If You Really Loved Me Book Review

This review is written as part of the Catholic books reviewer program from The Catholic Company. Visit The Catholic Company to find more information on If You Really Loved Me.


This book by Jason Evert, a popular Catholic chastity speaker, is written in a question and answer format. It's hilarious. It's insightful. It's an easy read. It contains solid Catholic orthodoxy. It is chocked full of examples and analogies so as to make it real and not abstract like many other books of this genre. A brief excerpt to illustrate this point:

If you are unsure whether a particular action could be sinful, then love demands that you refuse to go there. Suppose I put a teaspoon of powder into a cup of tea for my wife. I look at the bowl where I got the powder. It reads "sugar" on one side and "rat poison" on the other. Do I say, "Oh, it's probably not poison. I'll give it to her anyway"? If I loved her, then I would never do something that was possibly lethal for her...

A few chapter headings: Dating and Courtship, STDs, How to Stay Pure, Vocations, Contraception (particularly informative, well explained and thorough), a brief (4 questions) section on Homosexuality, and a whole section on by far the most asked question: How Far is Too Far?

It's appropriate for teenagers and beyond. It needn't be read cover to cover but can serve as a reference guide for those involved in youth and young adult ministry, for those who are dating/courting/engaged, or for anyone who wants to get a handle on this area of Catholic moral teaching.

Best book I've ever read? No. Best book on the subject? No. A useful and helpful resource? Absolutely.

No Turning Back

My husband was reading a book out at the farm earlier this week called "No Turning Back: A Witness to Mercy" by Fr. Don Calloway. He was so engrossed in it that he would scarcely look up or respond.

Image from Amazon

I had met Fr. Calloway in college -- he was a young, cool, passionate priest who gave dynamic and riveting homilies about the Blessed Mother. Only after graduating did I discover he was a "somebody" in the Catholic world, when I heard him on EWTN. I'd had no idea about his sordid past.

I asked my husband to stop reading so we could enjoy it together later. He twinged a bit, as if to say, "but it's so good! I can't stop!" What a darling he is; he immediately put in a bookmark so I could catch up.

So yesterday I picked up the book. From the very first paragraph I knew it would be good. It took every shred of willpower not to read past that bookmark!

The hours felt like days until he got home last night. I passed the hours by sitting outside and feeling the cool breeze of an impending thunderstorm... the first of the year. But as soon as he walked in I yelled: "Okay! Let's read it!" He'd picked up some goodies from the grocery and we snuggled in for a long night of reading aloud, amidst the glorious peals of thunder. 

We were up until 3am. I will admit that at some points the book begins to get tedious. You wonder how many more drugs he can do, how many more scrapes he can get into, how much more miserable he can become. But the moment at which you think you can't stand it anymore and he's gonna die, all heaven breaks open and floods him with grace. Wow. It's a conversion story to rival Augustine, Ignatius, Francis and... yes, even Fr. Corapi.

Read it. Buy it. Buy copies to give to others. Buy copies for others to give to others. It is a remarkable witness to mercy.