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A review by dearbookshelves
Here After by Amy Lin
5.0
"I do not say: Everyone is so afraid of grief and this fear is dangerous to the grieving. I do not tell him the painful lesson I am learning: Enduring the thing itself - he is not coming back - is unbearable but denying it is worse, is an even greater, even more insidious, threat to living, if that is what you want to do."
Amy Lin's debut memoir uses a series of vignettes to explore grief after the unexpected and unexplained death of her husband at age thirty-two.
I have been drawn to books about grief over the past couple of years in an attempt to process things going on in my personal life. What I've found is that no two stories are the same but there are things I've found in each one that relate to my own experiences. Here After jumps back and forth in time so we get to see Amy and her husband, Kurtis, fall in love and be happy in their relationship all the while remembering he isn't there anymore. Lin is able to drop those subtle reminders throughout and those moments really cut me to the core as I was reading. Lin doesn't shy away from the ugly parts of grief, masking in order not to exhaust your friends, the friends who leave after a while, wanting to die because you think the pain won't end. I really appreciate what this short, impactful memoir has to offer. I recommend if you're interested in grief, liked the format of I'm Glad My Mom Died, or have sat on the floor sobbing to Bagsy Not in Net by The 1975.
Amy Lin's debut memoir uses a series of vignettes to explore grief after the unexpected and unexplained death of her husband at age thirty-two.
I have been drawn to books about grief over the past couple of years in an attempt to process things going on in my personal life. What I've found is that no two stories are the same but there are things I've found in each one that relate to my own experiences. Here After jumps back and forth in time so we get to see Amy and her husband, Kurtis, fall in love and be happy in their relationship all the while remembering he isn't there anymore. Lin is able to drop those subtle reminders throughout and those moments really cut me to the core as I was reading. Lin doesn't shy away from the ugly parts of grief, masking in order not to exhaust your friends, the friends who leave after a while, wanting to die because you think the pain won't end. I really appreciate what this short, impactful memoir has to offer. I recommend if you're interested in grief, liked the format of I'm Glad My Mom Died, or have sat on the floor sobbing to Bagsy Not in Net by The 1975.