Griefstrike! The Ultimate Guide to Mourning

by Jason Roeder

MOURN LIKE A WINNER When it comes to grief, there's no room for second best. Sure, there are other guidebooks aimed at helping you cope with the emotional and practical challenges of losing a loved one. None, however, have been written by a comedy writer whose "therapeutic training" went no further than an undergraduate degree in psychology, and who lived through this terrible experience and emerged intact enough to write a bunch of jokes about it. What The Daily Show 's America (The Book) was to civics and The Onion 's Our Dumb Century was to the history of the twentieth century, Jason Roeder 's hilarious (and often moving) Griefstrike! is to death, mourning, and somehow getting on with your life.

Genres: Grief, Nonfiction, Humor

142 pages, Paperback

Published November 22, 2022

Reviews

[Kimberly · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you're ready to laugh a little about some of the oddities of the grief process, this book a great way to do that. The Sincerity Corners round things out nicely.

[Anne]

I really did try to read this. Alas, between an actual passing of an important personage in my life and... whatever else... I just wasn't able to find any delight in this book. DNF

I think my copy is still around gathering dust so maybe years from now, after I've dealt with the passing of the. very. important. personage. in my life maybe I'll dust this off and try to read it? Maybe?

[Greg · Rating 1 out of 5]

An occasional funny one-liner or cause for reflection are not nearly enough to justify this book’s existence. It’s a great idea, but for me it doesn’t deliver on any of its promises.

[Kali Sakai · Rating 2 out of 5]

I just hope that writing this book was cathartic for Jason Roeder. The loss of his mother was the catalyst for this book and I appreciate the effort. Grief is so tough to make funny and I wanted it to be funny, I really did. As a widow, I know grief pretty well and I'm willing to embrace the gallows humor of it all because, what else can you do? But sadly, this book was not for me. Roeder tries threading that needle with lots of different set ups, illustrations, topics, faux grief journal entries, a quiz on what kind of griever you are. But again and again, as I continued to read, the humor just wasn't landing for me. Everyone's process to deal with grief is different so maybe this will resonate with other folks.

[Becky Robison · Rating 5 out of 5]

I use gallows humor to cope with my grief, and so does Jason Roeder, who compiled this satirical self-help book for those facing a recent loss. After all the dreary sympathy cards and well-meant casseroles, it’s nice to laugh, and Roeder provides laughs in spades. I especially enjoyed the deranged journal prompts.

This review was originally published on my blog.

[Hans · Rating 4 out of 5]

This arrived in my on-going "everything from McSweeney's" subscription. This made it to the bedside table as an in-between book. Timely (for me), funny and sincere.

P.S. R.I.P., Jerry Orbach. R.I.P.

[Andrea · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book about grief that covers the full and complete spectrum of emotions and feels. That includes humor which is not often included in books like this, and that addition was so appreciated. Grief is hard, and this book captured what it's like in such a real and wonderful way.

[Brooke Stiles · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a weird book. Although I wasn’t reading this after the loss of someone, everything about it felt strange and forced. A lot of this book felt like an episode of American Dad - completely useless and wildly random. I hope this was useful to him to write in the wake of his mother.

[Sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Funniest grief book I've ever read

[Susan Revelt · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would have liked to laugh more

After losing two close family members in the last two years, I was hoping to laugh in the face of death for a change of pace. It didn't happen.

[Aquamarine · Rating 1 out of 5]

Tries very hard to be funny and edgy. It's just not

[Eve Diana · Rating 1 out of 5]

Tries too hard to be clever. Unfunny and snarky. To each their own.

[Jennie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is outrageous and absurd, which for me struck a perfect note. Grief IS outrageous and absurd. Griefstrike! is also very funny, I laughed out loud a surprising amount of times. I especially enjoyed the state by state breakdown of whether or not you are legally allowed to blame God for your loved one's death. I would have given this 5 stars but there are two distasteful jokes about unhoused people. And while this is a book written in delightfully poor taste generally, I felt those bits were punching down.