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Reading Through Loss: A Grief Book List
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items Grief is a journey no one can prepare you for, but books can offer comfort, understanding, and hope along the way. Books for Grief and Healing is a personal collection of memoirs, fiction, and audiobooks that helped me navigate the losses of my paren...
Sections
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Memoirs of Grief and Healing
Audiobooks and Podcasts for Grief and Healing
Grief in Fiction
Grieving Our Pets: Love That Never Dies
Personal Writings on Grief
Book Discussions on Grief
Memoirs of Grief and Healing
Grief reshapes us, and memoirs help remind us we're not alone on the journey. In this section, I’ve gathered powerful personal stories about grief, loss, resilience, and healing—memoirs that explore how we mourn, remember, and eventually find ways to...
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️So good, I hope more people read this one. It's a poignant and thought-provoking story that beautifully explores grief, love, and the life after losing a loved one.
Here After: A Memoir
⭐️⭐️⭐️ New York Times Best Seller - witty and poignant
Grief Is for People
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ I loved this one. Kaib's unique structure and emotional storytelling, offered a touching tribute to her grandmother and family bonds.
Nobody Will Tell You This But Me: A True Story
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ A reflective novel on aging, loss, and rediscovering purpose after the death of a spouse.
Afterlife - Julia Alveraz
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ I was pleasantly surprised to find this book to be an intimate and poignant narrative about three generations of Chow’s Chinese American family and how we are not just affected by death but how we can grow from it.
Seeing Ghosts: A Memoir
I struggled with this book and plan to revisit it, but it may have been when I read it. It's a quietly beautiful novel about grief, love, and the unexpected places we find comfort after devastating loss.
The Year of Magical Thinking: Book Award Winner
Audiobooks and Podcasts for Grief and Healing
When grief feels too heavy for reading, listening can be a balm. Here are the audiobooks and podcasts that offered me solace, understanding, and companionship along the way.
This book is a must-listen for anyone seeking to understand the complexities of grief and our cultural discomfort with death
Sorry for Your Loss
Sometimes listening to others have real, heartfelt conversations about grief, loss, and healing can help. Good Mourning is hosted by two friends navigating life after profound loss.
Good Mourning - Sally Douglas and Imogen Carn
I love how Griefcast brings real, often funny conversations about grief and loss, reminding me that it’s okay to laugh, cry, and keep living through it all.
Griefcast - Cariad Lloyd
This episode of Terrible, Thanks for Asking really spoke to me—acknowledging the messy, angry side of grief that we don’t always talk about but so many of us feel.
Thanks for Asking: Angry and Grieving
I appreciate how What’s Your Grief makes space for all the complicated, messy emotions of loss, offering both practical advice and emotional support for grieving hearts.
What's Your Grief Podcast
If you want something that touches on parenting through grief (which might connect to your experience after your ex-husband’s death), this one’s thoughtful and really well done.
The Widowed Parent Podcast
This conversation from Good Mourning touched me deeply, showing how grief, sisterhood, and even laughter can weave together after losing a mother.
Grief, Laughter, and Sisterhood: Losing Our Mom and Holding On to Each Other
Shelby Forsythia talks about grief not as something to "get over," but something to move forward with.
Coming Back: Conversations on life after loss
Grief in Fiction
These novels explore grief through powerful storytelling, offering connection, catharsis, and healing through the journeys of unforgettable characters.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ I loved this heartwarming story that blends romance, grief, and family ties under the sun-drenched skies of Sicily.
To Sicily with Love (Meet Me in Italy)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Want to get away without taking an airplane? I loved this whimsical yet poignant journey of grief and second chances, set against the magic of the Amalfi Coast.
One Italian Summer: A Novel
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ This is an enchanting Southern tale in which grief, healing, and a touch of magic swirl together like sweet tea in summer.
Midnight at the Blackbird Cafe
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Wow this is an incredibly an vibrant coming-of-age story that grapples with identity, loss, and the complicated love between parent and child.
Maame
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Kitchen caught me off guard - a quietly powerful exploration of grief, food, and the surprising ways life sustains us after loss.
Kitchen
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ I found this to be an unforgettable novel about a young boy’s journey through grief, trauma, and healing in the wake of devastating loss.
Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close: A Novel
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ I found this to be an elegant and introspective novel about grief, resilience, and rediscovering purpose after the loss of a spouse.
Signal Fires - Dani Shapiro
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ is an unforgettable story about friendship, community, family, grief, and stepping out of your comfort zone.
The Reading List - Sara Nisha Adams
Planting a garden becomes a path to healing for a grieving widow in this warm, uplifting novel about resilience, community, and new beginnings.
Digging In - Loretta Nyhan
Grieving Our Pets: Love That Never Dies
The loss of a beloved pet leaves a lasting ache; these heartfelt books honor the deep bond we share with our animal companions and the grief that follows their passing.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️I read this for NetGalley and found it to be a stunningly illustrated graphic memoir that blends humor, grief, and the love of dogs, You Can Never Die is Harry Bliss at his most raw, tender, and human.
You Can Never Die: A Graphic Memoir
This is my memoir, which celebrates the unbreakable bonds between dogs and humans - it honors the love, loyalty, and lasting grief that come with sharing life with a pack.
Xine's Pack of Strays & Others: A Memoir
This is a list of recommendations I put together of novels and memoirs that celebrate the special bond between dogs and humans through unforgettable stories.
Celebrating Dogs Through Literature
Personal Writings on Grief
Grieving is personal, and sometimes writing is the only way to make sense of it. Here, I share my reflections on grief, love, memory, and healing—raw moments captured in words.
This is a personal reflection on grieving profound loss and finding the strength to become my own steady center when the world shifted beneath me.
Becoming My Own Gravity
In this personal reflection, I explore the deep grief of losing my mother and the enduring echoes of her love that still shape my life.
Echoes of Her Voice
Losing someone we love leaves echoes in everything, even the words we once shared — this is my reflection on grief, memory, and the lasting power of language.
Remembering You Through the Language We Shared
Some days, grief weighs heavier. Other days, gratitude cracks through the sadness. Tethered Between Grief and Gratitude is where I try to make sense of living with both.
Tethered Between Grief and Gratitude
Grief hit me wave after wave — parents, partner, pets, even the lives I witnessed slip away — and writing became the only way I could stay afloat, one reflection at a time.
Echoes of Laughter in the Halls of Grief
Book Discussions on Grief
Stories can help us feel less alone in loss. In this section, I dive into novels and memoirs that explore grief, healing, and the many ways we carry love forward after loss.
In this article, I discuss two powerful novels that beautifully capture grief, healing, and the emotional journey of navigating loss.
Two Novels That Capture Grief and the Journey to Healing
Grief isn’t just about losing people—it’s about losing pieces of ourselves, our culture, our memories. Beyond Loss is where I reflect on how family and heritage shape what we carry forward after loss.
Beyond Loss: Exploring Family, Culture, and Memory
Reading One Italian Summer brought me back to the breathtaking Amalfi Coast, weaving grief, healing, and second chances into a story that felt as vivid and unforgettable as my own time in Positano.
A Transformative Journey on Italy’s Amalfi Coast
Still To Be Read: Books on Grief and Healing I'm Looking Forward To
Healing doesn't happen all at once, and neither does finding the stories that speak to it. These are the books on grief, loss, and healing that are still waiting on my shelf—titles I look forward to reading as I continue navigating this ever-changing...
I’m curious to see how Sally Rooney captures grief and healing in Intermezzo, a story about brothers navigating love, loss, and everything in between.
Intermezzo: A Novel - Sally Rooney
I’ve had Crying in H Mart on my list for a while—a memoir about losing a mother, clinging to culture and memory, and finding ways to keep love alive after loss.
Crying in H Mart: A Memoir
I'm intrigued by I Leave It Up to You, a novel about grief, memory, and identity—and how we rewrite the stories we tell ourselves after profound loss.
I Leave It Up to You: A Novel
I'm curious to dive into Firstborn, a story about twin sisters, grief, and the complicated ways loss and identity can blur together.
Firstborn: A Memoir
I’m drawn to 13 Ways to Say Goodbye because it explores the many shapes grief can take—and the different ways we learn to let go and hold on at the same time.
13 Ways to Say Goodbye
Grief shapes the way we remember. Memorial Days is a memoir I’m drawn to as I continue exploring how memory and love help us hold on through loss.
Memorial Days: A Memoir