Welcome back to week two of I’d Rather Be Reading season 16! Today on the show we have the lovely Grace Valentine, here to talk about her new book The Better Friend: 12 Truths to Shift from Shallow and One-Sided Connections to Vibrant Friendships, which comes out March 11. We talked a lot in season 15 about friendship, and the conversation is spilling over to season 16, too. Grace is a TEDx speaker, the host of the podcast “Water Into Wine,” and is the author of five books. She’s a contributing writer for Proverbs 31 Ministries—which I can’t get enough of—and Live Original. She is a native of one of my favorite cities, New Orleans, and is a graduate of Baylor, which is also where my husband graduated from! (Although, admittedly, we graduated a million years before Grace did.) Grace now makes her home in Atlanta and is earning a degree at Asbury Theological Seminary. In The Better Friend, Grace tackles shallow friendships and how friendships that don’t serve us can negatively impact our lives; she talks to us today about signs we might be settling in friendship; how to prioritize friendship in our busy lives; how to maintain friends and make new ones; her thoughts on long distance friendships and friendship breakups; what she wishes everyone knew about friendship; and her faith, which very obviously means so much to her. Take a listen to our powerful conversation.

The Better Friend: 12 Truths to Shift from Shallow and One-Sided Connections to Vibrant Friendships by Grace Valentine