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Modern Loss: Candid Conversation About Grief. Beginners Welcome.
Inspired by the website that the New York Times hailed as "redefining mourning," this book is a fresh and irreverent examination into navigating grief and resilience in the age of social media, offering comfort and community for coping with the mess of loss through candid original essays from a variety of voices, accompanied by gorgeous two-color illustrations and wry infographics.
At a time when we mourn public figures and national tragedies with hashtags, where intimate posts about loss go viral and we receive automated birthday reminders for dead friends, it’s clear we are navigating new terrain without a road map.
Let’s face most of us have always had a difficult time talking about death and sharing our grief. We’re awkward and uncertain; we avoid, ignore, or even deny feelings of sadness; we offer platitudes; we send sympathy bouquets whittled out of fruit.
Enter Rebecca Soffer and Gabrielle Birkner, who can help us do better. Each having lost parents as young adults, they co-founded Modern Loss, responding to a need to change the dialogue around the messy experience of grief. Now, in this wise and often funny book, they offer the insights of the Modern Loss community to help us cry, laugh, grieve, identify, and—above all—empathize.
Soffer and Birkner, along with forty guest contributors including Lucy Kalanithi, singer Amanda Palmer, and CNN’s Brian Stelter, reveal their own stories on a wide range of topics including triggers, sex, secrets, and inheritance. Accompanied by beautiful hand-drawn illustrations and witty "how to" cartoons, each contribution provides a unique perspective on loss as well as a remarkable life-affirming message.
Brutally honest and inspiring, Modern Loss invites us to talk intimately and humorously about grief, helping us confront the humanity (and mortality) we all share. Beginners welcome.
At a time when we mourn public figures and national tragedies with hashtags, where intimate posts about loss go viral and we receive automated birthday reminders for dead friends, it’s clear we are navigating new terrain without a road map.
Let’s face most of us have always had a difficult time talking about death and sharing our grief. We’re awkward and uncertain; we avoid, ignore, or even deny feelings of sadness; we offer platitudes; we send sympathy bouquets whittled out of fruit.
Enter Rebecca Soffer and Gabrielle Birkner, who can help us do better. Each having lost parents as young adults, they co-founded Modern Loss, responding to a need to change the dialogue around the messy experience of grief. Now, in this wise and often funny book, they offer the insights of the Modern Loss community to help us cry, laugh, grieve, identify, and—above all—empathize.
Soffer and Birkner, along with forty guest contributors including Lucy Kalanithi, singer Amanda Palmer, and CNN’s Brian Stelter, reveal their own stories on a wide range of topics including triggers, sex, secrets, and inheritance. Accompanied by beautiful hand-drawn illustrations and witty "how to" cartoons, each contribution provides a unique perspective on loss as well as a remarkable life-affirming message.
Brutally honest and inspiring, Modern Loss invites us to talk intimately and humorously about grief, helping us confront the humanity (and mortality) we all share. Beginners welcome.
376 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 23, 2018
228 people are currently reading
2651 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 174 reviews
February 11, 2023
I overall liked this essay collection centered around grief, ranging from the loss of a parent, child, romantic partner, and from what I can recall one essay about a friend. I appreciate how Modern Loss normalizes the ongoing grief process and refutes outdated stereotypes that grief is just something you get over after a certain amount of time. These essays touch on some of the complicated parts of grief, such as when the person you grieving had committed adultery or when your grief is exposed to a wide mass of people on the internet. I liked how there was some diversity in regard to race and sexual orientation of the authors.
Mainly giving this three stars because I think the book favored quantity over depth – there are a lot of essays in this collection though each of them are pretty short. Totally respect that choice and I imagine some of that has to do with the online format of this forum prior to this book coming out. When it comes to a full-length book about grief my mind first goes to Let’s Take the Long Way Home by Gail Caldwell, about losing her brilliant friend Caroline Knapp. Also, I wanted to say that you can grieve people and experiences even if death isn’t involved (e.g., a breakup between friends or romantic partners or family estrangement), just because a lot if not all of these essays are about when someone dies specifically.
Mainly giving this three stars because I think the book favored quantity over depth – there are a lot of essays in this collection though each of them are pretty short. Totally respect that choice and I imagine some of that has to do with the online format of this forum prior to this book coming out. When it comes to a full-length book about grief my mind first goes to Let’s Take the Long Way Home by Gail Caldwell, about losing her brilliant friend Caroline Knapp. Also, I wanted to say that you can grieve people and experiences even if death isn’t involved (e.g., a breakup between friends or romantic partners or family estrangement), just because a lot if not all of these essays are about when someone dies specifically.
January 16, 2019
It helped.
July 9, 2018
Thank goodness our college library has unlimited renewals for books if there isn't a waiting list. I checked this out and then didn't want to face the fact that I, indeed was experiencing modern loss after my dad died.
Alas, I cracked it out on a camping trip and breezed through it in about 4 hours. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this and realizing that I'm not alone in my experiences 7 months after my dad died. It was cathartic to read this, as I don't have many people -- especially locally I can talk to about his death and how I'm reacting to it.
Alas, I cracked it out on a camping trip and breezed through it in about 4 hours. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this and realizing that I'm not alone in my experiences 7 months after my dad died. It was cathartic to read this, as I don't have many people -- especially locally I can talk to about his death and how I'm reacting to it.
March 25, 2018
While some of the essays in this book were fantastic, I felt misled by the premise of the book.
"Modern Loss" is marketed as a funny and practical book about grief, written by Rebecca Soffer and Gabrielle Birkner. While Soffer and Birkner offer some essays throughout the book, in reality, "Modern Loss" is an anthology of essays written by various other people. I wish I had known this prior to reading, as I'm sure I would have approached the book differently.
As I said, there were several standout essays, but for the most part, I felt that none of the essays delved deeply enough into their subject matter to really do justice to the emotions of the story being told. Many essays felt more like college entrance essays- good starts, but not enough development to really say something meaningful. Perhaps the essayists simply didn't have the space to do this kind of writing, as there were many different essays included in the book.
"Modern Loss" isn't a total wash, however. In addition to several deeply moving and well-written essays, there are illustrations and comics throughout the book that lighten the mood and provide some practical advice for navigating grief and loss.
The hidden gem of this book: the essayists' short biographies at the very end.
"Modern Loss" is marketed as a funny and practical book about grief, written by Rebecca Soffer and Gabrielle Birkner. While Soffer and Birkner offer some essays throughout the book, in reality, "Modern Loss" is an anthology of essays written by various other people. I wish I had known this prior to reading, as I'm sure I would have approached the book differently.
As I said, there were several standout essays, but for the most part, I felt that none of the essays delved deeply enough into their subject matter to really do justice to the emotions of the story being told. Many essays felt more like college entrance essays- good starts, but not enough development to really say something meaningful. Perhaps the essayists simply didn't have the space to do this kind of writing, as there were many different essays included in the book.
"Modern Loss" isn't a total wash, however. In addition to several deeply moving and well-written essays, there are illustrations and comics throughout the book that lighten the mood and provide some practical advice for navigating grief and loss.
The hidden gem of this book: the essayists' short biographies at the very end.
February 17, 2018
Originally published at Reading Reality
I picked this book for a very specific reason. My mother died on December 25, 2017 and this is a book about dealing with grief and loss. Since I’m not quite sure how well I’m dealing with everything, it felt like a good time to see how other people do. Or don’t, as the case may be.
The authors met each other, founded their website, and wrote this book after both of them lost one or both of their parents at a relatively young age. Not necessarily the parents’ age, although that too. But their own. They both were “orphaned” in their 20s, at a time when most people’s parents are not just still living, but still thriving and still working.
Their personal stories resonated with me, but not so much in the present tense. My dad passed away at 63, when I was 34.We were both too young for that particular trauma, and in some ways I never got over it. I still dream that he’s alive and we’re talking about something or doing something together. It’s always a shock to wake up and remember that he’s gone, and that he died long before I met my husband. I think they’d have liked each other. I’m certain that they would have had some epic chess games.
And every time I have one of those dreams I wake up with a migraine. My dad died suddenly and unexpectedly. I think we still have unfinished business, business that will never be finished. I keep trying to dream it better, and can’t.
The book is a collection of stories and essays by people who have experienced the death of someone close to them. Not just parents, but also spouses, children, parental figures, and anyone else whose loss brought them profound grief. Or anger. Or all the stages of grief at once.
For someone grieving a loss, or who has ever grieved a loss, reading the book is cathartic. I was looking for answers because my reaction to my mother’s death has been so very different from my reaction to my dad’s, and I was looking for a kind of validation. I wanted to see if my reaction was, if not normal, at least somewhere within the normal range.
And now I know I’m not alone. My mom was 89 when she died. We did not always get along, but we did keep in touch. Her passing was not unexpected, and there was time to, if not finish all the business, at least resolve in my own head and heart that all the business was finished that was ever going to get finished. We were who we were, and there were topics that were just never going to get discussed and arguments that were never going to be resolved.
It is what it is. Or as my mom so often said, “what will be will be”. And so it is.
Reality Rating B: I found this book helpful, but difficult to review. In the end, what I’ve written above is personal, and in a way is similar to some of the personal narratives told in the book.
The individual essays are a very mixed bag. Some spoke to me, whether their situation resembled my own or not. Others did not. This is definitely a case where one’s mileage varies. And I’ll also say that I can’t imagine reading this book unless one had experienced this type of loss and was looking for something, whether that be validation, shared experience or just catharsis. Or even just to feel all the feels.
Everyone’s experience of loss is different, and as my own issues show, every loss, even experienced by the same person, is different. We change, and so do our relationships.
If you or someone you know is grieving and is the type of person who looks for answers in books, reading this one may prove cathartic, or at least affirming. There is no one true answer. Just a true answer for each of us alone.
I still have dreams about my dad, but not, at least so far, my mom. And that is what it is, too.
I picked this book for a very specific reason. My mother died on December 25, 2017 and this is a book about dealing with grief and loss. Since I’m not quite sure how well I’m dealing with everything, it felt like a good time to see how other people do. Or don’t, as the case may be.
The authors met each other, founded their website, and wrote this book after both of them lost one or both of their parents at a relatively young age. Not necessarily the parents’ age, although that too. But their own. They both were “orphaned” in their 20s, at a time when most people’s parents are not just still living, but still thriving and still working.
Their personal stories resonated with me, but not so much in the present tense. My dad passed away at 63, when I was 34.We were both too young for that particular trauma, and in some ways I never got over it. I still dream that he’s alive and we’re talking about something or doing something together. It’s always a shock to wake up and remember that he’s gone, and that he died long before I met my husband. I think they’d have liked each other. I’m certain that they would have had some epic chess games.
And every time I have one of those dreams I wake up with a migraine. My dad died suddenly and unexpectedly. I think we still have unfinished business, business that will never be finished. I keep trying to dream it better, and can’t.
The book is a collection of stories and essays by people who have experienced the death of someone close to them. Not just parents, but also spouses, children, parental figures, and anyone else whose loss brought them profound grief. Or anger. Or all the stages of grief at once.
For someone grieving a loss, or who has ever grieved a loss, reading the book is cathartic. I was looking for answers because my reaction to my mother’s death has been so very different from my reaction to my dad’s, and I was looking for a kind of validation. I wanted to see if my reaction was, if not normal, at least somewhere within the normal range.
And now I know I’m not alone. My mom was 89 when she died. We did not always get along, but we did keep in touch. Her passing was not unexpected, and there was time to, if not finish all the business, at least resolve in my own head and heart that all the business was finished that was ever going to get finished. We were who we were, and there were topics that were just never going to get discussed and arguments that were never going to be resolved.
It is what it is. Or as my mom so often said, “what will be will be”. And so it is.
Reality Rating B: I found this book helpful, but difficult to review. In the end, what I’ve written above is personal, and in a way is similar to some of the personal narratives told in the book.
The individual essays are a very mixed bag. Some spoke to me, whether their situation resembled my own or not. Others did not. This is definitely a case where one’s mileage varies. And I’ll also say that I can’t imagine reading this book unless one had experienced this type of loss and was looking for something, whether that be validation, shared experience or just catharsis. Or even just to feel all the feels.
Everyone’s experience of loss is different, and as my own issues show, every loss, even experienced by the same person, is different. We change, and so do our relationships.
If you or someone you know is grieving and is the type of person who looks for answers in books, reading this one may prove cathartic, or at least affirming. There is no one true answer. Just a true answer for each of us alone.
I still have dreams about my dad, but not, at least so far, my mom. And that is what it is, too.
July 27, 2022
A collection of essay written by different people that have experienced grief. A lot of them are the type of essays that will make you laugh, and you'll feel comfort knowing others have felt the same way you do.
February 8, 2019
After eight months of trying to avoid loss in books, I decided to just lean into it. I’d never heard of the Modern Loss website but thought the book from its creators seemed like a good place to start. I was expecting self help, but it’s actually a series of essays (some by pseudo-celebrities). While it helped me to realize that grief is a very relatable thing, I didn’t relate to much in the stories. They also veered into seemingly unrelated topics, like sex and sexuality, too often.
August 4, 2022
Diverse range of grief experiences, which I really appreciated. Hit those spots of connection that I need when I feel isolated in my grief.
Didn’t give this 5 stars because there was randomly SO much fatphobia, it was honestly egregious.
Didn’t give this 5 stars because there was randomly SO much fatphobia, it was honestly egregious.
October 27, 2020
This was a good collection of essays about grief. The essays covered a broad range of topics relating to grief and were written about losses of people of varied relationships to the writer, ranging ages, and many different causes of death. Some were about being newly bereaved and others were years down the road. I didn't relate to all of the essays, but I found my own experiences reflected in a lot of them. I liked the illustrations and that some of the essays were funny and hopeful as well as sad.
February 4, 2018
These are real, beautiful, human stories about grief. The writers in this book have been affected by grief in so many different ways, and their stories are an intimate look into how their lives have changed as a result of that grief. I highly recommend this book for both those who know grief and for those who just want to understand grief a little better.
January 11, 2020
There is no one way to feel grief, no one way to react to it, no set order or timeline to the experience. That's obvious. But it is still soothing to read these short essays by those who have been there.
April 13, 2018
We're all going to experience death--in most cases we'll lose plenty of people in our lives before we experience death ourselves.
This book is the fruit of a website called Modern Loss started by two women who lost their parents as young adults.
This book is a collection of essays written by 42 authors about their own experiences with losing a loved one. It spans the gamut of losing parents, losing siblings, losing babies, losing boyfriends and girlfriends, and aunts. Some died of cancer or tumors or aids or suicide. Others were murdered. In some cases they knew it was coming. In other cases, a car accident or murder or suicide completely blindsided them. You get a range of perspectives about the number of ways that people deal with their grief, and the cultural traditions that carry them through the grieving process.
I don't mind talking about death and I enjoyed hearing this wide variety of stories. Interestingly enough, none of them were really heart-rending or made me cry. Many of them injected humor and wit. There are also tips about how to scatter your loved ones ashes, or what to do about work when your "someone" dies, or what to do or not do socially.
The artwork in the book makes it really feel like it was written for millenials. I listened to the audiobook, but there is a PDF along with the audio that you can download so that you don't miss the cartoons and chapter art.
My favorite essay was about Aunt Esther and her secret identity that was only revealed once she had died. Second favorite was the man whose family wrote him a joke obituary for his actual death which went viral, and what it was like for them to be mourning someone real while the joke obit was getting shared and passed around like a comic.
Narrators: There were two for this book--Meredith Mitchell read all of the female authored essays and a Josh Bloomberg that narrated all of the male-authored essays. Josh Bloomberg, the male narrator had a halting cadence to his delivery that was distracting to me. He'd make pauses in places that weren't anticipated and I didn't love it. I could listen to one chapter read by him, but multiple got old.
I liked this book. If you've had someone die, or are watching someone die, this book could be like your own group therapy.
Small amount of language and sex--although not explicit.
This book is the fruit of a website called Modern Loss started by two women who lost their parents as young adults.
This book is a collection of essays written by 42 authors about their own experiences with losing a loved one. It spans the gamut of losing parents, losing siblings, losing babies, losing boyfriends and girlfriends, and aunts. Some died of cancer or tumors or aids or suicide. Others were murdered. In some cases they knew it was coming. In other cases, a car accident or murder or suicide completely blindsided them. You get a range of perspectives about the number of ways that people deal with their grief, and the cultural traditions that carry them through the grieving process.
I don't mind talking about death and I enjoyed hearing this wide variety of stories. Interestingly enough, none of them were really heart-rending or made me cry. Many of them injected humor and wit. There are also tips about how to scatter your loved ones ashes, or what to do about work when your "someone" dies, or what to do or not do socially.
The artwork in the book makes it really feel like it was written for millenials. I listened to the audiobook, but there is a PDF along with the audio that you can download so that you don't miss the cartoons and chapter art.
My favorite essay was about Aunt Esther and her secret identity that was only revealed once she had died. Second favorite was the man whose family wrote him a joke obituary for his actual death which went viral, and what it was like for them to be mourning someone real while the joke obit was getting shared and passed around like a comic.
Narrators: There were two for this book--Meredith Mitchell read all of the female authored essays and a Josh Bloomberg that narrated all of the male-authored essays. Josh Bloomberg, the male narrator had a halting cadence to his delivery that was distracting to me. He'd make pauses in places that weren't anticipated and I didn't love it. I could listen to one chapter read by him, but multiple got old.
I liked this book. If you've had someone die, or are watching someone die, this book could be like your own group therapy.
Small amount of language and sex--although not explicit.
August 8, 2020
This book is akin to opening up to someone and telling them about a loss you’ve experienced, and them smiling and saying “I get it. Let me tell you about my own messy experience too.”
This book is a combination of short “essays” from dozens of different people, telling their candid stories and experiences with loss. Losses of all kinds — car wreck, cancer, HIV/AIDS, suicide, overdose, etc. And losses of all relations— parents, children, friends, spouses, significant others, etc. You name it, it’s in there.
Depending on my mood, I absorbed this in different ways. Sometimes it was very cathartic to read (“omg thank goodness other people understand / have just as messy lives as mine. I’m not alone.”).
Other times it was far too emotionally overwhelming, monotonous, and even numbing (“why do I feel nothing why reading this tragic story???”).
Recommend to read in small doses.
It is NOT a discussion on tools/tricks on how they’ve coped with their grief, per say, (maybe that was what I was expecting, which lead to a lower review) but more so for anyone wanting a tangible reminder that they are not alone (which works well if you are in the right mental state to absorb the stories).
This book is a combination of short “essays” from dozens of different people, telling their candid stories and experiences with loss. Losses of all kinds — car wreck, cancer, HIV/AIDS, suicide, overdose, etc. And losses of all relations— parents, children, friends, spouses, significant others, etc. You name it, it’s in there.
Depending on my mood, I absorbed this in different ways. Sometimes it was very cathartic to read (“omg thank goodness other people understand / have just as messy lives as mine. I’m not alone.”).
Other times it was far too emotionally overwhelming, monotonous, and even numbing (“why do I feel nothing why reading this tragic story???”).
Recommend to read in small doses.
It is NOT a discussion on tools/tricks on how they’ve coped with their grief, per say, (maybe that was what I was expecting, which lead to a lower review) but more so for anyone wanting a tangible reminder that they are not alone (which works well if you are in the right mental state to absorb the stories).
February 3, 2018
Can I give it six stars??
I hate that I had reason to love this book, but it felt like a warm hug from my mama (whose loss, coincidentally, is why I had reason to read it) alternating with a big belly laugh. There is, indeed, humor in death.
Some books about grief are ultimately productive to read but are painful to get through. Though this book had me in tears several times because I could identify so strongly with the writers, it was easy to get through. In fact, I found myself wanting more.
I'm lucky that my mom has been the only major loss in my life so far, but I appreciated the essays from those who had lost children, spouses, parents, friends, etc. I wanted to hug some of the writers; their warm insights had me wanting hugs *from* some of them. Though one would obviously get more out of this book if they had lost someone, this could be a good read if you're trying to understand what a friend/partner/etc is going through in their own grief.
I hate that I had reason to love this book, but it felt like a warm hug from my mama (whose loss, coincidentally, is why I had reason to read it) alternating with a big belly laugh. There is, indeed, humor in death.
Some books about grief are ultimately productive to read but are painful to get through. Though this book had me in tears several times because I could identify so strongly with the writers, it was easy to get through. In fact, I found myself wanting more.
I'm lucky that my mom has been the only major loss in my life so far, but I appreciated the essays from those who had lost children, spouses, parents, friends, etc. I wanted to hug some of the writers; their warm insights had me wanting hugs *from* some of them. Though one would obviously get more out of this book if they had lost someone, this could be a good read if you're trying to understand what a friend/partner/etc is going through in their own grief.
May 14, 2018
I've read a lot of books about grief over the past year. My guess is if you are reading books about grief, there is a reason for it and at least for me, all have provided some comfort.
There are no complete answers, and no complete roadmaps. But Modern Loss provides an essay, sometimes just short, on a whole host of various scenarios in dealing with the loss of a loved one. Or maybe one who wasn't so loved.
There's a lot here and sometimes (often) I cried, but I also smiled with recognition. Grief is personal, but it's also Universal. We just have a hard time understanding that.
There are no complete answers, and no complete roadmaps. But Modern Loss provides an essay, sometimes just short, on a whole host of various scenarios in dealing with the loss of a loved one. Or maybe one who wasn't so loved.
There's a lot here and sometimes (often) I cried, but I also smiled with recognition. Grief is personal, but it's also Universal. We just have a hard time understanding that.
November 19, 2018
While I know that nobody is alone in grief, it can be such an isolating experience. Reading this book made me feel like I was sitting in a support group hearing stories firsthand. Some resonated with me, some did not, but they all made me feel emotions I didn't even know I had in me. I have already gone back to it to re-read pages, hilighted passages, etc. It is a book that you should absolutely gift yourself or a loved one who is grieving.
October 19, 2020
Easy and difficult (emotionally of course) to read all at once. One of the few books I have read about grief that has allowed me to feel freely about my own loss without the idioms or metaphors to make death sound pretty.
June 11, 2022
A great assortment of essays on grief which reminds readers that while this feeling is common to anyone who ever lives, there are endless ways it can play out in our lives. Thoughts, feelings, needs, and actions taken by the writers of these stories might not all be applicable to all of us but somehow it still grounds me in the humanity and commonality of dealing with loss.
Some essays are standouts. But I’m guessing that we take what we need and the ones that felt like filler to me may have meant much more to others.
Excerpts:
Hemingway: the world breaks everyone and afterward some are strong at the broken places. I’ve been made strong at the broken places.
The modern world doesn’t allow most of us to raise our children as we should: in clusters and groups. So that while love is abundant, the sense that one person is indispensable is not as powerful as the sense that others Will always be there. Because just as death can come in unexpected and life-changing ways, so too can care. There is, after all, no reason why a person can’t be both a mother and a mother figure, Why we can’t both fully grieve a mother and still continue to be fueled by what she showed us all how to Do so well: to weather suffering and emerge with the joy of being even more connected after the worst has passed.
And then… I’ll never have to worry again about whether or not Anthony is going to die. This thought surprised me because I’d never anticipated having it or wanting to have it. It just occurred to me that as bad as it was to have him dead, he’d never die again. The profound simultaneous morbidness and lightness of that thought struck me as extremely silly. Instead of thinking about it further, I just found myself feeling relief and allowing the relief of that thought to replace the grief.
The yearning for human connection, whether two hours or a few sweet months is it a desire to be taught, to be shown new things, To hear new stories, to hear a slightly widened worldview.
Then he looked everyone in the eye and promised he wouldn’t let this destroy our marriage. He looked at me and said this would not destroy us. I want to ask each of you to hold us to that.
… New polo shirts that my dad bought and never had a chance to wear; A post it note with a message on it, the last thing my father ever wrote. Death turns everything into an heirloom.
It was an admission that yes, the first year is the hardest except for, in their own way, all the others.
You were an astrophysicist. You were way smarter than everyone…You loved James Taylor and Billy Joel and Africa by Toto. I called you Dede when I was learning to talk. You had bad skin as an adolescent. Puberty was roighr on you. You are big hearted and brilliant and affectionate like our father. You were angry and brilliant and dark like our mother…. You liked Douglas Adams and Kurt Vonnegut. You did OK in school but never as well as you should have. Me too. You had a terrible temper. You would get consumed by rage set off by I don’t even remember what….
I have a rad little boy now and he’s a lot like you in all the good ways. He carries your name and we talk about you all the time. He asks enormous questions about the nature of time and space and i say that I wish that you were here to answer him.
Today the twins are, like my grief, 10 years old. … fittingly, they just finished the Harry Potter series, ending book 7 a few days after the 10th anniversary of my father‘s death. I take comfort in the fact that the boys whose new lives buffered me through my first experience with death now know the lessons of that series. That the dad never truly leave us. That scars serve as both pain and protection. That love is the most powerful force on Earth
Some essays are standouts. But I’m guessing that we take what we need and the ones that felt like filler to me may have meant much more to others.
Excerpts:
Hemingway: the world breaks everyone and afterward some are strong at the broken places. I’ve been made strong at the broken places.
The modern world doesn’t allow most of us to raise our children as we should: in clusters and groups. So that while love is abundant, the sense that one person is indispensable is not as powerful as the sense that others Will always be there. Because just as death can come in unexpected and life-changing ways, so too can care. There is, after all, no reason why a person can’t be both a mother and a mother figure, Why we can’t both fully grieve a mother and still continue to be fueled by what she showed us all how to Do so well: to weather suffering and emerge with the joy of being even more connected after the worst has passed.
And then… I’ll never have to worry again about whether or not Anthony is going to die. This thought surprised me because I’d never anticipated having it or wanting to have it. It just occurred to me that as bad as it was to have him dead, he’d never die again. The profound simultaneous morbidness and lightness of that thought struck me as extremely silly. Instead of thinking about it further, I just found myself feeling relief and allowing the relief of that thought to replace the grief.
The yearning for human connection, whether two hours or a few sweet months is it a desire to be taught, to be shown new things, To hear new stories, to hear a slightly widened worldview.
Then he looked everyone in the eye and promised he wouldn’t let this destroy our marriage. He looked at me and said this would not destroy us. I want to ask each of you to hold us to that.
… New polo shirts that my dad bought and never had a chance to wear; A post it note with a message on it, the last thing my father ever wrote. Death turns everything into an heirloom.
It was an admission that yes, the first year is the hardest except for, in their own way, all the others.
You were an astrophysicist. You were way smarter than everyone…You loved James Taylor and Billy Joel and Africa by Toto. I called you Dede when I was learning to talk. You had bad skin as an adolescent. Puberty was roighr on you. You are big hearted and brilliant and affectionate like our father. You were angry and brilliant and dark like our mother…. You liked Douglas Adams and Kurt Vonnegut. You did OK in school but never as well as you should have. Me too. You had a terrible temper. You would get consumed by rage set off by I don’t even remember what….
I have a rad little boy now and he’s a lot like you in all the good ways. He carries your name and we talk about you all the time. He asks enormous questions about the nature of time and space and i say that I wish that you were here to answer him.
Today the twins are, like my grief, 10 years old. … fittingly, they just finished the Harry Potter series, ending book 7 a few days after the 10th anniversary of my father‘s death. I take comfort in the fact that the boys whose new lives buffered me through my first experience with death now know the lessons of that series. That the dad never truly leave us. That scars serve as both pain and protection. That love is the most powerful force on Earth
June 7, 2023
Another grief book.
Since my last experiencing reading a grief book which I read after the death of my father, a lot more has happened. Unfortunately.
Months later, my favorite/most beloved Uncle wasted away and lost his battle with cancer, and shortly before a friend of mine took his own life. My 2018 was utterly fucked, to say the least.
I’ve struggled [that’s putting it lightly] with grief since my father died, but adding on to it has made me feel like collapsing under a mountain.
I was initially suggested this book for its look of the sort of ‘death in the digital age’ aspect of grief of current generations, which is what interested me the most. However, that’s actually only a small part of it. That was pretty disappointing, but the book itself wasn’t disappointing – I’m glad I read it. What I liked the most about this book is the validation of what I’ve personally experienced is something that I’m not alone in; and learning about the others like me makes it hurt even just a little less. It’s never that I thought I was alone, but some of the things you feel in grief are so overwhelming it’s isolating.
The story goes back and forth between the two authors, who start each section that the book is divided in, and then those chapters are followed by stories/essays/word-vomits from other people who have grief stories related to that section. The grief described comes in many shapes and sizes, of different kinds of loss of different kinds of people.
In between those sections are mini dividers of illustration information [info-graphics] pages, and single page illustrations made for almost all of the stories.
I’m going to section out different areas a bit to make it a bit more organized.
---
The sections are divided into standard themed sections, and the aforementioned info-graphics. The standard sections will be in a lighter grey, info graphics in this same color font.
-Collateral Damage: But Wait, There’s More?
*Things to Know Before Scattering Ashes
-Triggers: What Sets Us Off Might Surprise You
*The Do’s and Don’ts of Building Your Crew
-Intimacy: 1 – 1 + 1 = ?
*Guess Who’s [Not] Coming To Dinner? Surviving Small Talk After A Loss
-Identity: Who We Were and Who We’ve Become
*Survivor Gilt: Creative Ways To use What’s Left Behind Instead of Banishing It to Storage Purgatory
-Inheritance: Property Of:
*There’s No Will. What the [Bleep] Do I Do Now?
-Data: Loss [and Found] in the Digital Universe
*A Brief Guide to Griefspeak
-Secrets: What they Didn’t Tell Us, and What We Aren’t Telling Others
*Work Life After Loss
-Journeys: Where We’ve Headed but Not Necessarily Ended Up
*Shit People Say, But Really Shouldn’t
-Absence + Time: What Comes Later
---
Another mini section I’d like to cover is some tidbits from the ‘grief speak’ info graphic that I personally experience deeply, so that section hit really close to home. There’s a lot more, of course, these are just ones that I experience commonly.
Grief Speak terms:
Freudenschade: [Antonym – Schadenfreude] The sting you feel when you see a stranger having brunch/interacting with their [enter loved one here] when yours is dead.
Wakemare: The first conscious moments after a happy dream about the deceased, when you remember – yet again – that they’re gone.
Mourn Mirage: The appearance of a stranger who closely resembles someone who died. May result in your following them several blocks just so that you can see and be near them [not creepy at all.]
Clutterstruck: The inability to remove dead loved ones’ seemingly meaningless items for fear they might later prove to be surprisingly irreplaceable.
---
Like with the other grief book I read [and I’m sure more I’ll read in the future], this is a very specific book for specific needs. I ultimately recommend it for those who are grieving in some way [this book is more death-specific I will say though, my last read also dealt with divorce, non-death life changes, etc] or those who want to understand or help the grieving, especially if someone close in their life. I’m definitely keeping it to lend out to those that need it.
I give Modern Loss 4/5 Wakemares
“‘It’s so curious,” the French novelist Colette wrote in a letter to a recently widowed friend, “one can resist tears and ‘behave’ very well in the hardest hours of grief. But then someone makes you a friendly sign behind a window, or one notices that a flower that was in bud only yesterday has suddenly blossomed, or a letter slips from a drawer… and everything collapses.”
- - - - -
“Our relationship isn’t all easy. I mean, marriage generally isn’t easy, but that’s a separate book topic that I am certainly not qualified to write. I’m talking about the burden he has taken on of loving someone with a permanent hole in her heart, and my burden of being the one with the hole. It will never be okay that he didn’t get to meet my mother, or that the only version of my father he knew was the one who, suffering the loss of the great love of his life, could be downright unbearable in his actions.
But Justin was the one who got into the deep muck with me, willing to wade through this mess together and fully engage in a marriage that has four people in it, two of them ghosts.”
- - - - -
“Grief alters us, body and mind, by splitting us in two. It is the only way to live with it and not be destroyed by it. The knowledge of what you have or had is pressed against the knowledge that you will lose it or have lost it.”
- - - - -
“The most frightening thing about watching him die was that I didn’t die also. I was very young – twenty-eight – to learn that there exists a pain so profound that it should kill you, but lacks the mercy. It will get better, everyone told me, which was the last thing I wanted to hear and the last thing I wanted to be true. I wanted to stay in that place, close to him, close to the epicenter.”
Since my last experiencing reading a grief book which I read after the death of my father, a lot more has happened. Unfortunately.
Months later, my favorite/most beloved Uncle wasted away and lost his battle with cancer, and shortly before a friend of mine took his own life. My 2018 was utterly fucked, to say the least.
I’ve struggled [that’s putting it lightly] with grief since my father died, but adding on to it has made me feel like collapsing under a mountain.
I was initially suggested this book for its look of the sort of ‘death in the digital age’ aspect of grief of current generations, which is what interested me the most. However, that’s actually only a small part of it. That was pretty disappointing, but the book itself wasn’t disappointing – I’m glad I read it. What I liked the most about this book is the validation of what I’ve personally experienced is something that I’m not alone in; and learning about the others like me makes it hurt even just a little less. It’s never that I thought I was alone, but some of the things you feel in grief are so overwhelming it’s isolating.
The story goes back and forth between the two authors, who start each section that the book is divided in, and then those chapters are followed by stories/essays/word-vomits from other people who have grief stories related to that section. The grief described comes in many shapes and sizes, of different kinds of loss of different kinds of people.
In between those sections are mini dividers of illustration information [info-graphics] pages, and single page illustrations made for almost all of the stories.
I’m going to section out different areas a bit to make it a bit more organized.
---
The sections are divided into standard themed sections, and the aforementioned info-graphics. The standard sections will be in a lighter grey, info graphics in this same color font.
-Collateral Damage: But Wait, There’s More?
*Things to Know Before Scattering Ashes
-Triggers: What Sets Us Off Might Surprise You
*The Do’s and Don’ts of Building Your Crew
-Intimacy: 1 – 1 + 1 = ?
*Guess Who’s [Not] Coming To Dinner? Surviving Small Talk After A Loss
-Identity: Who We Were and Who We’ve Become
*Survivor Gilt: Creative Ways To use What’s Left Behind Instead of Banishing It to Storage Purgatory
-Inheritance: Property Of:
*There’s No Will. What the [Bleep] Do I Do Now?
-Data: Loss [and Found] in the Digital Universe
*A Brief Guide to Griefspeak
-Secrets: What they Didn’t Tell Us, and What We Aren’t Telling Others
*Work Life After Loss
-Journeys: Where We’ve Headed but Not Necessarily Ended Up
*Shit People Say, But Really Shouldn’t
-Absence + Time: What Comes Later
---
Another mini section I’d like to cover is some tidbits from the ‘grief speak’ info graphic that I personally experience deeply, so that section hit really close to home. There’s a lot more, of course, these are just ones that I experience commonly.
Grief Speak terms:
Freudenschade: [Antonym – Schadenfreude] The sting you feel when you see a stranger having brunch/interacting with their [enter loved one here] when yours is dead.
Wakemare: The first conscious moments after a happy dream about the deceased, when you remember – yet again – that they’re gone.
Mourn Mirage: The appearance of a stranger who closely resembles someone who died. May result in your following them several blocks just so that you can see and be near them [not creepy at all.]
Clutterstruck: The inability to remove dead loved ones’ seemingly meaningless items for fear they might later prove to be surprisingly irreplaceable.
---
Like with the other grief book I read [and I’m sure more I’ll read in the future], this is a very specific book for specific needs. I ultimately recommend it for those who are grieving in some way [this book is more death-specific I will say though, my last read also dealt with divorce, non-death life changes, etc] or those who want to understand or help the grieving, especially if someone close in their life. I’m definitely keeping it to lend out to those that need it.
I give Modern Loss 4/5 Wakemares
“‘It’s so curious,” the French novelist Colette wrote in a letter to a recently widowed friend, “one can resist tears and ‘behave’ very well in the hardest hours of grief. But then someone makes you a friendly sign behind a window, or one notices that a flower that was in bud only yesterday has suddenly blossomed, or a letter slips from a drawer… and everything collapses.”
- - - - -
“Our relationship isn’t all easy. I mean, marriage generally isn’t easy, but that’s a separate book topic that I am certainly not qualified to write. I’m talking about the burden he has taken on of loving someone with a permanent hole in her heart, and my burden of being the one with the hole. It will never be okay that he didn’t get to meet my mother, or that the only version of my father he knew was the one who, suffering the loss of the great love of his life, could be downright unbearable in his actions.
But Justin was the one who got into the deep muck with me, willing to wade through this mess together and fully engage in a marriage that has four people in it, two of them ghosts.”
- - - - -
“Grief alters us, body and mind, by splitting us in two. It is the only way to live with it and not be destroyed by it. The knowledge of what you have or had is pressed against the knowledge that you will lose it or have lost it.”
- - - - -
“The most frightening thing about watching him die was that I didn’t die also. I was very young – twenty-eight – to learn that there exists a pain so profound that it should kill you, but lacks the mercy. It will get better, everyone told me, which was the last thing I wanted to hear and the last thing I wanted to be true. I wanted to stay in that place, close to him, close to the epicenter.”
April 3, 2021
“We are imperfect people mourning imperfect people imperfectly. But these imperfections make us no less deserving of empathy and loving expressions of grief.”
honest and witty. i didn't expect a collection of essays about death to actually make me laugh, but this book was pretty funny! and also helpful — well, as helpful as a book on grief can be. my dad, who i was very close with growing up, is about to pass away, and so i ordered a few books on loss. this book was a well-written collection of essays from various authors (some of them famous) exploring the death of loved ones. i related to some essays more than others — gabrielle birkner's story of her parents passing in a horrific murder was heartbreaking, but i related far more to the stories of losing a loved one slowly to a much less violent but also miserable death than that tale. but yeah! i enjoyed this collection overall; i did definitely like some essays more than others but it was fairly strong in general. i also really liked the illustrations!
honest and witty. i didn't expect a collection of essays about death to actually make me laugh, but this book was pretty funny! and also helpful — well, as helpful as a book on grief can be. my dad, who i was very close with growing up, is about to pass away, and so i ordered a few books on loss. this book was a well-written collection of essays from various authors (some of them famous) exploring the death of loved ones. i related to some essays more than others — gabrielle birkner's story of her parents passing in a horrific murder was heartbreaking, but i related far more to the stories of losing a loved one slowly to a much less violent but also miserable death than that tale. but yeah! i enjoyed this collection overall; i did definitely like some essays more than others but it was fairly strong in general. i also really liked the illustrations!
February 4, 2019
This is one of the funniest, sweetest, most raw and poignant books I have ever read on the subject of grief and loss. Maybe that's because every essay is not written by a person who has studied death, loss, or grief, but by people who are dealing with that pain themselves. These essays are real, entertaining, heart-wrenching, and clearly demonstrate what these individuals were looking for when they walked through the darkest places of their lives. There are also hilarious and honest charts and bits of information about dealing with loss shown in illustrations throughout the book. Modern Loss has helped me to see the world through new eyes. It has helped me understand the human race a little better, and for that I am humbled and grateful.
June 1, 2021
I lost my mother a little over a year and a half ago and was gifted this book. Little did I know it would change my perceptions on grief and life as a whole. This book tells an excellent story of how our life connections and emotions inspire us into who we are today through personal testimonies. There is a story in this book everyone can relate to and I absolutely love how grief is depicted through different kinds of losses, whether that be death of a loved one, loss of a friendship, and more. I would absolutely note that some chapters could be triggering but this book is not in a cover to cover format and allows the reader to choose what section and stories to read at their leisure. I would recommend this book to anyone and everyone.
February 8, 2018
Candid essays by a variety of authors on grief, loss, death, and everything that accompany them from inheritances to triggers, secrets to identity crises. Not too dark, not too funny, I found this approachable and thought-provoking. I was hoping for a bit more of an emphasis on the modern tech implications, since the summary begins with: "At a time when we mourn public figures and national tragedies with hashtags, where intimate posts about loss go viral and we receive automated birthday reminders for dead friends, it's clear we are navigating new terrain..." But I'd say the majority of the book wasn't focused on commentary along those lines, so I knocked a star.
January 3, 2025
a long, tight hug, just when i needed it most. this collection of anecdotes and essays (many of them written by folks who lost loved ones at a young age, in their twenties, like myself) is candid, unpretentious, and refreshingly harsh. the honesty is a real treat, especially because we live in a grief-averse society. i laughed a lot and felt so understood. the complicated feelings surrounding the very recent loss of my mom were validated and honored. this is a support group condensed into a little book. it really helps.
August 21, 2024
"I was very young to learn that there exists a pain so profound that it should kill you but lacks the mercy."
It feels morbid to say that I loved this book but it's not the stories of pain, anguish and loss that stuck with me the most. It's the way it normalizes speaking about death and loss and the way it permanently shapes your world. Its the way it showed so many different ways to grieve that don't fit into a neat and tidy 5 step sequence. It's the hope that even when the world feels crushing and defeating that we somehow do still continue to exist, and even thrive. I truly believe these conversations, stories and thoughts are necessary to embrace the human experience and I'm grateful to have found the book when I did.
It feels morbid to say that I loved this book but it's not the stories of pain, anguish and loss that stuck with me the most. It's the way it normalizes speaking about death and loss and the way it permanently shapes your world. Its the way it showed so many different ways to grieve that don't fit into a neat and tidy 5 step sequence. It's the hope that even when the world feels crushing and defeating that we somehow do still continue to exist, and even thrive. I truly believe these conversations, stories and thoughts are necessary to embrace the human experience and I'm grateful to have found the book when I did.
January 24, 2019
I enjoyed reading the essays in this book. They are of course difficult to read if dealing with grief. They will bring out tears for sure. Not only for the story tellers but for your own hidden pain. It was good in the sense that I understood in some ways how we process grief, and the challenges we face after loosing a loved one. I am inspired to write my own modern loss story and process my grief through words.
April 12, 2018
This book allowed me to feel like I was having the conversations I’m too scared to have in real life. I cried through some of it, laughed through the rest. Would recommend to anyone who feels like they’re “doing it wrong.”
March 24, 2021
I love essay collections!!! This was so good. Obviously heavy at times, but also so insightful and hopeful and interesting.
September 3, 2022
212:2022
Solid collection of essays sharing the car array of emotions and experiences that the grief of loss can bring.
Solid collection of essays sharing the car array of emotions and experiences that the grief of loss can bring.
September 15, 2022
Was such a disappointment halfway through reading this book. Turned from grieving and loss stories to things that had nothing to do with loss or just justified poor behavior/actions.
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