Great Author, Great Story, Loved it more than her others. A great book for a lazy weekend afternoon for an escape. Thanks

Sloane Crosley “dying is an art, like everything else” and this book is the masterpiece. An amazing tribute to her life long friend and thought piece on friendship with the powerful thesis of grief is for people, not things. She intertwines people, things, memories and stories all together and shows how intertwined it all really is.

"The burglary arrived "out of the blue." But for all of Russell's surface joy, there is a well of darkness inside him, a pond that he can dip his hand into whenever he likes. It's not such a nice world. Bad things happen. Sometimes they happen all at once."

This.book. My. heart. I have so many things highlighted and no idea where to begin.

Sloane Crosley makes you feel every step of her grief journey in such an incredibly understandable and relatable way. You never feel like Crosley is being too trite or trying to teach you something or make you feel exactly what she's feeling. She doesn't try to make grief something that someone should be tolerating or snapping back from. She acknowledges the ebbs and flows of her experience once Russell died and how that affected her need to get her jewelry back.

This book is probably not the best thing for someone who is closer to the experience of suicide, either for themselves or a loved one. It won't uplift you or empower you but it does remind the reader that you cannot fix or make someone not contemplate or die by suicide.

Crosley quickly comes to the conclusion that she couldn't do anything to stop Russell, even if she had known. She describes their relationship but doesn't pick it apart or try to prescribe parts of it to why she didn't expect him to die by suicide. She also makes a point to not hypothesize about how his other relationships were affected by his death or describe encounters with those people.

Crosley's poetic but not overly indulging style is perfect for this memoir. You can tell that it is truly an exercise in understanding these very specific events and how she handled them. I cannot wait to come back to this book!

Five stars. Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for a copy of this book for an honest review.

This book eludes simple classification; it intertwines elements of memoir, mystery, and contemplation on grief, which is precisely what renders it so compelling. Crosley adeptly guides us through the intricate terrain of grappling with the theft of cherished jewelry and the profound loss of her dearest friend. In doing so, she offers a raw and genuine portrayal of the capricious and unyielding nature of grief. It stands as both a heartfelt homage to her beloved friend and a source of comfort for those navigating their personal journeys of sorrow. I wholeheartedly endorse giving it a read

I quite enjoyed Crosley's early books (e.g., I Was Told There'd Be Cake) but haven't read her more recent works until I stumbled across Grief is For People. Grief is For People displays all of Crosley's insight and humor even as it addresses the heavy themes of loss and mourning with heart-felt authenticity.

One small (potential) quibble: I have not quite landed on my response to Crosley's use of the Kubler-Ross framework. As applied to each chapter, the framework is simultaneously clever and obvious, appropriate and not quite on the mark, helpful and unnecessary.

But that critique is mostly besides the point. What probably is most relevant is that Crosley is a keen observer and commentator on the cultural moment. And she applies those same skills and her trademark wit to the ways in which her sense of the world was altered with the theft of her jewelry, the passing of her friend, and the pandemic.

Crosley is known for her hilarious essays & novels, but this time she's writing about twin tragedies in her life that occurred within a month of each other - the theft of jewelry from her NYC apartment and the suicide of her closest friend. Though that humor is still woven throughout, she brings the reader along for the heartbreaking ride as she grapples with her grief, relives moments of friendship, and learns to live with loss. Highly recommend for fans of Crying in H Mart.

I’m honestly a little torn about how to rate this book. The title is somewhat misleading. The first half is definitely a memoir about grief. And since grief in and of itself is so singular and unique, it’s not really something that can be shared. Your grief is yours. Its not more or less, bigger or smaller or like anyone else’s…so really why write a book on grief at all? Crosley didn’t. What seemed like a book about the death of her friend and an ongoing jewelry heist was actually a dissection of a man and his private life. There was actually a point in the book where the author writes that she debated about including what she was about to write. She absolutely should not have included it. It is one thing to remember someone and write about their life, it is another entirely to air someones dirty laundry after they have passed and cannot even give their permission or correct inaccuracies. The book went from being a somewhat acidic account of her grief to a gossipy, name dropping tell all.

Sloane is such a talented story teller. I appreciate that this book is out in the world. It's not like other books about grief that I've read. It's a memoir in a style that is refreshing to get lost in. I felt like I was there in the world Sloane describes. It's awesome when books do that for me. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC. Five stars!

I absolutely loved this memoir from Sloane Crosley. It was a not altogether new subject matter, but still nuanced in the treatment of death, grief, and processing trauma. Sloane has always had a way of holding you hostage in her pages and wrapping you tight in a feeling. This memoir is no different!

Not a fav.
Thanks to author, publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book. While I got the book for free it had no bearing on the rating I gave it.

Sloane Crosley's latest work is a meditation on loss and grief. First, her apartment is robbed while she is out for an hour, and many heirlooms are stolen. Not long afterward, her best friend kills himself.

But these are mainly the stories upon which deeper meaning is sought. Sloane pursues locating her stolen jewelry like a detective, even using the services of detectives. She peruses the months before her friend's suicide, dissecting his behavioural changes and trying to remember instances that might have clued her to his sadness.

There is much soul searching, and frustration at never being able to come up with an answer besides allowing grief to be, to morph in the ways it does, taking as much time as it does.

There are books whose titles are drawn from the text; you don't know when you'll encounter it until you get there and then tears spring to your eyes when you do. This is one (No One is Talking about This by Patricia Lockwood is another).
This book is not a fast read, although it's short, nor is it an easy read. Some of the sentences felt they should have been read aloud first, as a test of their readability, but you can understand why they weren't. It really must have been hard to write this. You can tell she really loved him.
My gratitude to NetGalley for allowing me access to an electronic ARC in exchange for this honest review.

Thanks to Netgalley and FSG for the ebook. The author has always written such funny essays and novels, but is now hit with her New York City apartment being robbed and one of her best friends committing suicide, exactly one month apart. While her humor never leaves her, there are just some things that can’t be laughed away. She goes through the stages of grief and recalls fun tales of working for publicity for Vintage Books, where she and her friend used to work, as she plots to track down the jewelry that was stolen during the break in and then even has a world wide pandemic come to strand her in her apartment with her grief. She looks for her dead friend everywhere, as far away as Australia, and never finds him, but still learns to live with him.