Grief is one of those things we’re not very good at talking about. We don’t always know what to say. We worry about saying the wrong thing and if we’re the one who’s grieving, we can feel pressure to be further along than we actually are.

Julia Samuel has spent decades sitting with people in their grief as a therapist, and this book is full of that experience. It’s built around real stories – the loss of a parent, a partner, a child, a friend – and it captures something that’s hard to put into words: that grief isn’t a problem to be solved, but something to be lived through, at your own pace and in your own way.

There’s no timeline here, no stages you have to get through. Just an honest, compassionate account of what loss actually looks like – and what it means to slowly, imperfectly, find your way back to life. If you’re grieving right now, or you love someone who is, this book will help you feel a little less alone with it.