A clear-eyed, beautifully written account of coming to terms with that fact that "so often the experiences that define us are the ones we didn't pick"

'Dry, witty and compassionate; a balm for the prickly soul'

A breathtaking, utterly beautiful memoir about what it means to be human. No Cure for Being Human reminds us of all the horrors and beauty of this precious life. Kate Bowler is an incredible writer with something important to tell us. I'll be pressing this book into the hands of everyone I know, and I'll be hugging my kids so hard tonight too.

I began reading No Cure for Being Human after dinner one evening and didn't move until I finished the last gorgeous page. As I finally put this masterpiece down, I thought: Kate Bowler is the only one we can trust to tell us the truth. Bowler is a prophet and her new offering is another true gift to the world. This book will open minds and warm hearts.

If you want your life changed and your heart expanded - and to laugh - read this amazing, amazing book.

This is a remarkably poignant memoir about what it means to be human. With grace, wisdom, and humour, Kate Bowler encourages us to cut back on self-help Kool-Aid and teaches us how to make more of our lives.

In a culture that asks us to constantly strive and improve, Kate Bowler recognises that our own pain is neither an aberration nor an opportunity but a fact of life. There is nobody on earth who sees our humanity quite like Kate Bowler.

Heartbreaking ... a breathtaking narrative

With hilarity and courage, Bowler tells the story of being diagnosed with stage-four cancer at thirty-five, forcing her to re-examine the way she (and we) live our lives. This is a brilliant examination of what happens when everything you assumed is suddenly in question, and you have to substitute love for self-actualisation and hope for certainty.

A must-read for anyone whose life has been bifurcated into a before and after. Every page shimmers with wit and wisdom.

Kate Bowler has paid through the nose to become a writer of uncommon spiritual wisdom, coupled with an amazing sense of humour and a heart full of love. She fills me with hope.

Kate Bowler is the rare author who can explore difficult subjects with both breathtaking honesty and light-heartedness. From the moment I started this brilliant memoir, I couldn't put it down (and I underlined many passages). Faith, mortality, vocation, parenthood, the World's Largest Ball of String ... Bowler brings profound insight and love to the human experience.

Wise, funny, and gorgeous... a masterpiece

Wise, wry reflections on living in the face of uncertainty. A sensitive memoir of survival.

Kate Bowler refuses to jump on the bandwagon of toxic positivity. Instead, she leads us to a truer truth: the work is unfinishable, and so be it. I find my interactions with the mind of Kate Bowler more useful and comforting than most all others combined.

Bowler's prose is adept at capturing the dialectic of life's "splendid, ragged edges" showing through. And she's funny, too. This is a gem for cancer patients and their families and for survivors, but really, for anyone who understands the terror and beauty of being human.

Bowler's affecting narrative offers fresh insight on life and chronic illness. Readers will be engrossed by this heartfelt memoir.

A scorching, relentless, absolutely essential read about the roots of addiction and what it takes to save yourself. Hill writes like he has nothing to lose, and like he was born to create this harrowing, utterly transfixing, beautifully wrought portrait of a young man tortured by the twin horrors of family and religion... To take that darkness and make a brilliant, forceful work of literature from it is the holiest alchemy

Original Sins is a wonderful, shimmering book; a tonal triumph that shifts nimbly between funny, poignant, sly and direct. More than that, within its propulsive, psychologically honest pages, is a genuine wisdom

Matt Rowland Hill's marvellous debut, by turns excruciatingly anguished and elatingly funny but always engrossing, is an essential experience for anyone interested in family dynamics, adolescence, class, psychology, theology, or English prose

A brutally honest reflection on family faith and addition

Matt Rowland Hill writes so beautifully and with such intelligence and precision, such elegance and control, that really, I'd happily read his thoughts on the most mundane of matters. But Original Sins is certainly not that. It's a startlingly candid memoir of addiction, faith, loss, family, anguish, despair, hope, love. It's simultaneously devastating and genuinely funny, and a reading experience of the highest order

Hill is an engaging and reliable narrator of his own chaotic downfall, with plenty of charm to medicate the horror... his account is both eloquent and heartfelt

Beautifully written... searing, angry and comic

Harrowing but excruciatingly funny

[A] blazing debut... Electric from page one

Scabrously funny... Were his account a novel, you might accuse it of being too far-fetched

His remarkable, funny, arrestingly well-written memoir brings to mind Edward St Aubyn's Patrick Melrose novels, but is also entirely, exhilaratingly its own thing

Original Sins is a memoir that reads like a novel; a brilliant one. Matt Rowland Hill's struggle to overcome the perfect storm of his upbringing and addiction makes for a great story, but it's the blend of artistry, wit and skilfully timed stabs of brutality that make it such a vivid and thrilling experience. It's not that I didn't want to put the book down, more that it wouldn't release me from its grip

Brilliant... lively, engaging and extremely well written - scrupulously, painfully honest... sharply funny