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Reviews tagging 'Death of parent'
Trauer ist das Glück, geliebt zu haben by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
90 reviews
caoxtina's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
sad
fast-paced
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Grief and Death of parent
rishireads's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
4.25
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death of parent, Pandemic/Epidemic, and Death
hanamany's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
fast-paced
4.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death of parent
katiemonty's review against another edition
emotional
sad
medium-paced
4.75
Read on the 5th anniversary of my best friends death from suicide. I really appreciate the author declaring love for her father and being so honest about her experience with grief. Grief was very well articulated, which is hard to do. I appreciate it. There was many quotes I resonated with and wanted to list a few:
“Grief is a cruel kind of education.”
“You learn how ungentle mourning can be, how full of anger. You learn how glib condolences can feel. You learn how much grief is about language, the failure of language and the grasping for language. Why are my sides so sore and achy? It’s from crying, I’m told. I did not know that we cry with our muscles. The pain is not surprising, but its physicality is: my tongue unbearably bitter, as though I ate a loathed meal and forgot to clean my teeth; on my chest, a heavy, awful weight; and inside my body, a sensation of eternal dissolving. My heart—my actual physical heart, nothing figurative here—is running away from me, has become its own separate thing, beating too fast, its rhythms at odds with mine. This is an affliction not merely of the spirit but of the body, of aches and lagging strength. Flesh, muscles, organs are all compromised.”
“But later it is because I want to sit alone with my grief. I want to protect—hide? hide from?—these foreign sensations, this bewildering series of hills and valleys. There is a desperation to shrug off this burden, and then a competing longing to cosset it, to hold it close. Is it possible to be possessive of one’s pain? I want to become known to it, I want it known to me.”
“Part of grief’s tyranny is that it robs you of remembering the things that matter.”
“Never” has come to stay. “Never” feels so unfairly punitive. For the rest of my life, I will live with my hands outstretched for things that are no longer there.
“I must conceal just how hard grief’s iron clamp is. I finally understand why people get tattoos of those they have lost. The need to proclaim not merely the loss but the love, the continuity.”
“It is an act of resistance and refusal: grief telling you it is over and your heart saying it is not; grief trying to shrink your love to the past and your heart saying it is present.”
“Grief is a cruel kind of education.”
“You learn how ungentle mourning can be, how full of anger. You learn how glib condolences can feel. You learn how much grief is about language, the failure of language and the grasping for language. Why are my sides so sore and achy? It’s from crying, I’m told. I did not know that we cry with our muscles. The pain is not surprising, but its physicality is: my tongue unbearably bitter, as though I ate a loathed meal and forgot to clean my teeth; on my chest, a heavy, awful weight; and inside my body, a sensation of eternal dissolving. My heart—my actual physical heart, nothing figurative here—is running away from me, has become its own separate thing, beating too fast, its rhythms at odds with mine. This is an affliction not merely of the spirit but of the body, of aches and lagging strength. Flesh, muscles, organs are all compromised.”
“But later it is because I want to sit alone with my grief. I want to protect—hide? hide from?—these foreign sensations, this bewildering series of hills and valleys. There is a desperation to shrug off this burden, and then a competing longing to cosset it, to hold it close. Is it possible to be possessive of one’s pain? I want to become known to it, I want it known to me.”
“Part of grief’s tyranny is that it robs you of remembering the things that matter.”
“Never” has come to stay. “Never” feels so unfairly punitive. For the rest of my life, I will live with my hands outstretched for things that are no longer there.
“I must conceal just how hard grief’s iron clamp is. I finally understand why people get tattoos of those they have lost. The need to proclaim not merely the loss but the love, the continuity.”
“It is an act of resistance and refusal: grief telling you it is over and your heart saying it is not; grief trying to shrink your love to the past and your heart saying it is present.”
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death of parent
leonormsousa's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
4.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death of parent, Misogyny, Death, Grief, and Kidnapping
tatjanasbooks's review
emotional
hopeful
reflective
relaxing
sad
fast-paced
4.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death of parent, Death, and Grief
Minor: War
maxthefish's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
sad
fast-paced
4.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death of parent, Death, and Grief
Moderate: Kidnapping, Medical content, and War
shellig93's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
5.0
This book is so beautiful. A short reflection I will read over and over - I would read a million more pages if she wrote them.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death of parent and Grief
mairakhaamir's review against another edition
emotional
lighthearted
reflective
slow-paced
5.0
I can see this book being therapeutic for many. It can ease the burden of such lonely experiences while offering formidable strength to those in need. I have to experience this pain, but the simplicity in her remembrance paves the path for connection. Thank you Adiche for helping me understand.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death of parent
rebeccai's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
3.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death of parent