This is What Happens When Women Read
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This is What Happens When Women Read
Narrated by:
Julianna Glasse
Buy Now for ₹649.64
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Narrated by:
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Julianna Glasse
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Written by:
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Julianna Glasse
The incredible story of how forbidden books sparked a woman’s journey from Christian stardom to self-liberation.
'Julianna Glasse blazes a trail for every woman who has ever felt oppressed' CHELSEA HANDLER
'This is a story of change, inspiration, transformation and tenacity . . . Incredible' JONATHAN VAN NESS
At the peak of her fame, Julianna Glasse was a pop star and exemplary wife and mother, one half of a Christian power couple. She and her husband, a Major League Baseball star, led Bible studies for his team and their wives. But when her love of reading drew her to books like Plato’s Republic, de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex and poems by Dickinson, Rumi and Rilke, something inside her shifted.
Slowly Julianna began to question things she had previously accepted as truth – something she knew her strict church community would forbid. She hid her books under the bed, in the linen closet, wherever they would not be found. But when her husband discovered them, his furious words would serve as her liberation: ‘This is what happens when women read!’
In this riveting memoir, Julianna writes of her very public and painful split from both the church and her husband – the self-hatred, depression, shame and suicidal impulses that almost destroyed her; the books she read that inspired her to embrace life as an autonomous, independent woman and pursue her education at Oxford; and, finally, her path to self-discovery and purpose.
With a suggested reading list at the back of the book, This is What Happens When Women Read is at once a dramatic personal story, a conversation-starter about women’s liberation, and an inspiring tribute to the power of books.©2026 Julianna Glasse (P)2026 Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
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Critic Reviews
In telling her story, Julianna Glasse blazes a trail for every woman who has ever felt oppressed by religion and the patriarchy and muted by other people’s rules and judgment. This is a page-turning, sexy, and eye-popping memoir of liberation. I couldn’t put it down (CHELSEA HANDLER)
Her story is so incredible . . . If you feel like you need examples of people who have changed for the better, are making waves in their community and also had to leave their identity behind to find out who they really are, this is for you. This is a story of change, inspiration, transformation and tenacity (JONATHAN VAN NESS)
This book is a searing bibliography of self-expression, one book at a time. It’s breathlessly propulsive, with courage mounting on every page. In an era of rising illiteracy, I found myself as a reader alternately lamenting what non-readers miss and cheering for what Julianna found. This book is what happens when women read: they transform into who they were always meant to be. Julianna uses her radiant light to liberate, and I’m so grateful that she persevered in her journey of revolutionary reading (TIA LEVINGS, NYT-bestselling author of A Well-Trained Wife and I Belong to Me)
A raw, insightful memoir about breaking free from religious oppression and misogyny. A celebration of the power of reading to encourage empathy and destroy simplistic ways of seeing the world. A gripping and powerful read (SAM MILLS, author of Chauvo-Feminism)
A powerful debut memoir . . . Patient and curious rather than rageful or high-minded, Glasse’s account is a love letter to art, literature and finding beauty in the world on one’s own terms. It makes for empowering reading
Women’s reading is often dismissed as a hobby or a trivial distraction. But as Glasse's fierce own story and fierce analysis shows, a woman reading can be the most radical act (SORAYA CHEMALY, author of All We Want is Everything)
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