Our Better Selves

From Secrets and Lies to Healing and Forgiveness

Non-Fiction - Memoir
318 Pages
Reviewed on 05/13/2021
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Author Biography


Kasey Rogers
Kasey spent much of her earlier career working in the commercial film industry in New York City by day and writing a musical in between film projects. After the birth of her twins, she switched gears to follow another passion, cooking. That passion led her and her late husband to turn a vacation property in Alexandria, Ontario, into a restaurant. For several years she owned and operated The 2Beans Café and Tearoom in Ontario before moving back to the U.S. Since then, she has granted both a large role in her life, and she has been cooking and writing, and writing about cooking ever since.

    Book Review

Reviewed by Jose Cornelio for Readers' Favorite

A brilliant, moving memoir that follows the author’s journey towards reconciling with her past and bringing purpose to her marriage, Our Better Selves: From Secrets and Lies to Healing and Forgiveness by Kasey Rogers offers a fresh perspective on making choices that heal and that will help anyone facing challenges in marriage to reach deeper levels of intimacy. Kasey finally makes up her mind to divorce her husband, suspicious that he might be having an affair. Her husband of twenty-five years has been nothing but secretive, lying, and belittling her. When she thinks she has had enough, she makes up her mind to leave him. Then a medical situation hits home and everything changes. Instead of leaving her marriage, she embraces the path to forgiveness and, in this story, it brings a whole new experience of love.

A well-crafted memoir that reads like fiction, Our Better Selves is a story that will speak to the hearts of readers and many of them will hear themselves in the voice of the author. Kasey Rogers writes in beautiful prose and explores her emotional pain with unwonted clarity. The story brims with insights and the unflinching honesty with which the author tells her story reinforces the strength of its message. She writes from a seemingly vulnerable place of her heart but it is that vulnerability that lends credibility to the story, making it relatable. She emerges with power as she chooses forgiveness over hurt and acceptance over bitterness. This story shows readers that they can become authors of the love story they want to live in marriage and that they have the power to rekindle love when it is gone. It is inspiring, a must-read for anyone in a marriage, especially those facing challenges.

K.C. Finn

Our Better Selves: From Secrets and Lies to Healing and Forgiveness is a work of non-fiction in the memoir, inspirational and motivational sub-genres, and was penned by author Kasey Rogers. As the title and subtitle suggest, this work is intended to focus on the healing process after complex secrets and revelations were discovered in the author’s own marriage. Expanding on her personal experience into the general advice around marriage and relationships, the work teaches important lessons about understanding ourselves and one another, and features issues of control, the desire to be loved, but also self respect and emotional healing.

Author Kasey Rogers presents a much-needed sounding board and safe space for other people in her situation (and similar ones) to explore their feelings and relate, no matter which stage of a troubled marriage or long-term relationship they find themselves in. The book can be viewed in two interconnected strands, the first of which is a heartfelt and well-written memoir in which the author is brave, raw, emotional but also deeply explorative and open about her own marriage and life experiences. Next comes the advice and wider lessons of the work, which offer a really balanced view of taking a good look at ourselves first and foremost, but also in relation to what we deserve and how others treat us. Overall, I would highly recommend Our Better Selves: From Secrets and Lies to Healing and Forgiveness to anyone who wishes to explore and relate to marital troubles and looking at ourselves through a lens which is both critical and compassionate.

Tommy Wong

Our Better Selves: A Memoir—From Secrets and Lies to Healing and Forgiveness by Kasey Rogers is an absorbing memoir. I couldn’t help reading on in order to find out the next part of the story. Undeniably, it is very courageous of Kasey Rogers to share many of her personal life stories in the memoir and it is clear that she did it from her heart. There are four parts to this memoir. Part One: Seeds Of Doubt, Part Two: Our New Reality, Part Three: A Revised Approach, and Part Four: Letting Go. These are the four stages in the relationship between Kasey Rogers and her husband, Phillip, which is the central story in this memoir. When things got so bad, Kasey Rogers was planning to leave the marriage. Just before leaving the marriage, Phillip was diagnosed with serious health problems. Kasey Rogers then switched her focus to taking care of Phillip the best she could. For this part of the memoir, it must have been difficult for Kasey Rogers to share.

Surely, life cannot be easy when living in a dysfunctional marriage. In Our Better Selves, as Kasey Rogers shared the heart-wrenching stories of the effects of her marriage on her children, friends, jobs, business, as well as finance, I felt sorry for her. However, leaving a marriage is not so easy and I really liked the way Kasey Rogers reasoned and shared her struggle. I’m also impressed with the writing. The memoir is extremely well written with the scenarios cleverly interspersed between the past and present. In the final part of the memoir “Final Reflections”, Kasey Rogers gave an honest and sincere reflection of her life experiences. A truly deep, emotional, human story, Our Better Selves is well worth a read.

Ruffina Oserio

Our Better Selves: From Secrets and Lies to Healing and Forgiveness by Kasey Rogers will bring tears of joy and warm the hearts of readers, a story of true love and the secret ingredient that holds a marriage together when everything seems to fall apart. It is a place that this reviewer many readers have been to. At a time of giving up on her marriage, the author realizes the greatest test of love and must make a decision to remain or to move away from the man she has loved for two decades. It is when Kasey is ready to leave her husband that the unexpected happens. She learns that he has a medical condition that demands care and love. And who can look after him except her? So, instead of focusing on his lies, his secrecy, his emotionally domineering character, she chooses the path of forgiveness and it changes everything.

Our Better Selves is enthralling by virtue of the story it narrates and by the lessons it provides. Kasey shares her story in a way that is bold and honest, meticulously unveiling her hurt and the deception she has experienced. Every reader will think that the decision to move away from her husband is the most logical one, but when unexpected events compel her to make a different decision, everything evolves with purpose. This book demonstrates the place of forgiveness in relationships and how to transform our pain into a tool for growth and acceptance. Kasey Rogers is a great storyteller who has the uncanny gift of bringing readers into her world and allowing them to see her pain while conveying the lessons from her choices in a powerful way. Our Better Selves proposes an alternative to divorce and it shows readers a path to inner freedom and control that is often ignored by many. This book proves that the hard choices we make are often the most enduring and life-transforming ones.

Divine Zape

Our Better Selves: From Secrets and Lies to Healing and Forgiveness by Kasey Rogers is a compelling memoir that tackles the theme of acceptance with ingenuity. Kasey Rogers’ marriage for twenty-five years has been characterized by secrets, lies, and emotional control from a husband who even belittles her. He forces her to keep a secret from his family, and this gets her even more curious as she starts looking into whether he is having an affair. A moment comes when she musters up the courage to leave him, but a medical crisis forces her to stay with her husband. This memoir documents her journey in dealing with the crisis and how she faces her relationship with renewed love, acceptance, and compassion.

Our Better Selves captures the liberating power of forgiveness and the peace that comes with acceptance. The book is filled with lessons on building a meaningful relationship in the context of a marriage and how to find the courage to overcome our hurts and embrace the future with hope. Kasey Rogers writes in prose that is crisp and enticing, capturing strong emotions, and intelligently exploring her state of mind, faced with the lies she has been told and how much she has been emotionally hurt. Her voice is compelling and she writes with unbridled honesty. The book offers hope and encourages readers with lessons on navigating the difficult moments in their marriage with meaning, purpose, and skill. It is as inspiring as it is eye-opening.