Post-Traumatic Church Syndrome by Reba Riley

“Why do you think I’m behind this bar?” Josh laughed, gesturing dramatically to our surroundings. I don’t seem like the kind of woman who would hang around in lumberyards.

so this morning I left my house in Columbus to drive to a rural Kentucky lumberyard for a sales presentation-I sell nails and power tools-” Josh arched one brow in surprise.

I twisted into a bar stool, unloaded my laptop bag, and sighed. (It helped that he was a captive audience and I his only customer.) Rocking a Vin Diesel–style bald head over a broad grin and big brown eyes, Josh the bartender seemed like the perfect person to spill my story to. “Of course, honey!” Josh moved his toffee-colored hands to pour me a glass. “It was a bad day, Josh,” I replied, reading his name tag. This was the kind of joint that offered vending machines in lieu of room service. I looked around: three barstools, four fake dusty palm trees, fluorescent lighting. What’s a girl like you doing stuck in a place like this?” the bartender asked, muscles straining against his hotel uniform as he threw down a cocktail napkin in front of me. Post-Traumatic Church Syndrome takes you by the hand and reminds you that sometimes you first have to be lost in order to be found. In a debut memoir that is funny and earnest, Riley invites questioners, doubters, misfits, and curious believers to participate in the universal search to heal what life has broken. And finally discovered she didn’t have to choose a religion to choose God Snuck into a Yom Kippur service with a fake grandpa in tow Washed her lady parts in a mosque bathroom Fasted for thirty days without food-or wine Was interrogated about her sex life by Amish grandmothers And thus she embarked on a year-long quest to experience thirty religions by her thirtieth birthday. She uttered a desperate prayer, and then the idea came to her-thirty by thirty. And she was sick and tired of feeling sick and tired. In actuality, she was slumped on the floor sobbing about everything from the meaning of life to the pile of dirty laundry on the floor. On her twenty-ninth birthday, while guests were arriving downstairs, Reba Riley was supposedly upstairs getting dressed. Post-Traumatic Church Syndrome is for questioners, doubters, misfits, and seekers of all faiths, and tackles the universal struggle to heal what life has broken. Written with humor and personality, this debut memoir recounts a woman’s spiritual quest of experiencing thirty religions before her thirtieth birthday.

Post-Traumatic Church Syndrome by Reba Riley