Paul Angone - All Groan Up: Searching for Self, Faith, and a Freaking Job!

PRAISE FOR
ALL GROAN UP

Paul Angone offers a new voice to twentysomethings everywhere, writing honestly about one of lifes biggest transitions. At turns, All Groan Up is hilarious, poignant, and insightful. Angone relentlessly explores who God wants us to be rather than what God wants us to do words everyone needs to hear, whatever their stage of life.

John Ortberg, author of The Me I Want to Be

Powerful, honest, heartfelt, and hilarious, this book is a must-read for anyone struggling to feel at home in their groan-up pants. If youre a twentysomething, or if you want to help a twentysomething, you need this book.

Megan Alexander, TV correspondent, Inside Edition

Relatable, funny, and inspiring, All Groan Up is an uplifting story about the redemption of hope when things dont go as planned. This book is must-read for anyone asking Whats next?

Mike Foster, cofounder and chief chance officer of People of the Second Chance

This is it the book every young person should read and every teacher and parent should have on hand. I dont think you can call yourself a grown-up without first reading this book.

Jeff Goins, author of The Art of Work

My twenties were like the new puberty awkward, sweaty, weird, and life-changing, except no one warned me about them. Paul Angones voice in All Groan Up is not just a warning. It is a conversation, a pep talk, wisdom mixed in with funny stories, and encouragement that not only can you survive this groan-up life; you can live it well.

Amena Brown, spoken word poet and author of Breaking Old Rhythms

Paul Angone must live inside my house regularly filled with twentysomethings. He gets this generation like few people I know. This book is hilarious, insightful, brilliantly written, and filled with wisdom. Dont miss the opportunity to give this book to any young adult you know. They will read it because its practical, and when they finish it, they will call it enjoyable, insightful, challenging, and even life-changing.

Jim Burns, PhD, president of HomeWord and author of Confident Parenting and Teenology: The Art of RaisingGreat Teenagers

Our parents told us when we were children that we could do anything we set our minds to do. Our pastors said that God had a great plan for our lives. But after college, many of us got a sinking feeling that our parents were wrong, and we suspected our pastors were too. All Groan Up is a funny, hopeful, honest autobiography of a generation of people who feel their lives have too much potential and not enough purpose.

Matt Appling, author of Life after Art

The gigantic question, Why am I here? is written on everyones heart. Fortunately for twentysomethings, this book will help answer the question and push them forward on a path of significance that will change their lives and the world around them.

Ken Coleman, author of One Question and host of The Dave Ramsey Show Video Channel

Had me laughing out loud more times than I can count, sometimes literally to the point of tears! Paul Angone writes with a profundity and hilarity that feels like a nascent cross between Donald Miller and Bill Bryson. Thats a high compliment. I think his words will be prophetic to a generation that is drowning in potential.

Mike Yankoski, author of Under the Overpass

Clever, insightful, and devilishly handsome, Paul Angone offers a book reminiscent of sharing a pint with an old friend. All GroanUp captures the confusion of early adulthood in a beautiful blend of candor and humor. This is a must-read for anyone wondering, Okay, what now?

Jamie Wright, theveryworstmissionary.com

Dr. Seusss Oh, the Places Youll Go! may be the top gift at graduation, but this one should take its place. Writing with bravery and honesty, Paul Angone invites us behind his own search for purpose in a complicated world and shows us that the process is far more important than the destination. If youre at a crossroads in your own journey, youll find his guide a welcome companion.

Wayne Jacobsen, author of He Loves Me: Learning to Live in the Fathers Affection

For anyone wrestling with the provocative questions of Who am I? and What am I going to do with who I am? All GroanUp is a must-read. I encourage you to join Paul in his discovery of one of lifes best-kept secrets, namely, that you can choose your future.

Raymond Rood, CEO, The Genysys Group

All Groan Up is part memoir, part real-time exploration, and part comforting coffee shop conversation with your best friend, who just happens to be a charming Italian author who has graciously offered his own missteps to help you avoid your own. Paul Angone brilliantly and honestly shares his relatable, heartbreaking, hilarious account of transitioning from frustrated graduate to faith-embracing adult. If youre in your twenties and questioning ANYTHING, this book is for you. Paul asks the big questions and isnt afraid to reveal his own worst fears, confessions, and lessons learned along the way. This book will lift you up when youre down and show you that no matter how many times you fall (face-first on a gravel sidewalk), you can and will get back up.

Jenny Blake, author of Life after College

All Groan Up in my humble opinion has the potential to be a bestseller. Paul Angones blend of wit and wisdom is remarkable. He shares the lessons he has learned along lifes way with such refreshing candor and insight that he should certainly help others on this journey of life.

David C. Bicker, PhD, professor emeritus and founding chair of the Department of Communication Studies at Azusa Pacific University

ZONDERVAN

All Groan Up

Copyright 2014 by Paul Angone

ePub Edition March 2015: ISBN 978-0-310-34143-7

Requests for information should be addressed to:

Zondervan, 3900 Sparks Dr. SE, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49546

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Angone, Paul.

All groan up : searching for self, faith, and a freaking job! / Paul Angone. 1st [edition].

pages cm

ISBN 978-0-310-34135-2 (softcover)

1. Young adults Religious life. 2. Christian life. I. Title.

BV4529.2.A54 2015

248.84 dc23

2014041851

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Any Internet addresses (websites, blogs, etc.) and telephone numbers in this book are offered as a resource. They are not intended in any way to be or imply an endorsement by Zondervan, nor does Zondervan vouch for the content of these sites and numbers for the life of this book.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Interior illustrations: Nathan Scheck (chapters zero, three, four, six, eight, ten,eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen); Eddie Garcia (chapters one, two, five, seven, nine, fifteen, sixteen)

Interior design: Beth Shagene

First printing February 2015

To my wife, Naomi
for making me, and this book, much better.
To all the friends and family