January 2026: Eliana Ramage’s To The Moon and Back

Description:

This month in the Jen Hatmaker Book Club, Jen is joined by novelist Eliana Ramage to talk about her stunning debut, To the Moon and Back—a book that is as page-turny as it is tender, and as expansive as it is rooted.

Jen and Eliana trace the actual arc of this book—how it began with an unforgettable spark of an idea at Dartmouth (about an “astronaut girl” who shows us that our stories aren’t static, and neither are our people) and how, over more than a decade, that idea became a novel about ambition, belonging, identity, and the complicated, beautiful gravity of connection.

In this conversation, Jen and Eliana explore a story centered on a young woman unraveling in the aftermath of loss, navigating complicated relationships, spiritual longing, and the quiet ache of wanting more than the life she’s been handed. They dig into the women at the center of the novel—the ones you’ll root for, the ones who will frustrate you (hi, ambition), and the ones who will linger long after you close the cover—and they unpack why the ending matters: not because it ties everything into neat bows, but because it honors what’s true. Because in real life, healing doesn’t land with fireworks. It lands with honesty. With restraint. With the choice to keep loving, even when certainty has slipped through our fingers.

This is a conversation about grieving honestly, questioning inherited beliefs, and staying awake to your own life. It’s about learning that connection matters more than performance—and trusting that the long arc of love and healing is still unfolding.

Whether you’re reading along with the book club or simply craving a thoughtful, soulful conversation to start the new year, this episode invites you to slow down, feel deeply, and remember: even in loss, even in doubt, we are still reaching—toward connection, toward each other, and back to ourselves.

Thought-provoking Quotes:

• “This is a story about women who are trying to understand who they are and move forward together after making some mistakes. That's where I definitely am right now. And if I could just finish this one thing that has been so hard for so many years, then it would be the first time I had done something that I could be really proud of.” – Eliana Ramage

• “I think in real life, you don't need to know that everything is all gonna be figured out at once. You need to land the plane on what matters. I don't think any of us, for our own lives, feel like we have that written out. And so there's some wiggle room on where we could go next, I think.”– Eliana Ramage

• “It’s become kind of a ritual to ask myself, can you believe that you're doing this job because your wildest dreams came true?”– Eliana Ramage

Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• Avid Reader Press - https://avidreaderpress.com/

• Fancy Lunch - https://tinyurl.com/3uyuxryf

• Joyride: A Memoir by Susan Orlean - https://amzn.to/49vTrhC

• The Uncool: A Memoir by Cameron Crowe - https://amzn.to/3LFmd7n

• Lily King - https://lilykingbooks.com/

• Reese Witherspoon book club pick - September 2025 - https://reesesbookclub.com/book/to-the-moon-and-back/

• Mid-America All Indian Center, Wichita, KS - https://www.theindianmuseum.org/