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A Lost Argument

by Therese Doucet (Goodreads Author)

3.63 of 5 stars 3.63 · rating details · 27 ratings · 19 reviews

The summer after her freshman year at all-Mormon Brigham Young University, Marguerite Farnsworth falls in love with philosophy by way of falling in love with an atheist philosophy student. Her search for Truth (with a capital T), God, the meaning of life, and a boyfriend leads her away from religious belief, but along the way she learns there are things even atheists can h...more

Paperback, 1st Edition, 260 pages

Published September 3rd 2011 by Strange Violin Editions (first published August 18th 2011)

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Apr 06, 2012 Walt rated it 4 of 5 stars

Theresa Doucet is a very good writer. I hope she keeps writing, and I look forward to reading more of her work.

Let me first say how I came to this novel, A LOST ARGUMENT.

I follow a few Mormon blogs, including some a little more scholarly than others. (I aspire.) Since I do some writing myself, I also pay particular attention to new writers in the Mormon tradition, since that's my background, too. On one of the blogs, I noticed a discussion about this book. I followed some hyperlinks. Consequent...more

3 likes · like · see review

Jan 19, 2012 Erin rated it 3 of 5 stars

Overall, I definitely enjoyed this one. I don't know if this was intentional or not, but I kind of loved how the cover and even the title (especially the "A Latter-Day Novel" part) struck me as so...LDS. My grandmother used to send me lame LDS novels as a young teen and the cover of this just struck me as so similar to those "faith-promoting" works somehow.

I loved how inside the mind of the the main character you get. By the end of the book I felt like she was a real person. Of course, much of...more

4 likes · like · see review

Jan 03, 2012 Lisa rated it 4 of 5 stars

I enjoyed A lost Argument, especially the 2nd half. This is a great book for discussion. Philosophy and Faith are difficult topics to write about and sometimes harder to read. Therese did a wonderful job. I am sending this book on to a friend so we can have our discussion/debate!

I received this book free through a Goodreads giveaway.

2 likes · like · see review

Nov 18, 2011 Kristen rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: contemporary-fiction, 3-stars

Therese Doucet writes an interesting look at a young woman, raised in the Mormon faith, who goes off to college and struggles with her spirituality. Raised in such a strict faith and attending Brigham Young University, founded by the Mormon church, Marguerite struggles with faith, God, and morals while trying to find herself. Marguerite is a smart girl, pushing herself in her studies and trying to learn as much about philospohy and religion as she can. The novel takes place over the course of a...more Therese Doucet writes an interesting look at a young woman, raised in the Mormon faith, who goes off to college and struggles with her spirituality. Raised in such a strict faith and attending Brigham Young University, founded by the Mormon church, Marguerite struggles with faith, God, and morals while trying to find herself. Marguerite is a smart girl, pushing herself in her studies and trying to learn as much about philospohy and religion as she can. The novel takes place over the course of a few years, where we start at the end of Marguerite's freshman year and following her through to her starting her PhD. Over the course of the novel, Marguerite encounters a slew of people, some trying to help her stay strong in her Mormon faith, some encouraging her to take a step back in order to see if she truly agrees with her religion, and other wanting her to completely abandon faith. All of these people affect Marguerite in different ways and some affect her more than others.

I felt like Marguerite was a likeable character but she seemed melodramatic at times. There were times when she seemed to be going through a funk and her reaction was wanting to end her life. I mean, everyone goes through funks, but I don't think most of us contemplate suicide. Marguerite was very relatable and I found myself identifying with her at times. While I'm not, nor have I ever been, a part of the Mormon faith, I remember struggling with my own faith when I went to college. I think that everyone struggles with the concept of faith and God during their late teens/early twenties and I haven't read any piece of literature that details so clearly the struggle that many people go through quite like Doucet does in this novel.

My one negative about this book is that Marguerite is so introverted that as she deals with her struggles, she seems to repeat herself in her thoughts. I felt like I was rereading a previous chapter at times. It was just a little too much at times. Also, her constant longing for a boyfriend got to be exhausting. I had several friends in high school who belonged to the Mormon church and I understand the strong push to marry, especially to another Mormon. I can understand how Marguerite felt like she was alone and would she ever find her soul mate, but it just got to be too much. I have also felt the same way as Marguertie, feeling like everyone was paired off except for me, but I never dwelled on it quite as much. I wanted to scream at her, "Get a grip! Live your life and enjoy it instead of worrying about finding a man!"

If you have ever struggled with your faith, then I would definitely recommend this book. It highlights so well the struggles that people go through when trying to discover their spirituality, whether it was with a specific religion or not.
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Nov 16, 2011 Chris Maroney rated it 4 of 5 stars

A fascinating look a metamorphosis of faith. Comming from a common background it was interesting to see the path traveled and the ending point of the authors belief and faith in a higher power. The development of the main character and her relationships was, for the most part, well done. I followed her evolving beliefs and could see how they were justified through the events taking place until the last chapter. I would liked to have seen a couple more chapters detailing the path from belief in a...more

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Oct 26, 2011 Angie Hardy rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: first-reads

I received the book for free through Goodreads First Reads. This was an interesting book. Overall I enjoyed this book and found it to be thought-provoking. I think discussions about this book could be fascinating.

1 like · like · see review

Sep 17, 2011 Steven L. rated it 5 of 5 stars

Almost an anti-romance, this book follows a young lady's search for love that ends in a love for truth. I found this book with its portrayal of the stark realities of relationships and the challenges of existence a clear-eyed examination of some of life's most difficult questions. What I loved most about the book was that it did not shy away from going more deeply into philosophy than about any book I can remember since The Elegance of the Hedgehog. It follows a path that ranges from Kierkegaard...more

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Jan 17, 2012 Soren Narnia rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is an unusually sensitive and skillfully rendered portrait of a young woman's search for a way to reconcile her religious beliefs with her yearning for the kind of love she, and anyone her age, craves. It's a universal dilemma and a universal struggle, so the story can be enjoyed by anyone who has ever had any sort of crisis of faith or beliefs, or even just a sense that the world can't provide everything you desire unless you embark upon a profound change within yourself. There's enough hu...more

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Sep 14, 2012 Jason Pettus rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: contemporary, character-heavy, subversive, smart-nerdy, religion

(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this review, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.)

Writing a semi-autobiographical novel, especially as one's first book, can be a cathartic experience but also one laced with challenges, as neatly demonstrated by Therese Doucet's "recovered Mormon" tale A Lost Argument, precisely because it can be difficult to for the author to separate themselves from t...more (Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this review, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.)

Writing a semi-autobiographical novel, especially as one's first book, can be a cathartic experience but also one laced with challenges, as neatly demonstrated by Therese Doucet's "recovered Mormon" tale A Lost Argument, precisely because it can be difficult to for the author to separate themselves from the subject, and to make the sometimes jarring changes from messy real life that lead to a tight three-act fictional story. Because to be clear, the first half of this novel is an incredibly charming story, and makes for an almost perfect natural story arc just on its own: mousey yet cute teen spends her freshman year at Brigham Young University studying philosophy, slowly coming to realize what a moral contradiction this is at a Mormon college; teen returns to her Arizona family home for the summer, and takes a pick-up class at the local secular university; teen meets handsome, dangerous fellow philosophy major, oozing sexuality and already adept at quoting Kierkegaard as a way of seducing brainy 19-year-olds; teen has simultaneous crises of faith and conscience, all while experiencing the very first blossoming of lust in her young sheltered life, all of it eventually coming to a dramatic head as the summer comes to a close.

And if Doucet had stuck with just this story, changed a few of the details of the surprising end to the summer, and added a small coda wrapping things up, she would've had a real winner on her hands; but instead, she adds another entire half to this novel that is nothing more than random journal entries concerning the next five years of our gently subversive hero's life, random bits and pieces that almost immediately lose any sense of plot movement or character development, almost exactly as dissatisfying as if you went to a college student's LiveJournal account and randomly plucked out one blog post every ten or twenty pages. And that's a shame, because this is clearly a case of a talented but first-time author who simply didn't know where to finish her story, and didn't have an editor around to help her make that decision; and like I said, this is a common mistake when a person writes about their real life, because real life is chaotic and ongoing, while a great novel has tightly constructed boundaries and follows a fairly rigid structure. I'm still giving the book a decent score, because it's well worth it just for the funny and titillating first half alone; but readers would be wise to stop at that halfway mark, which is why A Lost Argument isn't getting a better score than it is.

Out of 10: 8.2(less)

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Apr 29, 2012 L.M. Ironside rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: general-fiction, memoir, mormon-stuff, small-press-indie-and-self-pub, yay-angst

I'm unsure exactly where I come down on this book, so I'm splitting the difference and giving it a nice, safe middle rating.

There were things I enjoyed and things I did not.

What I liked: it's fascinating to watch the journey out of religion, and for many people/characters, it's also emotionally wrenching to experience that particular journey. This book struck a chord with me since, like the main character Marguerite, I was raised Mormon and eventually left the Church when I was in my twenties....more I'm unsure exactly where I come down on this book, so I'm splitting the difference and giving it a nice, safe middle rating.

There were things I enjoyed and things I did not.

What I liked: it's fascinating to watch the journey out of religion, and for many people/characters, it's also emotionally wrenching to experience that particular journey. This book struck a chord with me since, like the main character Marguerite, I was raised Mormon and eventually left the Church when I was in my twenties. Unlike Marguerite, the leaving was not so traumatic for me, but in my subsequent work with the atheism visibility movement I have met many, many people who suffered trauma far worse than that which Marguerite experiences as they separated themselves from religion. It is an important and very human journey, and a story I like to hear in all its various versions and iterations as often as I can.

What I didn't like kept me from connecting as strongly with this book as I had hoped to do.

First, as Marguerite is a philosophy student, she often couches her understanding of the process in philosophical terms. So often, in fact, that for somebody like me who has only the most rudimentary grasp of philosophy, the frequent reliance on philosophical imagery and reference made the narrative feel too dense and slow-moving, too confusing, and sometimes alienating. Because Marguerite understands herself so well in philosophical terms, the reader risks not understanding her well at all, unless she (the reader) is also very well-versed in philosophy. (As a side note, if you are a philosophy nut you ought to love this book!)

Unfortunately the two distinct narrative styles also forced a great distance between the reader and the main character. In parts, the book is related from a very distant third-person perspective, where the narrator relays Marguerite's thoughts and feelings to the reader in a "telling" sort of way, which has an apropos academic sort of feel to it, but which doesn't facilitate a deeper understanding of an already hard-to-understand character. In other parts, the book turns to a first-person journaling style, which is interesting, but so faithful to the feel of a real journal, with a filtered relaying of information, with a "telling" style, that once more I found it nearly impossible to connect with Marguerite.

There are two points where I felt I really saw Marguerite's feelings, where I understood not only her struggle with faith but who she was as a whole person (and where I saw what author Therese Doucet was capable of when her creative voice was given precedence over the more academic, philosophical writing.) Both were the parts where Marguerite expressed herself in poetry. In both instances, the writing was colorful, lyrical, an poignant, and allowed me to see, in just a few short lines, what was really going on with Marguerite -- what was really inside her. After the second poem, Marguerite says in her journal, "Sadly, like me, my poems are never opaque enough and lack all subtlety." But that's exactly what readers need in order to connect to a person undergoing such a radical, painful transformation -- not the filtration of narrative distance, but the immediacy of real emotion, no matter how raw or frightening that emotion might be.

All in all, it was an enjoyable book, with its too-accurate depictions of Mormon campus life and the pall of depression such expectations can throw over a young person. Marguerite's constant crushes on usually unobtainable guys were charmingly silly, and very endearing. I remember being a young Mormon woman struggling with how to reconcile my faith and my attraction to various young men. I liked those parts of the book, and I was happy to see that Marguerite does end up with a promising relationship in the end. I just wished I'd understood all the emotional nuances of the path that took her there better.(less)

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Feb 08, 2013 Jeff Raymond rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: books-i-own-on-kindle, read-general-fiction

There was a movie that came out 10 or so years ago by Richard Linklater called Waking Life. It was a strange movie, for sure, but had its moments as it took a loose narrative and attached a significant philosophical discussion/debate around the plot. At the end of the day, the movie didn't do a ton for me, but it was an interesting way to present a certain philosophy.

A Lost Argument is very much a literary Waking Life in a lot of ways, as the story follows a female Mormon student as she traverse...more

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Dec 24, 2011 Valentina rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is an intriguing book. It was a fun and thought-provoking story that surprised me with its sharp psychology as well as with its take on philosophy.
I enjoyed the main character, Marguerite, a complex young woman searching for Truth, and, possibly, for love. Her diary entries were my favorite part, since we got an honest look into the psyche of someone struggling with faith and with life in general. She had some moments where her indecisiveness made the reader want to throttle her, but I sup...more

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Dec 16, 2011 Kristine rated it 3 of 5 stars

"A Lost Argument" chronicles the intellectual journey of Marguerite Farnsworth from a faithful, if questioning, LDS girl to an agnostic, mature, questing young woman.

I would love to be friends with Marguerite. She's intelligent, well-read, thinks deeply, and cares deeply about those around her. Her flaws are difficulties I have faced (though in miniature--I've never struggled with suicidal thoughts as she does). There was a time in my life this book would have been a life saver just because Marg...more "A Lost Argument" chronicles the intellectual journey of Marguerite Farnsworth from a faithful, if questioning, LDS girl to an agnostic, mature, questing young woman.

I would love to be friends with Marguerite. She's intelligent, well-read, thinks deeply, and cares deeply about those around her. Her flaws are difficulties I have faced (though in miniature--I've never struggled with suicidal thoughts as she does). There was a time in my life this book would have been a life saver just because Marguerite struggles through some of the same relationship issues I did, mishandles them as badly as I did, and still manages to be a good, loving person. I'm not well-read in philosophy at all, so I can't really comment on how well she uses philosophical arguments in the book, but I found the philosophical discussions in the book very fun (probably because I was getting Marguerite's take on them rather than having to wade through the sometimes difficult language). I don't know that I'll ever go out and read Kierkegaard, but the passion Marguerite develops for Kierkegaard makes him at least slightly more approachable.

This book feels very real. As in, especially in the last half of the book I felt like I was reading the real journal of an intelligent young woman. She writes a lot like I do in my journal, which is to say the journal parts lack a distinctive voice, but I really love Marguerite. I want to know more about her life, and especially about where she ends up. The other aspect of the book that made it feel real is the lack of closure for almost every relationship. Marguerite has at least four or five serious romantic interests, which is probably about right for a real person going through that period of life. It's also about right that people just drift out of one's circle of friends with no real closure most of the time. I, unfortunately, am used to novels where some amount of closure is provided for most if not all relationships, so I kept expecting old crushes to show up on Marguerite's doorstep, but they never do.(less)

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Feb 26, 2012 Sindy rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: first-reads

I received this book as a give-away. In fact, I would never have bought it because of the terrible cover...
Now I've finished the book, I'm glad I received a copy, because I really liked it.

In Belgium we're not that religious, so it's a bit of an uncommon subject. The first part makes me think of a love triangle with all its difficulties. I think it's pretty comparable.
I also loved the way Margareth discussed with John and her friends about her believes and her anxieties.

It was fascinating ho...more

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Aug 18, 2012 Kayla rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: philosophy

This is an interesting book about a young Morman philosophy student who experiences a crisis of faith. The book veers from first to third person which can leave you feeling a bit jangled and if you are not familiar with the German existentialists, then you will probably get a headache trying to follow all the references.

This young virgin spends a lot of time thinking about men and sex and philosophy and is also struggling with depression. I want to ask the protagonist to give Buddhism a try, as...more

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Apr 26, 2012 Annamarie rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: own

I received the book for free through Goodreads First Reads Giveaway

I enjoyed how the journey unfolded, but the switching back and forth from first person to third person isn't something I like but other than that it was a good read.

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Jan 04, 2012 Hawkgrrrl rated it 4 of 5 stars

As a memoir (or thinly veiled one), I really enjoyed this and found a lot to identify with from my own young Mormon life at BYU. I didn't relate to the depression aspect as much, but overall, I found her story compelling and told in a way that was intriguing. I didn't find the conclusions inevitable, and the protagonist gets caught up in her head a lot, but I still felt inclined to care.

1 like · like · see review

Dec 12, 2011 Carry rated it 3 of 5 stars

I'm torn on how to review this book. I enjoyed watching the journey unfold, however I'm not sure I liked the switching back and forth from first person to third person. It felt clunky for me.

I did, however, quite enjoy all of the philosophical arguments that went on.

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Apr 21, 2012 Kate added it

Shelves: sample-is-meh

Not my cup of tea. I couldn't get past the sample.

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About Therese Doucet

Therese Doucet grew up in Tucson, Arizona, with a lot of cactuses in her front yard. She studied philosophy at Brigham Young University and earned graduate degrees in cultural history and public policy from the University of Chicago and The George Washington University. She lives and works in Washington, D.C.

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“Maybe I’m strange and perverse, but I’ve always thought there was something sexy about a compelling argument.” — 12 people liked it

“I want to see the world without explaining away its mystery by calling things wicked, righteous, sinful, and good. I want to erase in myself the easy explanations, the always mendacious explanations about why things happen the way they do, and in this way, come to know the mystery of being–-not by any approximation in thought, but by being. I want to be and not be ashamed of being.” — 8 people liked it

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