You've never read a book like this one: frankly self-deprecating, boldly complex, intense, joyfully honest, devastatingly beautiful, heartbreakingly funny. What Falls from the Sky is about so much more than one woman's year without the Internet; it's about marriage and choices, faith and rest, community and family, grief and hope, food and dirt---all the things that make our lives worth living. It is impossible to live an unexamined life with Esther as your friend. She is completely herself, and so her story sings of freedom within the silence and even within the noise. * - Sarah Bessey, author of Jesus Feminist and Out of Sorts: Making Peace with an Evolving Faith *
I tore through this book like the pages were on fire. Esther Emery's courageous, gritty, and self-aware experiment with fasting from the Internet is nothing less than a freedom song. This book is a must-read for anyone who has struggled with finding connection and meaning in a world where communication is reduced to texts, pixels, and emojis. Esther's story will provide fresh perspective and inspiration. * - Elizabeth Esther, author of Girl at the End of the World and Spiritual Sobriety *
Esther Emery makes me believe in a different kind of world: where the table, not the screen, has primacy of place; where people change; where silence unfurls---and God still speaks. I'm grateful for that world and the Christ who makes it possible. * - Jen Pollock Michel, author of Teach Us to Want: Longing, Ambition, and the Life of Faith; and Keeping Place: Reflections on the Meaning of Home *
What Falls from the Sky is a keenly observed exploration of life on the other side of blogs, Twitter, and Facebook. Emery's rich self-awareness and observation of the world harmonize masterfully, and this debut is rich with wit, irony, and grace. A year richly lived, this is a book to be savored. * - Preston Yancey, author of Out of the House of Bread: Satisfying Your Hunger for God with the Spiritual Disciplines *
What started for Esther as an experiment of whittling down turned into a journey of abundance. I was riveted from the first page, and when I reached the last, I felt I had gained a new friend. Profound and gentle, compelling and engaging, Esther's story will spur you on to love and live better. * -Amy Boucher Pye, author of Finding Myself in Britain *
In this remarkable debut, Esther puts hard stop to the chaos of the Internet and lets the waters settle enough to peer into her own soul. And by showing us, unflinchingly, what she finds there, she gives us the courage to get quiet, get attentive, and listen to our own lives. * - Addie Zierman, author of When We Were on Fire and Night Driving *
Esther Emery's What Falls from the Sky is a joyful pilgrimage into the heart of what matters in a complex and connected world. With wit and wisdom, she takes us on a wholehearted journey of an embodied faith: a faith where heart and hands, mind and body matter equally and the truth of Scripture is confirmed in the truth of the earth. What Falls from the Sky is not to be missed. * - Christina Crook, author of The Joy of Missing Out: Finding Balance in a Wired World *
