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4.52 AVERAGE
4.52 AVERAGE
emotional
reflective
sad
fast-paced
challenging
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Li, an accomplished and well-known author—most recently a finalist for the Pulitzer in 2023 and judge for the Booker Prize in 2024—chronicles life after the loss of both of her sons, each taking their own life six years apart. This book was for James, her youngest who passed last year.
In a book about what people would consider to be “grief”, Li quickly corrects that this is about no such feeling. It is a reflection and explanation of how life now looks and feels like an abyss. There’s an emptiness that can never be filled and life continues on. Just differently.
“Children die and parents go on living in an abyss.”
Her writing is clear, honest, and somber. She evocatively and analytically explains so, not for our sake, but because she uses writing as a way to make sense of reality. And throughout the articulation of what her life now looks like, she shows that even words can never truly capture these profoundly unquantifiable feelings of a parent’s love and loss.
This isn’t a book that made me sob all at once, but rather, I had to consistently wipe away quiet tears throughout. Being a parent myself, this was a tough read but I think to avoid the harsh truth of death would be dishonest and a disservice to myself.
For more reviews, follow along on Instagram: @oliviasbooktalk 📚
In a book about what people would consider to be “grief”, Li quickly corrects that this is about no such feeling. It is a reflection and explanation of how life now looks and feels like an abyss. There’s an emptiness that can never be filled and life continues on. Just differently.
“Children die and parents go on living in an abyss.”
Her writing is clear, honest, and somber. She evocatively and analytically explains so, not for our sake, but because she uses writing as a way to make sense of reality. And throughout the articulation of what her life now looks like, she shows that even words can never truly capture these profoundly unquantifiable feelings of a parent’s love and loss.
This isn’t a book that made me sob all at once, but rather, I had to consistently wipe away quiet tears throughout. Being a parent myself, this was a tough read but I think to avoid the harsh truth of death would be dishonest and a disservice to myself.
For more reviews, follow along on Instagram: @oliviasbooktalk 📚
reflective
sad
medium-paced
challenging
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
I cannot say definitively that this was a good book in the typical sense, but I thought about it a great deal while reading it, and that made it feel very much worth reading. I think the best way of putting it would be this: I did not enjoy the writing style, and I was not impressed by it as a book (be it literature or memoir or whatever else), but as a collection of ideas and as one half of a theoretical conversation, I found it thought-provoking and important.
Unavoidably, the book made me think about my younger brother, who chose to kill himself when he was sixteen. My sadness about losing him has always been accompanied by my respect for his choice and his right to make it; most people react to this second response in negative ways, the details of which aren't relevant. Still, it has always felt correct to me. Philisophically, but also personally, for both my brother and for me. The author's acceptance of her sons' suicides, and of the pain she lives with as a result, felt similarly correct to me.
I was struck by two things about the author I found impressive: her willingness to accept her sons for who they were, regardless of the impact on her, and her network of friends, which seems both quite extensive and composed of many close relationships of mutual understanding, honesty, and caring. Both of these are, in my experience, rare things, and I think they speak to the ability of the author to be honest, with herself and others, about who she is and who they are to her.
Unavoidably, the book made me think about my younger brother, who chose to kill himself when he was sixteen. My sadness about losing him has always been accompanied by my respect for his choice and his right to make it; most people react to this second response in negative ways, the details of which aren't relevant. Still, it has always felt correct to me. Philisophically, but also personally, for both my brother and for me. The author's acceptance of her sons' suicides, and of the pain she lives with as a result, felt similarly correct to me.
I was struck by two things about the author I found impressive: her willingness to accept her sons for who they were, regardless of the impact on her, and her network of friends, which seems both quite extensive and composed of many close relationships of mutual understanding, honesty, and caring. Both of these are, in my experience, rare things, and I think they speak to the ability of the author to be honest, with herself and others, about who she is and who they are to her.
challenging
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicide, Xenophobia
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
reflective
sad
medium-paced
A thoughtful and intellectual examination of life after the deaths of both of the author's teenage sons from suicide. Absolutely heart rending, but likely not in the ways you expect.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Suicide