I like to go into books knowing as little as possible about them. All I knew about this one was that it was a memoir with a catchy title. Therefore I was so surprised to discover most of the book takes place where I live and therefore many of the locations are familiar to me. Jess learns her 47 year old husband suddenly passes away on a work trip. That in itself is shocking but the more Jess digs into personal aspects such as banking info, website views etc she is stunned to find he was living a secret life. It turns out Sean had a massive porn addiction and had been having affairs. She had suspected one affair but all of the rest of this was nothing that she anticipated. Sean also was bipolar but was on no medication which definitely contributed to some of his erratic behaviour. Jess was grieving while dealing with all of these different sides of Sean and trying to help their young son with his grief. The first half of the book is uncovering everything around Sean’s life and the second half is Jess trying to find ways to move past the grief and hurt. Many of the grief therapies she seeks out are unconventional but everyone deals with grief and coping in their own way. I admired Jess for trying to move forward with respect and love for Sean with everything she now knew. This was definitely a compelling memoir.

I received this book from Simon and Schuster Canada in exchange for an honest review.

“Driving home, I’m caught in the crazy paradox: people want to be remembered when they’re gone, yet everyone’s afraid to talk about the dead. The fastest way to forget someone is to stop saying their name,” (Waite).

When Jessica Waite’s husband dies suddenly of a heart attack she’s heartbroken. But as she prepares for the funeral and adjusting to life as a single mother to her nine-year-old son, she learns that her late husband was living a secret life of drug addiction, infidelity, and debt. Her grief complicated, Jessica’s feelings towards her dead husband become overwhelming as she tries to understand the man she thought she knew with the secrets he was hiding. And when her late husband appears to be trying to contact her from the afterlife, Jessica doesn’t know whether or not she wants a sign from him.

Grief is a difficult thing to experience, even more to write about. While your world stops after a loved one dies the rest of the world keeps going, and eventually the people around you get tired of your sadness. This sounds callous, but having experienced it and reading Jessica Waite’s own experience of grief in which after six months her friends and family no longer had the patience, or even saw her as a potential threat to their husbands, is an unfortunate, frustrating truth.

I think Waite does an excellent job at detailing her complicated and prolonged grief. She mourns her husband while also hating the secrets he kept from her. She went through an insurmountable amount of stress and heartache and I feel deeply for the unfairness of all that she discovered after his death and understand her “revenge plans” and anger. The life she thought she had was turned upside down, and when her husband died she was left with the stress, the possibility of homelessness and STI’s while also mourning not just her husband but the man she thought she married.

I will say that the description for this book isn’t entirely accurate. While this memoir is about Waite discovering these secrets about her husband there is very little detail on the secrets discovered. Waite tells us that her husband had an affair with two co-workers and had a history of hiring escorts, that he had a porn addiction that was categorized on the hard drive of his computer, that he went over their overdraft, that he was addicted to marijuana, that he had bi-polar disorder and at what point threatened to kill her, but these are all things that are just mentioned. Waite doesn’t go into detail about any of these things except to just mention them, to mention that one of her friends helped clear the hard drive of the computer, another helped come up with a financial plan for her and her son, another helped her clean some of her late husbands rooms. But Waite doesn’t speak about how this stress has effected her mentally and emotionally, except for a passing mention of STI testing she doesn’t talk about the concern for that. But despite the summary, that didn’t seem to be the focus of Waite’s memoir. It was about complicated grief, not about the other fears and revelations the summary made it out to be. This doesn’t make the book disappointing, only if reader’s are expecting more insight into how Waite dealt with these revelations they will go away disappointed.

Waite offers an honest, complicated look at grief that isn’t always talked about. Grief is expected to look one way but it can be experienced in a variety of forms and I’m glad Waite shared her own experience with grief. While the last chapter is a bit repetitive (and not really needed, I suspect it’s from an essay Waite implied she’d written in the prior chapter) The Widow’s Guide to Dead Bastards let’s widow’s/widowers know that their grief is valid whether it fits the expected mold or not, and I’m sure many reader’s will find comfort in that.

With a title like “The Widow’s Guide to Dead Bastards” how do you not want to read it?

Honestly, picking this up I didn’t know what I was expecting but this was so much more than anything I thought it was going to be.
1. This is a true story! Didn’t know that going in. (Memoir on the cover should have given that away - but, hey)
2. Her way of dealing with everything was magnificent!
3. This was so well written that I found myself lost in the story.

The author, Jessica Waite, lost her husband Sean suddenly (and a little dramatically) when he was only 47, their son, Dash, was only 9. While dealing with the aftermath of his death she quickly discovers so many secrets about her husband that challenges the life she thought she lived.

Dealing with so much seems overwhelming, she learns much of the secrets her husband kept from her (that honestly gave him the bastard title), she has to deal with getting his belongings back, his ashes, insurance claims, what to do with all his stuff, how to deal with their son and his grief, how her friends and his family treat her right after, along with how they treat her 7 months after.

The author takes us through her grief and understanding of how to grieve for someone you may not have truly known. I loved the parts of signs and speaking to those who have passed and near the end of the book her way of finally saying goodbye and ending her grief.

I loved how honest this book was in her experience of grief, love, and loss.

This was a really moving book. A tear jerker. I didn't really know what I was getting into with this - especially as I thought that title was maybe meant to be funny. Jessica's husband dies suddenly and she finds all these secrets that he was keeping from her. The book tells the story of how she has to work through her anger about that along with her grief. It was very emotional but also had moments of laughter. A beautiful book.

Thank you to Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for an advanced copy of this memoir. I will not judge any of the events that took place or the author’s actions as this is a very personal story about loss and living in the aftermath. I will instead share my experience as a reader. Entertaining at times, heartbreaking at others with a dose of the otherworldly sums it up.

I will admit that the title alone intrigued me and the first half of this book delivered on what I thought this would be. Grief associated with loosing a complicated person. Sean can be thoughtful and loving at times and volatile and secretive at others. As Jessica shares the buried secrets and betrayals she unearths in the days, months and years after Sean’s unexpected death she narrates how you can love and hate a person at the same time. Death has a way of immortalizing beautiful memories, but she is forced to acknowledge that the signs were there all along. Affairs, an unsavoury porn addiction, drugs, suggested violence and verbal abuse from a man with undiagnosed bipolar disease, he was certainly no saint. It was odd because I certainly thought so at the beginning of the novel.

Sean was a porous enigma. There was the way Jessica felt about him, which was at times in contrast to her own memories. He was larger than life in the way only the dead can be, polished to only hold space for the positives and forgiving the flaws. Even after all the darkness was revealed it was difficult for people who loved him to acknowledge these pretty large problems. Some of his actions and words raised flags for me and the non-pulsed way in which they were casually glazed over made me wonder if: a) living with someone with extreme mood swings normalizes you to things that are really not okay, especially for children; b) these snapshots don’t really tell the whole story; c) unless you have lived with mental illness yourself or in the household there are certain realities that are difficult to understand. At times the facts and memories contradicted each other making his persona difficult to pin down. This is reinforced by the fact that we are only seeing him from someone who deeply cared about him, which is far from objective.

Then the second half of the book took a little bit of a surprising turn and went into Jessica’s healing processes from mediums and energy workers to writers circles and retreats. She tried all sorts of therapies to address her grief and expunge her anger. Some of the stories will be hard to believe, but as someone who has lived with grief for a decade and still feels its residual hole I do believe in universal energy and non-western paths to healing the soul.There is also an element of you see what you want to see when you are really in need of it. Be it coincidence or divine intervention everyone has their own journey to take after loss. I wasn’t really expecting a message from the dead or a forgive all compassionate tone given the hook of this book and in some ways it read like two different parts: 1) reality struck. Let’s bring the dark humour to this conversation since Sean really ended up being a bastard. 2) Spiritual awakening and healing, which may be a journey I have taken, but not one I particularly like reading about because it always tries to stretch my barrier as a scientist to the point of breaking. I will add that I was also suffering a new loss while reading this book so it was rather timely and meant I kept an open mind during this half.

All in all a very cathartic book for the author with a happy ending…well for everyone who isn’t Sean.

This book started out with a bang that shocked me! I can imagine how the author must have felt finding what she did after her husband's death. Well, that is what the book is about... This book was raw ,emotional, vulnerable and heartbreaking. All of the emotions. I thought she was very brave to share her life like this and her marriage with a husband who had mental health issues. Telling her husband's side of the story really opened up my mind to how much is below the surface and how you really don't know what is going on with someone; even someone who you share your life with. A beautiful but difficult story that I am sure will help many other spouses know that they are not alone in their situation.

Thank you to Simon and Schuster Canada for an eARC in exchange for a honest review.

What do you really know about your partner? In The Widow’s Guide to Dead Bastards by Jessica Waite, we learn that sometimes things aren’t always as they seem. When Jessica’s husband Sean dies, she uncovers a multitude of shocking details about a secret life he kept well hidden. What at first felt like a salacious dive into the sordid details of Sean’s transgressions by a wife feeling betrayed, it quickly turns into a study in grief, relationships, and how we always try to give those we truly love the best of ourselves. This memoir takes us from the shocking phone call informing a doting wife that her husband has suddenly died to the sordid contents of his computer to moving on. We go through the stages of grief with Jessica from palpable anger to acceptance including how she navigates a new life leaving the man she thought she knew behind. This story felt very emotional at the beginning and I was quite entertained by the investigation into Sean’s betrayals but found the middle dragging a bit as Jessica tries to come to terms with her new reality. Overall,the story reads as stranger than fiction and will appeal to non-fiction and fiction readers alike. Thank you to NetGalley and Simon Schuster Canada for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This memoir started with a bang and I was immediately engrossed. The beginning had everything I love in a memoir. Shock, suspense, intrigue.

Unfortunately, I felt like that lost its momentum as it went on and it ended up dragging out more than I was hoping. Waite's story was enjoyable to read - albeit sad. However, there did become a point where I felt like it was just dragging out and it felt too much like a stream of consciousness for me. That is not to say that I did not enjoy it, because I can see what Waite was trying to do - the set up of the memoir was very much like the thoughts in her mind. There is definitely an audience for this memoir, but I would say that the beginning was much more engrossing than the middle and end.

“People say how resilient kids are, but I’m not convinced. I think we grow around our obstacles, like tree roots inching along the edge of a boulder. Dash will be okay, but he won’t grow into the same person he would have been if Sean had lived”. - Jessica Waite. 💜💜💜💜 Thank you to @simonschusterca and @netgalley for the advanced digital copy of Jessica Waites “A Widow’s Guide to Dead Bastards”. I was first intrigued by the blunt and honest title but what really grabbed my attention was the journey through grief that Jessica so poignantly and often hilariously takes us on. Although I am not a widow, I do have experience with divorce, single parenthood as well as grief and I found this book was a very accurate representation of feeling two opposite emotions at the same time while also navigating secrets and lies and “what could have beens”. Whether you are a widow or not, we all have experience with grief and Jessica did a wonderful job of making it okay to not be okay. This was an excellent memoir by a fellow Calgarian and I urge anyone grappling with grief or overwhelming feelings to give it a read!

The Widow’s Guide to Dead Bastards by Jessica Waite struck me in a way a memoir hasn’t before.

Emotional, raw, witty and real, Waite tells the story of her husband’s passing and the secrets she discovers about him afterwards.
This is a story of how grief impacts lives, as well as the task of trying to reconcile the person we knew with the things we learn about them.

I read this as an ARC from @simonschusterca on my long flight from Rome to Vancouver, with a five hour layover in Calgary, where most of Waite’s book is set.
I admire her realistic narrative. She didn’t pull any punches, didn’t shield feelings or tiptoe around hard subjects. She told it how it is, but was honest and real about her feelings and reactions as well.

If you are someone who loves a good story and knows grief, this is a book you will enjoy. You don’t have to be a widow to enjoy it, either! Highly recommend.

I read the first page of the prologue and was immediately pulled in. It’s rare that a memoir has that affect. I devoured it, and found myself bringing it up in conversation with anyone who remotely cared. It was incredibly well-written, honest, and moving. I felt like I knew the author by the end. And there really was an added familiarity to have it take place right here in Calgary. While I loved the first half of the book, I had mixed feelings about the final third, and already there are a few reviews on GR’s that capture more succinctly than I can, some reasons why that was the case. I always feel, however, that it is valuable and worthwhile to hear personal stories of lived experience, and I was grateful to have the chance to read this one.

With a title like this, how do you not dive right in? I certainly couldn’t resist.

Jessica was in a coffee shop in Alberta, Canada on a November morning in 2015 when she discovered that she had missed several calls from a Houston, TX area code. Thinking it was her husband who was away on business, she returned the call only to discover that it was a nurse from a Texas emergency department who was calling to inform her that her husband had died that day. What unraveled over the ensuing days, weeks months and years she never could have foreseen. Imagine being in the depths of grief and regret as you discover betrayal after shocking betrayal at every corner.

This was a deeply vulnerable, honest grief memoir with the added twist that the author wasn’t grieving only her husband, but her lost marriage, imperfect as it was. The author alternates between her more current struggles (telling her young child what’s happened, planning a funeral, discovering affairs, porn addictions, financial ruin) and flashes back to various parts of her personal history and relationship with her husband. I enjoyed this format as it helped paint the picture of all the little red flags she decided to push through and what it could have meant if she’d faced them directly at the time. My heart ached for Jessica as I read what felt like her diary – it felt like I was riding that emotional rollercoaster right along with her.

Thank you to Simon & Schuster and Netgalley for this eARC. All thoughts and opinions above are my own.

This memoir started off so good! I was engaged by the writing and Jessica’s writing. Her grief felt powerful and moving. Unfortunately, the writing/book took a turn about half way in and fell off for me. It was a struggle to finish the book and had me bored. Not sure what happened or why there was such a big change but it left me feeling apathetic about the whole thing.

This was such a well done memoir. It was heartbreaking and well written. At the start I was interested in the story about the husband and his death and his secrets but as the book went on I cared less about that and more about the authors recovery from it all.
I typically don’t care to give stars to memoirs because it is the authors story. This one I’m happy to give a 5⭐️rating. I really enjoyed it.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the advanced copy in exchange for a honest review.

The Widow’s Guide to Dead Bastards by Jessica Waite is a fascinating memoir that thoroughly explores the depths of grief and disloyalty. The author's writing shines with an immense quality that conveys her emotional turmoil and personal revelations. I found the first half of the book particularly compelling, drawing me into her heart-wrenching discovery of her late husband’s secrets and her struggles with his death. It felt so real that I felt like I had gone through it. However, the second half loses some of its initial momentum and feels less engaging. However, the book is nonetheless worth reading.

Thank you Simon & Schuster for the free copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion

The Widows Guide To Dead Bastards by Jessica Waite.
After her husband, Sean, of 17 years suddenly dies, Jessica Waite discovers shocking betrayals and truths about the man she loved and thought she knew.

In this book, Waite mentions the strange coincidence of happening upon books where the plot overlaid directly onto her life in uncanny and comforting ways. This book was that for me.

My estranged father died a month ago. It's been complex, to say the least. Unable to find grief literature out there that embodied my experience & giving up wanting to just read, I had this ARC waiting for me to start from Simon & Schuster Canada
and while the title eluded to some similar sentiments about my own dead person, I figured it was safe to start, a nice reprieve from my own strange times in the midst of grieving a dead bastard.

Well, my name is Jessica, My husband is also Shawn (not a bastard lol). Like Waite, my father is also an alcoholic. The similarities throughout this book were enough to make me question this book, finding its way to me. I felt comfort in the messiness of this grief and "grieving" not being the societal norm. Being mad at the person who died. I had been feeling so alone in that.

I enjoyed the book as a whole and Waites writing, so honest, humorous, and witty. Like others have said, the first half is strong, and I did feel a little disappointed that the second half felt more rushed in a way, spotty like, but that's grief for ya. This book is worth the read, especially if you are feeling alone grieving messy people

I find it incredibly difficult to give a star rating to a memoir, and for that I will be rating The Widow’s Guide To Dead Bastards and automatic five stars, because I found Jessica Waite bravely and authentically told her story on how she navigated her grief following the death of her husband, and how she worked through her feelings of betrayal and moving on while raising her son.

I sobbed through the whole thing.

What an incredible story! After the sudden death of her husband, Jessica finds out layers of lies, betrayal and painful realisations about the man she was with for 20 years. Left alone to raise their son, she has to unravel her grief and anger at the man she feels like she didn't fully know. A beautiful look at how she moves through the stages of grief in such a raw and sometimes funny way. Using the resources around her to find people who can help her complete the puzzle so she can move into the next stage of her life was absolutely amazing.

If you are looking for a book that is moving, yet comical and set in the amazing city of Calgary (okay yes I might be bias) as well as stories from all the amazing places the Waites lived/worked, I highly suggest picking up this book when it publishes on July 30, 2024 at your local library or bookstore

First of all, the title is clever. What a way to get people to pick up a book and read it! However, I think this is the best part of this memoir.

A widow coming to terms with the loss of her husband learns of uncomfortable and unpleasant truths about the man she married. Betrayal is awful, but is it even worse when the betrayer is no longer around to confront. How does one move forward?

The memoir is compelling at the start, but is less so as it moves along. The author is certainly very honest. I feel the second part veered in a direction that was helpful for the author in dealing with her grief, but just as no one grieves the same way, not everyone will relate, if that makes sense.

For a debut author courageously sharing such personal details about a deeply difficult time in her life, I, as a reader, really appreciate her authenticity.

Thank you to Simon and Schuster Canada for proving me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I'm not a big nonfiction reader, so this pushed me out of my comfort zone a little bit. I found the first half of the book to be very heart felt as the reader discovers the secrets that the author's husband had been keeping from her, that are only uncovered after his death. I'm sure it was very cathartic for her to write this book to work her way through her feelings of anger about the whole situation. I found that the last half of the book was very different from the first, and while I appreciated how hard it must be to share those raw moments I found it hard to connect with the author and her story. I feel like this is a book for people who have unexpectedly lost their spouses and those who have had spouses who have been keeping secrets.