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Come What May: Life-Changing Lessons for Coping with Crisis
An uplifting guide to navigating hard times from the leading expert on recovery
'A shining beacon of sense and wisdom. We can all benefit from reading this brilliant book about how to respond with resilience.' RACHEL CLARKE
'An unlikely superhero' SUNDAY TIMES
'An amazing woman' JAMES O'BRIEN
We all know that at some point in life, we will experience pain, uncertainty and loss. Widowhood, redundancy, a life-changing diagnosis, pregnancy loss, or a global pandemic. So how can we weather the storms, and cope with whatever comes next?
No one can answer this better than Lucy Easthope, an emergency planner whose job is to support survivors of major disasters. She has been there after countless earthquakes, fires and floods. Time and again she has watched how people the work, the pitfalls and the fragile joy. In Come What May, she distils for us what she has learned about how to carry on during and after terrible times.
Through poignant stories and hard-won wisdom, she offers a roadmap for resilience in the face of adversity. She explains what shape the recovery journey might take, how to triage your life in an emergency, how to plan for 'the slump' (also known as the lasagne phase), how to take stock of what has happened to you, how to watch out for 'learned helplessness', and what good (and bad) help looks like.
This is a book for all of us existing in 'the after' who want not just to survive, but to live and unleash strengths we never knew we had.
'A shining beacon of sense and wisdom. We can all benefit from reading this brilliant book about how to respond with resilience.' RACHEL CLARKE
'An unlikely superhero' SUNDAY TIMES
'An amazing woman' JAMES O'BRIEN
We all know that at some point in life, we will experience pain, uncertainty and loss. Widowhood, redundancy, a life-changing diagnosis, pregnancy loss, or a global pandemic. So how can we weather the storms, and cope with whatever comes next?
No one can answer this better than Lucy Easthope, an emergency planner whose job is to support survivors of major disasters. She has been there after countless earthquakes, fires and floods. Time and again she has watched how people the work, the pitfalls and the fragile joy. In Come What May, she distils for us what she has learned about how to carry on during and after terrible times.
Through poignant stories and hard-won wisdom, she offers a roadmap for resilience in the face of adversity. She explains what shape the recovery journey might take, how to triage your life in an emergency, how to plan for 'the slump' (also known as the lasagne phase), how to take stock of what has happened to you, how to watch out for 'learned helplessness', and what good (and bad) help looks like.
This is a book for all of us existing in 'the after' who want not just to survive, but to live and unleash strengths we never knew we had.
Audible Audio
Published May 15, 2025
44 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
March 20, 2025
'Come What May' is a well written account of what humans (singularly and as a society) experience after trauma occurs. This is laced with author Lucy Easthope's own experiences, which are numerous and varied, due to her job as an Emergency Planner. Lucy consults to set up plans in-case of incident, as well as working with survivors in the aftermath. Hearing about the work she and recovery workers do was highly interesting and got me wanting to know more about these roles, which are often not spoken about within communities.
Lucy leads the reader through what can happen in the aftermath of experiencing a traumatic event, backing herself with models, psychological principles such as Maslow's hierarchy of needs and her own wealth of experience. The chapters are well laid out and it is useful at equipping the reader with a greater understanding of their own needs in times of crisis.
For me, I feel I would have really enjoyed hearing a little more about Lucy herself. The subject matter covered felt a wide topic for one book and I think could actually have enough depth to be separate works. I'd love to hear a memoir all about her role; and a separate take on her personal traumas and advice, touching lightly on where these lessons were learned. It feels like it spans both a helpful guide to the impact of trauma and an overview of coping with the aftermath of various world events/ global disasters. I gained a lot of insight into how to psychologically process the markers of our shared lives, such as the pandemic and terrorist attacks; but to me it didn't quite go far enough to help translate this into the more everyday, such as relationship breakdown, loss of a job or personal grief. I really liked the sections where I heard Lucy's life experiences with these more personal matters and would have loved more of this. This would have helped it feel more emotionally connecting and potentially resonate on a deeper level.
This is a book full of knowledge, clearly well-researched and very human feeling. I personally listened to the audiobook, so may have felt slightly different with a physical copy, which I could 'dip' back into more. As an audiobook, it felt lot to digest as a singular narrative.
I'd certainly recommend this book for people who are impacted by societal events. I can bring to mind some individuals who would really benefit from the messages held here. For me, it didn't go as emotionally deep as it could, because of the breadth of content and so might not be as impactful for those looking for specific advice on how to handle something deeply personal and affecting.
The content is important as a topic and it was fantastic to see the wonderful, unseen, work that goes on surrounding our day to day lives.
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing this ARC for review.
Lucy leads the reader through what can happen in the aftermath of experiencing a traumatic event, backing herself with models, psychological principles such as Maslow's hierarchy of needs and her own wealth of experience. The chapters are well laid out and it is useful at equipping the reader with a greater understanding of their own needs in times of crisis.
For me, I feel I would have really enjoyed hearing a little more about Lucy herself. The subject matter covered felt a wide topic for one book and I think could actually have enough depth to be separate works. I'd love to hear a memoir all about her role; and a separate take on her personal traumas and advice, touching lightly on where these lessons were learned. It feels like it spans both a helpful guide to the impact of trauma and an overview of coping with the aftermath of various world events/ global disasters. I gained a lot of insight into how to psychologically process the markers of our shared lives, such as the pandemic and terrorist attacks; but to me it didn't quite go far enough to help translate this into the more everyday, such as relationship breakdown, loss of a job or personal grief. I really liked the sections where I heard Lucy's life experiences with these more personal matters and would have loved more of this. This would have helped it feel more emotionally connecting and potentially resonate on a deeper level.
This is a book full of knowledge, clearly well-researched and very human feeling. I personally listened to the audiobook, so may have felt slightly different with a physical copy, which I could 'dip' back into more. As an audiobook, it felt lot to digest as a singular narrative.
I'd certainly recommend this book for people who are impacted by societal events. I can bring to mind some individuals who would really benefit from the messages held here. For me, it didn't go as emotionally deep as it could, because of the breadth of content and so might not be as impactful for those looking for specific advice on how to handle something deeply personal and affecting.
The content is important as a topic and it was fantastic to see the wonderful, unseen, work that goes on surrounding our day to day lives.
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing this ARC for review.
April 28, 2025
Thank you to NetGalley for an arc of this book.
I adored this book. I think if anyone has anxiety about the future this would really help. It’s full of practical advice and emotional advice, but it’s things that feel doable.
Maybe it’s the scouser in her but Lucy always feels incredibly grounded, as does her advice. She gets what people can and can’t afford, that for some people participating in things with a group of friends can be as helpful as therapy, and she has no truck with toxic positivity.
I think our society would be a much better place with more Lucys in charge.
I adored this book. I think if anyone has anxiety about the future this would really help. It’s full of practical advice and emotional advice, but it’s things that feel doable.
Maybe it’s the scouser in her but Lucy always feels incredibly grounded, as does her advice. She gets what people can and can’t afford, that for some people participating in things with a group of friends can be as helpful as therapy, and she has no truck with toxic positivity.
I think our society would be a much better place with more Lucys in charge.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews