In Bitter, Sweet Stephanie Weaver takes us on her journey of discovery, self-realization, healing, and ultimately, love. Her ability to move through and beyond family estrangement by recognizing that “people can be so many things in life, all of them a little bit true,” is a function of the grace she embodies as she comes to terms with who she is and where she came from. Indeed, the book is both bitter and sweet as Weaver wrestles with the contradictions that live together throughout her journey of courage and forgiveness.

Jessica Fein, Breath Taking, I Don't Know How You Do It podcast

Weaver’s memoir is a gift to anyone struggling to navigate the complex grief that accompanies losses society is challenged to name. Her story of compound trauma and pain reminds us that growth is always possible—and that hardship and loss never define a person more than love and healing.

Meghan Riordan Jarvis, Can Anyone Tell Me: Essential Questions About Grief and Loss

With insight and openness, Weaver invites the reader to accompany her as she heals from childhood sexual abuse and attempts first to distance herself from her parents and then to repair the relationship. Along the way, she introduces easily accessible therapeutic concepts and resources. As a character, Ms. Weaver is resourceful, determined, funny, and touching.

Molly Howes, PhD, A Good Apology: Four Steps to Make Things Right

Bitter, Sweet shares with the reader how the lifelong pain of child sexual abuse challenged the author to grow—and ultimately to forgive. The author skillfully reveals her journey and shares the difficult decisions about whether to stay engaged with her dysfunctional family perpetually steeped in denial. Honestly written with revealing insight, this book will be of help to anyone navigating this difficult life journey.

Frederic Luskin, PhD, Forgive for Good, Director of The Stanford Forgiveness Project

Stephanie Weaver’s memoir Bitter, Sweet reads like a novel and takes us deep into the story of a family dealing with estrangement and recovery from childhood sexual abuse. The parents are in denial, the five adult siblings can’t agree, and the emotions are raw in this honest and revelatory book. I applaud Weaver for putting this down on paper for survivors to read and absorb. There are lessons here in connection, forgiveness, and accountability.

Lian Dolan, USA Today best-selling author of The Marriage Sabbatical

With clarity and vulnerability, Weaver shows us that no matter the shape of childhood trauma and family dysfunction, personal healing is possible. I highly recommend this book as an intimate portrait of the grace survivors can find for themselves, and everyone trauma touches.

Ingrid Clayton, PhD, author of Fawning & Believing Me

Weaver shares with her readers how the lifelong pain of child sexual abuse is amplified when family members too often deny its existence and their complicity. The author does a stunning job with self-reflection and navigating heartbreaking decisions about whether to stay engaged with family over many decades. This book will resonate with survivors as well as those who have chosen family estrangement for other reasons.

Michelle Bowdler, author of Is Rape a Crime?

Weaver deftly dispels a myth that blocks so many families from peace: The pain of estrangement originates from the abuse, not the disclosure. For parents who cannot understand why their children go no contact, Bitter, Sweet provides rich insights and poignant glimpses into what might have been… and what might yet be. Survivors and secret-keepers will find healing and connection inside these pages.

Jessica Waite, author of The Widow's Guide to Dead Bastards

Stephanie Weaver takes us on a roller coaster thrill ride from realization of past abuse through a search for confrontation and validation; a quest involving many ways of seeking healing and peace; a battle with chronic illness and pain; and finally a decision to forgive and practice an uneasy reconciliation. Reaching her destination required accepting that memories would never align, giving up a dream of receiving apologies, and building a new future among a family that is all-too-humanly fallible. This is a story of persistent hope.

Everett L. Worthington, Jr, author of Forgiving and Reconciling: Bridges to Wholeness and Hope

Reading Bitter, Sweet was a privilege. Stephanie shares her story with authenticity and honesty and offers readers a human and compassionate guide for building a values-based life in the face of abuse and trauma. Bitter, Sweet is a valuable resource for forging a courageous path forward that ultimately leads to empowerment and a stronger sense of self.

Jennifer Caspari, PhD, author of You Are More Than Your Body

One of life’s most Herculean tasks is learning how to forgive. Some of us go to our graves without even trying. Others are thrown down again by the Sisyphean nature of the act, but in Stephanie Weaver’s Bitter, Sweet, she invites us to climb and slide against the rough terrain of her journey toward forgiving her parents. With the love and precision of a great cook and baker, Weaver crafts a stunning narrative that challenges our expectation that forgiveness happens as swiftly as a microwaved meal and our romanticized ideals of a fairytale ending with the loved ones who hurt us the most. This is gorgeous, sensuous writing that centers the making of food as a powerful source of connection and healing.

Cassandra Lane, author of We Are Bridges

Bitter, Sweet is that rare book where you know the twists are coming and they shake you up just the same. Stephanie Weaver’s passionate, loving, angry and hopeful, bitter and funny voice pulls us through both terrible harm and unthinkable forgiveness, with a new take on whether we must forgive to overcome estrangement—and who earns our apologies.

Allison K Williams, author of Seven Drafts: Self-Edit Like a Pro from Blank Page to Book

Bitter, Sweet explores the discovery of compassion and complexity as they relate to remembering our traumas. Trauma isn’t clean-cut, and neither is our journey to wholeness. Thankfully, we live in a time that offers language for experiences and brave survivors who show us how they found their way. Bitter, Sweet is a poignant reclamation of personal narrative and what it means to advocate for ourselves and the relationships that shape us. Weaver’s quest to heal will inspire trauma survivors grappling with estrangement, boundaries, and agency, and the way our capacity shifts and changes over time.

Tia Levings, author of The NYT best-selling A Well-Trained Wife

Reading this story of childhood abuse, family, resilience, and love I felt such admiration for Weaver. Not only does she gracefully navigate the impact that childhood trauma has left on her, but she rises above it with not only personal growth but genuine forgiveness. You will find yourself cheering on this remarkable woman and learn many lessons through Weaver’s story. Bitter, Sweet will change you and leave you hopeful and filled with profound love.

Laura L. Engel, author of You’ll Forget This Ever Happened

A chronicle of patient self-examination and an empathetic excavation of multigenerational trauma, Weaver’s Bitter, Sweet begins with the unearthing of childhood sexual abuse and continues as a lifelong search for answers, connection, self-acceptance, wellness, and enduring love. The author provides an especially measured portrayal of sibling relationships in the face of competing narratives as well as the experience of confronting abuse within a Christian context. Readers struggling with estrangement, potential reconciliation, and the physical and psychological fallout of abuse will find validation and hope in Weaver’s memoir.

Andromeda Romano-Lax, author of The Deepest Lake

In Bitter, Sweet, Stephanie Weaver shares her sixteen-year experience being estranged from her family after revealing her father’s sexual assault. Through family recipes and personal stories, Weaver shares the hard-won benefits of her autonomous healing while continuing to feel the primal pull back the familial pot. Working toward healing and possible reconciliation, Weaver examines what ingredients can be rearranged, which flavors will always overpower, and how to mix up a life that doesn’t need to be perfect to be satisfying.

Ashleigh Renard, author of Swing