In a way, Things in Nature Merely Grow resists reviews. In Li’s interest in avoiding the pitfalls of cliche (including even the language of ‘grief’ itself) the writing of this book is clear. Its aim appears to be in communicating rather than flourishing. As Li explains, there is no adjective that can describe living a childless life with ‘a mother’s thoughts.’ This book is stark in its honesty and self-assured in its mission to capture a moment in time without obsessive manicuring, without expectation or parameter. This means the prose of frequently pared back and matter of fact. It reads like a series of thoughts or journal entries rather than a ‘journey’ through bereavement. In this way it is incredibly honest and tight. It may also, for some readers, feel abrasive. But all of this bridges a gap, and plays a very important role - in attempting to communicate the incommunicable pain of losing both of your children to suicide. It does not sensationalise or even dramatise. It exits, maybe, in an act of radical acceptance.

4.5 stars! Thank you to FSG for the early review copy via NetGalley!

This was heartbreaking and beautiful. To lose two children in such a way is something that no parent should ever experience, and I appreciate that Li writes in a very logical manner. She does so in homage to her second son, just as she once wrote a novel in homage to her first son.

My only critique is that she does tend to repeat thoughts/musings on certain topics. But otherwise, this is a great memoir!

It’s never easy to rate a book about someone’s personal experience, though of course common sense dictates that it’s not the experience one is rating, it’s the book and the writing.

Well. This is my first time reading Yiyun Li, so I can’t speak for her other books, but this book was particularly hard to rate because her personal experience felt so tied up in producing this book, like this book had to be, the natural result of her mourning. It’s an interesting one: a very vulnerable and heartbreaking story of twofold loss, written in an impassive tone.

It’s not the impassivity which rates this lower for me; this works well for the memoir. However, the writing fell flat for me, which I attribute to authorial style rather than content.

Thank you to NetGalley and Farrar, Straus, and Giroux for the ARC.

Author Yiyun Li has had to endure what seems unendurable: the death of not one but both of her sons from suicide. When her older son, Vincent, committed suicide at age 16, Li wrote the book “Where Reasons End,” an imagined, intellectual conversation between a mother and the son who has recently killed himself. When her remaining son, James, kills himself at 19, Li writes this book, what she calls “James’s book,” a more straightforward memoir where she grapples, with clear and precise thinking, with his death and the issues and events that could have precipitated it. “I think about counting days and marking time, and my thoughts, inevitably, return to my children,” Li writes. “That a mother can no longer mother her children won’t change the fact that her thoughts are mostly a mother’s thoughts.” Reading this bereaved mother’s thoughts is difficult—often excruciatingly so. But they are a beautiful testament to the love she had and still has for her sons.

Thank you to NetGalley and to Farar, Straus and Giroux for providing with an ARC of this book in return for my honest review.

A grief memoir, a tribute to her two sons, both lost to suicide. Li's previous book about losing her son Vincent, Where Reasons End, was not for me due to the theatrical and emotional making of an imagined conversation. This book, on the other hand, was more "stoic," a word she often uses to describe her son James. In Things in Nature Merely Grow, Li writes about radical acceptance, motherhood without children, the horrible depths of her grief, and her own experience with suicidal ideation and depression. James was clearly an incredibly smart and gifted person. I send Yiyun Li love and sympathy. I will be gifting this book to a mother I know who recently lost her son to suicide. I hope and trust that this book will bring her some solace.

I don't have the vocabulary to review this memoir in a way that does it justice. It's raw and honest, and filled with so much pain and sadness, yet it is somehow hopeful. Life goes on despite what happens to us, and we must actively choose to continue living—if that is what we decide to do. 

I cannot imagine the pain of losing both one's children, but death is something that will touch everyone at some point. This memoir shows that grief takes many forms and gives people the agency to express it in whatever way feels right for them, regardless of what others may think. Life is hard, and we are all doing the best we can to get through it.

A breathtaking memoir; a very difficult read, but radically sincere. Yiyun Li has experienced things no one should have to, and the book is anything but a series of platitudes about moving on; instead, it's a deeply honest account of what life is like after a world-shattering loss.

If there is only one book you read this year, let it be this one. If there is only one book you read any year, let it be this one!!! If I was given a max quota of 1 book I am allowed to read, it would be this one. THINGS IN NATURE MERELY GROW is a behemoth. I have a much longer, much more eloquent and erudite review in the works, but nothing, no review, can ever meet Yiyun Li with where she is at in terms of content, her children and life experience she is writing about here, nor her level of craft. But I will try anyway. PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF WHATEVER YOU LOVE, READ THIS BOOK!!!!

A quiet meditation on the death of both of her children. Do not expect to find advice on grieving and the loss of a child. This is very much a writerly work that shows how one can make sense of tragedy through language and writing. Li has cultivated her own style of autobiographical writing, one in which her life events are inextricably linked with and refracted through the words of other poets and writers, wordplay, and an obsessive contemplation of life/fiction divide. In that sense, it's a very insular work that borders on solipsism, but her restraint and the ascetic style of the book make it nonetheless a pleasant read.

Oh my, my heart ached. Yiyun Li reflects with great insight, resilience, and tenderness on motherhood and the loss of her two sons. I have rarely read something so honest, with sue beautiful words about a reality that feels surreal. Once again, she proves just how phenomenal a writer she is.

Things in Nature Merely Grow by Yiyun Li is an intimate book where the author shares her radical acceptance of the loss of her son James to suicide. The honesty and interiority is at the forefront and the writing as all I’ve read from this author before is stand out. This monument to her son is everlasting and the care is evident.

‘I am not a grieving mother. I am the mother who will live, every single day, for the rest of my life, with the pain of losing Vincent and James, and with the memory of bringing them up.’

So initially I struggled to connect with this because there was a lot of Greek history mentioned and plays and things and it was losing my interest, but I stuck with it and I’m really glad I did.

I feel like I learnt a fair amount from this read. Li didn’t mince any of her words, and certainly didn’t use any unnecessarily.

I had expected this to be a book about her sons, but it’s actually much bigger than that. There were some heart wrenching truths on grief vs mourning, and shallow sentiments from neighbours, friends and random strangers.

Considering that this was a book for James, I didn’t feel like he was mentioned much at all. We definitely got a much clearer picture of who Vincent was…but perhaps that’s the point? Maybe James was who he was because of who Vincent was? I don’t have the answers, but it was something I picked up on and wondered about.

I bookmarked a good few pages, especially when she was addressing people who had tried to take advantage of her mourning and also highlighting how some well meaning platitudes can often do more harm than good.

‘Sometimes there is no silver lining in life. Some consolations are strictly and purely for the consolers themselves. Please hold on to your silver linings, as I must decline.’

I think this is a read you might not necessarily understand or connect with if you haven’t lost a child, particularly to suicide, but I think there is value in her sharing this with us.
She addresses the way we confront (or don’t confront) death as people, and how that affects the way we interact with those who have suffered loss. There is much to be learnt here and if you are in a headspace where you can handle this, I recommend it.

Such a beautiful book -- deeply felt and beautifully wrought. In the face of unspeakable tragedy, Yiyun Li is somehow able to make sense of the insensible. A grief memoir unlike any else, comparable only to Joan Didion's BLUE NIGHTS in my mind. Yiyun Li is one of the greatest writers working and thinking, THINGS IN NATURE MERELY GROW is a testament to that.

Things in Nature Merely Grow by Yiyun Li is a powerful, resilient book about the acceptance of loss. In the memoir author Yiyun Li examines and beautifully depicts the life and death of her son James. In 2017, her son Vincent died by suicide and in 2024 her son James also died by suicide near her home. This book is tragic, hard to read and devastating but it also highlights how searching for words and language can be the guide alongside such loss. As a writer the author looks to meaning through her writing and finds that doing active pursuits like gardening, teaching, reading and writing can be in itself the greatest act of surviving and being. The book explores suicide and mental health illness including the authors own experiences and this can be overwhelming but in this book it is necessary and revealing. The book explores how as a society we either hide away from or ignore such complex realities as suicide and don’t communicate with each other about death or how to process loss. The prose is skilled and adept in examining the personal and emotional landscape of such a journey and highlights the beauty and challenge of living in the now. A sensitive, tender and powerful book of remarkable defiance and grace 4 Stars ✨.

Having read and loved Li’s previous book Where Reason Ends a couple of years ago, I downloaded this one from Netgalley impulsively. First, what I did not realize because I requested without reading the synopsis were the ways in which this book were so completely tied to that earlier work in the kind of devastating subject matter that is being undertaken here. Because of the trauma that is being disclosed here, it can feel difficult to critique the book; however, the author is putting this out for consumption as a work to be interacted with. My criticism of the book is that it feels much too soon after the events Li is grappling with. The thesis of the book is that it is the work. She is dedicating this work to the loss of her second child in the way that she created art reflecting on the loss of her first child; however, this work still feels much more tied to the loss of her first child than that of her second. Some of this may be tied to the allowances she gives us about that child’s reticence to be acknowledged, but I can’t help, but feel that some of that is an understandable, temporal inability to completely grapple with her experience.

This book is about grief, death, acceptance, loss, and suicide. Yiyun Li reflects on the deaths of both of her sons to suicide. The losses are staggering. She reflects on their lives and insights into what happened and why, but ultimately, there's a sense of mystery because how can we really know why a person decides to take their life? This book reflects on the aftermath of these losses. It's beautifully written, clear, and tremendously sad. The only part that I felt was a bit of a letdown was when Li becomes rather lecturing in tone about how to interact with a person who has lost someone to suicide at the end of the book.

This was a tough book. I've read her fiction but this was essays about the aftermath of both of her children dying by suicide. It is a difficult read and very personal. I almost felt like I was intruding and reading a diary vs something published for mass consumption.

I would like to start this review by saying that writing a review, for a book such as this, feels pretentious. Yiyun Li's superb writing abilities, her courage to face reality, to grapple with it, are all awe-inspiring. that she would allow us as readers into her experience feels gracious and generous. The last sentence of the book is heart-breaking. Every sentence of this book feels written from a place of deep understanding of life, of suffering and of indomitable courage. I am deeply grateful for the chance to read this.

It feels callous to assign a star rating to someone’s deeply profound and unknowable pain.

I am lucky that this memoir did not resonate with me, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be a powerful tool or lifeline for someone struggling with unimaginable losses of their own.

This is one of those books that I hope to never recommend to anyone, and I’m sad it was written in the first place. I hope writing this brought Li even the smallest amount of peace, and should anyone find themselves in need of Li’s wisdom and advice, I hope they find this book.

Profound. Important. Eye-opening.

A collection of essays from author Yiyun Yi, Things In Nature Merely Grow reads as a series of contemplative stories and meditations surrounding the death by suicide of her second son, James.

The mother of two sons, Vincent and James, who both died by suicide seven years apart, at sixteen and nineteen respectively, Yi uses her strong intellect to connect with and evoke her departed younger son, James.

Things In Nature Merely Grow is a moving, profound and compelling book, which I couldn’t put down. Though I did feel the book could have been longer—I wanted to know more about these remarkable people that lit up Yi’s life. I wanted to know more about how Yi herself was managing and coping, more about the isolation and stigma of suicide. Nonetheless, it was a beautiful read and I am enriched for having known Yi’s family on these pages.


Expected Publication Dare: May 20, 2025

Many thanks to NetGalley, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, and the Author for access to an eARC. All opinions are my own.