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A wholehearted and enthusiastic pick for this excellent memoir. Read to moving effect by the author on audiobook.
Grief Is for People | 
pickA wholehearted and enthusiastic pick for this excellent memoir. Read to moving effect by the author on audiobook.
pickI read my last self-help book on grief years ago, but can‘t quit a memoir of someone with the words to document their own unique experience. Sloane was grieving the violation of a home robbery (jewelry inherited from her mean grandmother) when hit with a grief no one anticipated – the suicide of her one-time boss, and best friend Russell. ⚠️ TW: This could hit hard if moving through a friend‘s suicide remains a struggle to a reader.👇
7 “Denial is also the weirdest stage of grief because it so closely mimics stupidity.”
25 “You become numb when you swallow too much sadness at once. The reason it feels like no boundaries have been crossed is because the concept of boundaries has been obliterated.”
175 The locket: “I‘d turned him into jewelry and jewelry into him.”
185 “How do I keep you buried and keep you with me at the same time?”
^^human need for intention and causality—what did I do to get burgled?
A book of ??s seeking impossible answers:
46 the dreaded “Did you know?”
53 “Do you have to forgive a person who dies by suicide?”
60 “You do realize we‘re all going to get old and die without you?”
61 “How could you have left the dogs?”
64 “How will he know you loved him unless you try to destroy yourself?”
68 “Can we ever get back what‘s lost?”
115 “Were we snobs?”
pickBlow-by-blow of 2 losses in close proximity: family heirlooms, beloved Russell. Question-filled, loving look at impossible topic: making sense of the suicide of a friend. Musings, not-knowings, wounds. Some of Crosley‘s work crosses into too-cleverness for me & this one gets gossipy. But it works. The suddenness & enormity of the losses, her vulnerability & guttedness, make all the clever & trite bits a desperate attempt at self-protection. 2024
pickOne month after a home invasion with theft of jewelry (meaningful items she had received from family), Crosley‘s best friend died by suicide. She moves through these losses and what they mean in concert. Thoughtful and moving, but of course laced with her signature humor. Excellent book.
The author writes of her grief for a friend who committed suicide. Wonderfully read by the author.
“There‘s a translucent membrane around everything, a bubble that moves with every step. Russell is so close, right on the other side. Like the ring trapped inside my pinkie. I have the strongest sensation that if I only knew where to push, I could reach through and pull him back. The bubble hardens with each passing day. By living, I am by default, leaving him.”
pickI loved this. Out in bookstores next week, a nuanced memoir about life and loss, laced with Sloane Crosley‘s sharp humor and wit.
Crosley moves through multiple griefs in this memoir. The theft of heirloom jewelry, the loss of her dearest friend, and ultimately the loss of life as we knew it with the swift coming of the Covid-19 pandemic. Always insightful and frequently funny, this memoir was a joy to read even as the subject matter stung. One turn of phrase had me gobsmacked: 'Ego, as it turns out, is depression's comorbidity.'
