If You're Grieving,

by Jacqueline Whitney

There are no words that will take the pain of your grief away—you need to be seen, heard, loved, and feel deep within you that you are not alone.

Genres: Poetry, Grief

152 pages, Paperback

Published November 13, 2024

Reviews

[Sally Bibb · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is extremely validating and supportive for anyone experiencing loss and grief. Beautiful paragraphs that made me cry and smile. I marked this book up and will go back to it when needed.
This book’s main emphasis is to face your grief—not run away from it. Facing your grief is extremely difficult, but you have to do it eventually. Grief can make you angry, numb, and hopeless. But with time, it can also make you compassionate, loving, and soft. Grief never shrinks or disappears—we grow around it.

[Nicole · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book had a lovely sentiment but I found that it quickly became repetitive, losing its emotional impact.

[Jill Leddy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was so hopeful for this book but unfortunately, it didn’t fulfill what I’d been looking for in it. The work seems messy and unstructured and I tried to see this as part of grieving but I think when it comes to a book that’s supposed to help people through grief it should have some clarity within it.

It often felt like I was reading the same thing over and over again on each page. Some of the poems actually had entire chunks of words from former poems. I think the redundancy reduced the impact the words could’ve had if they were more concisely organized.

It felt like the title and marketing should’ve been more specifically based around losing your mother instead of grief. The book didn’t seem to encompass all kinds of grief but instead seemed focused on the specificity of the grief that comes when losing your mother, or a parent you had a close relationship with.

[Linda Ostrowski · Rating 5 out of 5]

I highly recommend this book for anyone who is grieving. I lost my son back in November 2024 and a lot of stuff that is in this book I’ve been going through. I felt like the author was talking to me. It really helped me put into perspective of what I’m going through and how to cope with the loss of my son.

[Rara Siregar · Rating 2 out of 5]

My first Jacqueline book and i’m glad i just bought two of her books (my next read would be All that you deserve; i hope it’s much better than this one). I almost cried in the first pages of this book bcs it reminds me of my dad (alm), but the more i read the book the more i realized it’s just a repetitive phrase again and again until i’m bored.