I noticed this book while browsing at The Margate Bookshop. My eye was caught by the cover and the title because I read a few books about grief last year, shortly after my big brother Gregory died. I listened to this as an audiobook, read by the author, a few weeks later. I don't really know what I was expecting, but I was somewhat underwhelmed and it didn't really resonate with me.
The author used to work in book publicity for Vintage in New York. She was mentored by her boss and friend, Russell. He is the person who dies and for whom the author is grieving. He died about a month after the author's apartment was burgled and her jewellery was stolen. Her attempts to find and recover the jewellery become a proxy for how she deals with the death of her friend. The book also includes a section about what life in New York was like during the COVID-19 pandemic.
I'm really struggling to express what I thought and felt about this book. I just felt a bit meh about it. I didn't love it. I didn't hate it. I got to see how one person dealt with trauma and death. But it didn't feel particularly memorable and didn't give me any frisson of insight or wisdom.
The most interesting bits, for me, were descriptions of what it's like working in book publicity. It didn't deepen my understanding of my own grief.
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