5 Books that Hold Grief Gently: Stories of Loss, Love, and Healing
- unabridgedpod
- 11 minutes ago
- 4 min read
Curated by Jen Moyers (@jen.loves.books) While it may seem odd to curate a collection of books about grief, it's often to books that I turn when I'm having a difficult time processing an emotion. Sometimes, the right story can help us feel seen in our sorrow or offer a way to begin healing.
In this post, I'm sharing some of our favorite reads that delve deeply—and beautifully—into grief. From moving adult fiction to heartfelt young adult reads, here are five powerful stories that reflect on what it means to grieve—and to keep living.
From Ashley's review: "This is the story of Feyi Adekola and her journey to be present in her life again. Five years earlier, she and her husband were in a car crash shortly after their marriage; her young husband Jonas did not survive.
"Feyi is an artist and has been tentatively creating work since that cataclysmic event, but her life has largely been on hold. She's had her beloved friend Joy as her companion in Brooklyn where they live together, but beyond that, she has kept her world and herself very small. The novel focuses on Feyi's gradual unfolding after so many years of holding herself tight. " Click to read the full review.
From Jen's review: "A certain category of books is magic for book lovers: books about the magic of books. (As my students would say: how meta.) Ashley Schumacher’s Amelia Unabridged offers that precise type of magic. Had I not started this YA debut novel at 11:00 on a school night, I have no doubt that I would have read it in one fell swoop.
"Amelia Unabridged is about loss and grieving, about love and friendship, and (as stated) about books and reading. " Click to read the full review.
From Ashley's review: "I knew I wanted to read Steven Rowley's The Guncle from the first moment it came out, but it turned out to be much more than I expected. I loved Patrick from the moment the book began, and I quickly came to appreciate and empathize with his perspective on his niece and nephew, both of whom he adores but whom he's never had to care for in any central way. When their mom, his beloved friend and his brother's wife, dies of cancer, his brother Greg reveals his own struggles that developed during his illness, admitting he has a drug problem and needs to go to rehab. This crisis results in Patrick, the reclusive former TV star living in southern California, becoming his niece and nephew's primary caretaker." Click to read the full review.
From Ashley's review: "The question at the center of this book is a hard one—should we continue to love others even though all love essentially ends in loss? It's a heavy question that resonates throughout this book. As the story begins, we find Evie packing up her previously beloved romance books; she plans to donate them. Although they are lovingly organized by sub-genre and have been her treasure, after learning about her dad's affair (which has remained secret from her sister) and watching her parents' marriage deteriorate and end in divorce, she finds she has no room left in her heart for love stories." Click to read the full review.
From Jen's review: "Emily Henry's Beach Read is one of the best romances I've read in a while. Yes, it's one of those books that made me giddy. Henry does SUCH a fabulous job in establishing and developing her characters that I felt every moment of their relationship. January Andrews, the protagonist, is reeling after the unexpected death of her beloved father . . . and the discovery that he had a hidden life with a woman other than her mother. January travels to the home her father shared with That Woman (yes, this is how January refers to her through the book) to (1) clean it out so she can sell it and (2) try to overcome her writer's block to meet her publisher's deadline. January, a romance writer, has been unable to believe in the optimism of a happily ever after ending after finding out the truth about her father." Click to read the full review. We also discussed this book in episode 132.
(A note to our readers: click on the hashtags above to see our other blog posts with the same hashtag.)
Interested in what else we're reading? Check out our Featured Books page.
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