Jen Hatmaker is thanking devoted fans for helping her get through what she calls a “vulnerability hangover.”
The author/influencer just announced a new memoir that finally addresses what happened when her 26-year marriage fell apart in 2020.
But after dropping news of the deeply personal new book, Hatmaker says she felt panicked. In her post on Instagram, Hatmaker writes, “For some reason, showing you the cover and title of my new book—AWAKE: A Memoir—made it that much more real. I don’t know how to explain it, but it just did. I can’t just ‘call this whole thing off’ anymore. I mean, I laid in bed last night with the lights off while my girlfriends talked me off the ledge.”
Fan Response Helps Jen Hatmaker Feel Less Alone
Hatmaker was a bestselling Christian author, blogger, podcaster and speaker with more than a million followers on social media and her own show on HGTV with then-husband Brandon Hatmaker when the sudden and unexpected end of her marriage threw her life into chaos in 2020. But while she’s taken her fans along on her journey to rebuild her life over the past five years, she hasn’t ever revealed exactly what happened that caused her long marriage to implode, until now.
Hatmaker writes in her post, “I’m simultaneously terrified and thrilled to put this one in your hands.”
But she also says fan response to her news has helped her adjust to the idea of being so vulnerable with her readers. She writes, “what I really want to do right now is I want to thank you for your response yesterday. And what it told me was what I suspected, which is this: We’re all in this together.”
More than 3-thousand readers were quick to offer support to the author. One said, “Awake. I cannot wait for this! I’m so excited for you and for all of us that have come through the darkness and have learned how to thrive. 🩵”
Another wrote, “Happy cover reveal day, and oh my word: I want to live in a world where we get to know exactly what is inside of you and what you know as you use your voice. I know without a doubt it will connect us to the truth inside of us, and our wisest voices. Thank you thank you thank you”
Fans are eager for the book’s September release. One commented, “AWAKE! I’ve been following along for quite some time and am@looking forward to you sharing such a deeply personal story of undoing and rebuilding. 🩷”
Jen Hatmaker Looks Back on Life Turning Upside Down
Awake begins in the middle of the night in July 2020. Hatmaker wakes up to find her husband of 26-years in their bed, calling another woman.
In her post announcing the book, Hatmaker writes, “AWAKE is deeply personal. It is raw. It is unexpected. It was desperately hard to write. I wrote this in raw, real-time vignettes that span four decades.”
When her marriage fell apart, Hatmaker got off social media for a short period of time, and when she returned, she asked her fans not to ask questions.
At the end of July 2020, she wrote, “In short, we are deeply hurting in our little life… Our family is navigating an unexpected crisis, and I’ve taken a step back from socials and work to help steer toward healing and wholeness.”
Then she asks her readers for privacy, “Please don’t worry but please do pray for us if you pray. A request: don’t pry or ask or push, even out of sincere concern.”
While Hatmaker has gone on to let followers into almost every aspect of her life, she has maintained silence about specifics of the breakdown of her marriage for the past five years.
Author Says the Memoir Is About So Much More Than Her Divorce
While Jen Hatmaker does get candid for the first time about her divorce, she says her new book is about so much more than that. And though she has penned nearly 30 books, it’s like nothing she’s ever written before.
In an Instagram post, Hatmaker explains how the memoir developed. “I had an idea.,” she writes. “Different from any format or even style I’ve ever used. A risk for sure; nerve-wracking and a little thrilling. Not ‘instructive’ or ‘prescriptive’ or ‘a guide’ through anything. It is what I know so far, raw and true. The first sentence goes for the jugular.”
Jen Hatmaker says the divorce is just one part of her story. On Instagram she writes, “I describe AWAKE as a coming-of-middle-age story. So, yes, it includes stuff about the breakdown of my marriage and the rebuilding process, but it’s also about things that we’re just all going through: change, loss, our bodies, our relationships, faith systems that built a house of cards, old ideas and paradigms, gender disparity and whole systems built to keep us discombobulated, disenfranchised, off-kilter, subservient.”
Awake drops September 23. Pre-orders are open now.
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