Megan CurtinContents
Grief Books At A Quick Glance
[content-egg-block template=custom/new_list_test]Grief is something every human inevitably has to deal with at some point in life. The cause of one’s grief isn’t important, but rather how we choose to deal with grief. Many people sadly turn to drugs or alcohol to deal with grief because it is the fastest pain-blocking alternative. However, this only helps your mind block the symptoms of grief without actually dealing with the grief itself head-on.
Books are a great way to deal with grief. Reading can be done at any time, anywhere. I find it therapeutic to write notes on the pages as I read along the way. Reading helps your mind process feelings it might not otherwise know how to deal with. If you can, it is helpful to find a grief group that is willing to read a book that helps with grief and discuss it at meetings later. This can help you internally deal with grief alone and then rely on others for talking topics whenever you are ready.
I recently lost my mom in January and have found these books to be helpful with my grieving process.
[su_divider divider_color=”#f4eaa9″ size=”6″ margin=”30″]Grief Is the Thing with Feathers: A Novel
This novel is a brutally honest account of what it feels like to go through grief.
Simple book overview:
In this novel, two young boys are reeling from the death of their mother, and their father, who is a Ted Hughes scholar, is visited by the Crow of Ted Hughes’s poem. Capricious yet kind, mischievous but magical, Crow helps put this broken family back together again in this elegant, blackly funny book.
It is a raw read but still has funny moments.
Grief is the thing with feathers, is a short read rounding out at about 100 pages.
I suggest this book for those who want to read alongside with the account of grief as not to feel alone, not necessarily reading to feel uplifted. This isn’t one of those reads that will make everything better by giving you rainbows and butterflies, but rather a read along to feel like you are stumbling alongside someone in your shoes. The read makes you feel not so alone, and that as imaginable as it is to think, other people have gone through what you are going through in your mind.
[su_divider divider_color=”#f4eaa9″ size=”6″ margin=”30″]Healing After Loss: Daily Meditations For Working Through Grief
This book isn’t a novel, but rather a day to day sort of read. If you just want something that takes a few minuets to read, this is the book for you.
If you don’t like novels I suggest this one. You don’t need to get into characters or a different world, you just read one page a day.
A great read for those who want a read to open up their mind on reflection. This read can help strengthen, inspire and comfort you. It will give you words to help you move on and dives deep into the healing process of grief, and how one can begin to move forward. It helps you accept what is happening and why it’s okay to feel the way you do.
If you are into meditation, you will be into this book!
[su_divider divider_color=”#f4eaa9″ size=”6″ margin=”30″]The Light Between Oceans
Book Overview: The years-long New York Times bestseller and major motion picture from Spielberg’s Dreamworks is “irresistible…seductive…with a high concept plot that keeps you riveted from the first page” (O, The Oprah Magazine).
After four harrowing years on the Western Front, Tom Sherbourne returns to Australia and takes a job as the lighthouse keeper on Janus Rock, nearly half a day’s journey from the coast. To this isolated island, where the supply boat comes once a season, Tom brings a young, bold, and loving wife, Isabel. Years later, after two miscarriages and one stillbirth, the grieving Isabel hears a baby’s cries on the wind. A boat has washed up onshore carrying a dead man and a living baby.
Tom, who keeps meticulous records and whose moral principles have withstood a horrific war, wants to report the man and infant immediately. But Isabel insists the baby is a “gift from God,” and against Tom’s judgment, they claim her as their own and name her Lucy. When she is two, Tom and Isabel return to the mainland and are reminded that there are other people in the world. Their choice has devastated one of them.
Best book to help with grief dealing with child loss or those going through a hard time conceiving.
The light between oceans can also help those grieving from a tough life decision they had to make recently. Making tough decisions is sometimes necessary and the outcome can be hard to life with.
[su_divider divider_color=”#f4eaa9″ size=”6″ margin=”30″]The Thing About Jellyfish
Yes, this is technically a young adult novel, however, I am almost 30 and have found it to be helpful. Not going to lie, the writing is aimed for younger people, but sometimes it’s nice to take a break and read an easy book with a happy ending. Happy endings are always a good thing for people going through a hard time. If you’re new to reading, this might be a good starter book for you to get back into reading, and then can move onto a harder book once this one is finished.
Simple book overview:
Twelve-year-old Suzy Swanson wades through her intense grief over the loss of her best friend by investigating the rare jellyfish she is convinced was responsible for her friend’s death.
If you have a child or young adult close to you going through grief this book can be very beneficial for them!
[su_divider divider_color=”#f4eaa9″ size=”6″ margin=”30″]The Leavers
Book Overview:
One morning, Deming Guo’s mother Polly goes to her job at the nail salon and never comes home. Left with no one to care for him, eleven-year-old Deming is eventually adopted by two white college professors who move him from the Bronx to a small town upstate. They rename him Daniel Wilkinson in their efforts to make him over into their version of an “all-American boy.” But far away from all he’s ever known, Daniel struggles to reconcile his new life with his mother’s disappearance and the memories of the family and community he left behind.
A vivid and moving examination of borders and belonging,The Leavers is the story of how one boy comes into his own when everything he’s loved has been taken away—and how one woman learns to live with the mistakes of her past.
This story is a very complex tale that taps into many different forms of grief dealing with identify, family, immigration, love, and self acceptance.
[su_divider divider_color=”#f4eaa9″ size=”6″ margin=”30″]The Truth About Goodbye
Book overview :
Sebastian Hart has dealt with a lifetime of goodbyes. And now, a year after his husband Frank’s death, the forty-year-old Broadway chorus boy still blames himself. After all, Sebastian started the argument that night over one of Frank’s former date items, someone younger than Sebastian who still wanted Frank.
Challenged by his best friend, the quirky ex-Rockettes dancer Chloe, Sebastian struggles toward his dream of becoming a choreographer and grapples with romantic feelings for Reid, a new student in his tap class.
Ultimately, Sebastian begins to wonder whether it’s his imagination, or not, that Frank’s ghost is here, warning him that he daren’t move on with another love. He questions the truth: Is death really the final goodbye?
This book dives deep into the struggle of moving on while still grieving, which an be two very conflicting feelings. Another core emotion this book taps into is the process of loosing someone who knows it’s the end of their life, which is a whole other grieving step/process before the grief of loss. Its like a one-two punch combo to the heart and soul.
The truth about goodbye taps into the belief of reincarnation and goes into the process of what comes after.
My Personal Two Cents: I put this book on my “Top 3 books list ” that I would personally recommend for best books to help with grief.
[su_divider divider_color=”#f4eaa9″ size=”6″ margin=”30″]The Lovely Bones
Yes this is the book to the amazing moving The lovely bones.
If you live under a rock, here is a book overview:
When we first meet 14-year-old Susie Salmon, she is already in heaven. This was before milk carton photos and public service announcements, she tells us; back in 1973, when Susie mysteriously disappeared, people still believed these things didn’t happen. In the sweet, untroubled voice of a precocious teenage girl, Susie relates the awful events of her death and her own adjustment to the strange new place she finds herself. It looks a lot like her school playground, with the good kind of swing sets. With love, longing, and a growing understanding, Susie watches her family as they cope with their grief, her father embarks on a search for the killer, her sister undertakes a feat of amazing daring, her little brother builds a fort in her honor and begin the difficult process of healing. In the hands of a brilliant novelist, this story of a seemingly unbearable tragedy is transformed into a suspenseful and touching story about family, memory, love, heaven, and living.
This book walks you through grief from every angel. Grief from a sister, a family and a person who has passed themselves. It shows you the struggle a family goes through as a whole and how each person’s individual grief can differ from person to the person.
As sad and hard as grief is, this novel leaves you feeling not so down.
[su_divider divider_color=”#f4eaa9″ size=”6″ margin=”30″]It’s Not The End
This is an adult coloring book and grief journal, both of which are very therapeutic.
Book Overview:
Includes 29 unique grief and loss adult coloring book pages. This 3 month Deluxe Grief Work Journal features:
- Daily Mood Tracker
- Daily Positive and Negative Tracker
- Daily Entry area
- Thought Provoking Questions
I enjoy that this book has you track both negative and positive things everyday. While it’s good to acknowledge grief and the negative around it, it is also just as important to acknowledge life is beautiful and we should cherish each day. Life contains both beauty and pain. You can’t have one without the other.
[su_divider divider_color=”#f4eaa9″ size=”6″ margin=”30″]Chicken Soup For The Soul : Messages From Heaven
Book Overview:
When our loved ones leave this world, our connection with them does not end and we often receive signs from the other side. These true and touching stories of will amaze and support all readers — religious or secular.
The 101 true and miraculous stories in this book of signs and messages from beyond show that death may take away the physical presence of our loved ones, but not their spirit. This book is for everyone, religious or secular, as regular people share their amazing experiences with the other side.
I grew up with the Chicken Soup for the Soul series. They are always easy reads and leave you feeling happy inside
If you’re looking for a happy, uplifting book to clear your grief, this is the book for you! It will leave you with a sense of encouragement and hope.
[su_divider divider_color=”#f4eaa9″ size=”6″ margin=”30″What You Left Behind
This is another book that is technically for young adults, but it’s a good, smooth read.
Book Overview :
It’s all Ryden’s fault. If he hadn’t gotten Meg pregnant, she would have never stopped her chemo treatments and would still be alive. Instead, he’s failing fatherhood one dirty diaper at a time. And it’s not like he’s had time to grieve while struggling to care for their infant daughter, start his senior year, and earn the soccer scholarship he needs to go to college.
The one person who makes Ryden feel like his old self is Joni. She’s fun and energetic-and doesn’t know he has a baby. But the more time they spend together, the harder it becomes to keep his two worlds separate. Finding one of Meg’s journals only stirs up old emotions. Ryden’s convinced Meg left other notebooks for him to find, some message to help his new life make sense. But how is he going to have a future if he can’t let go of the past?
This book deals with grief through regret and grief with moving on. Hits close to home with parenting grief and grief of someone passing from an illness.
[su_divider divider_color=”#f4eaa9″ size=”6″ margin=”30″]
Megan Curtin
