her own role in the marriage’s failure. When her therapist advised her to “mother” herself, Hatmaker established nurturing daily rituals.

Hatmaker steered clear of social media, hoping to maintain her family’s privacy for as long as possible. However, a Christian journalist learned that she had filed for divorce and broke the story, critiquing Hatmaker and discrediting her credentials as a spiritual leader. The publicity contributed to preexisting evangelical backlash against the author after she expressed support for LGBTQIA+ rights and anti-racist advocacy. Increasingly alienated from the Baptist Evangelical Church, Hatmaker began to redefine faith on her own terms. She associated spirituality with compassion, honesty, and self-acceptance, rather than rigid rules and shame. Almost a year after Brandon’s departure, the author physically collapsed. Her doctor diagnosed exhaustion and anxiety, prescribing antidepressants and blood pressure medication. Once Hatmaker had rested and recovered, her friends built her an enormous outdoor table to host dinner parties.

The author chronicles her emergence into independence, self-trust, and joy. During a solo vacation in Bar Harbor, Maine, dubbed “Me Camp,” she embraced her single status, spending her days hiking, reading, and accepting spontaneous invitations. Going on a date with a man she met at the airport, she rediscovered her capacity for romance and fun. Drawing inspiration from Hillary McBride’s The Wisdom of Your Body and other female-centered texts, Hatmaker learned to love and trust her body.

When Brandon announced his engagement on social media, Hatmaker’s anger toward her husband briefly resurfaced. However, after processing these feelings, she recognized that Brandon’s behavior no longer concerned her. When her new cookbook was published, the author chose the cover image: a photograph of all the people she loved gathered around the outdoor table.

Hatmaker participated in the Closing the Bones ritual, an ancient healing practice wherein women are wrapped in shawls and gently rocked to realign body and spirit. As the practitioner performed the ceremony, the author wept uncontrollably, releasing the last remnants of her pain. Shortly afterward, Hatmaker met a man named Tyler during a work trip to New York, signaling the unexpected start of a new love story. The memoir concludes at 2:30 a.m., the hour the author’s old life fell apart. This time, when she awoke, Hatmaker heard her body say, “I just can’t quit you” (297): a declaration of enduring self-love.