With or Without Me is an unsparing and eloquent critique of religion. Yet Esther Maria Magnis’s frustration is merely the beginning of a tortuous journey toward faith – one punctuated by personal losses retold with bluntness and immediacy. “If God is love,” she writes, “then it’s a kind of love I do not understand.” She dares to believe anyway, although her questioning won’t let up. She ­fiercely dismantles both the clichés she’s heard in church and the endless philosophizing of her parents’ generation.

Magnis knows believing in God is anything but easy. Because he allows people to suffer. Because he’s invisible. And silent. “I think we miss God,” she writes. “I would never want to persuade anyone or put myself above atheists. I know there are good reasons not to believe. But sometimes I think most people are just sad that he’s not there.”

With or Without Me is a book for everyone – believer or unbeliever, Christian or atheist – who refuses to surrender to the idea that there are easy answers to the big questions in life.