It's usually hard for me to review nonfiction, especially nonfiction about unimaginable tragedies, but this book made me sob multiple times. I'm not a very emotional person most of the time but this book broke my heart in so many places despite not being a sentimental book. I don't want to say too much about this book because I believe it should be read and felt itself, and anything I try to say about it will fall short of what an experience this was, but Yiyun Li has solidified herself again and again as one of the greatest contemporary writers in the world. This is a book that knows its purpose and achieves it without unflinching, with honesty and with grace. Thank you so much for this ARC.

It really hurt me to read what she had been through but it really blossomed in this book to something great.

Devastating nonfiction book. The author handles such a difficult topic with extreme care. Highly recommend if you’re looking for an evoking book.

Li wrote this book after she lost her second son to suicide (after losing her eldest son to suicide six years before the incident). The author makes it clear that this is not a book about grieving, but what she does is present facts and logic (to honor her son James, who was pragmatic and hated attention) - and she absolutely does not tie things up with a neat little bow. She eschews common grief terminology and platitudes that are often offered after death, and rather focuses on “radical acceptance” of the cards that she has been dealt. I have quite simply never read a book that is so graceful about suicide, despite how harrowing it can be. There is no doubt that Li’s pain of losing both her children to suicide is insurmountable, but the words she wields and the acknowledgment she offers for their situations, despite her pain, make her stand apart. She doesn’t make these incidents about herself or the hypotheticals or could-haves and would-haves, but rather focuses on what a mother could best do - be honest with her children and herself, do the best job she can to protect them from life’s cruelties, but also allow them to live the lives they wanted. This is an intensely personal memoir, and I’m not even sure it’s something that can - or should - be “rated” or “reviewed.” But if you’re comfortable with the subject matter, I believe it’s a book more people should read, especially because of how thoughtfully and compassionately it approaches suicide without demonizing it.

In Nature Things Merely Grow is a memoir written by Yiyun Li, where she shares her thoughts on the loss of her son, James.

My thoughts
In Nature Things Merely Grow is stark and poignant. It made my heart ache. Every sentence was beautifully written and each word was purposeful. I felt haunted by this memoir and found myself reflecting over Li's writing for quite some time every time I stopped reading. This is one that has definitely left its mark.

5/5

Thanks to NetGalley, Farrah, Straus & Giroux and Yiyun Li for this e-ARC.

I requested this book on NetGalley because Yiyun Li's fiction has been on my TBR for a while, and the description of this memoir—both in subject and style—sounded challenging yet beautiful.

As expected, the writing was gorgeous. The way she weaves in other mothers’ grief through references to plays and poems was especially powerful and added depth to her reflections.

That said, it’s no surprise that this book is incredibly difficult to read. Li writes about unimaginable loss—her own struggles with depression and suicidal ideation, and the deaths of both of her sons. Yet, what struck me most was the emotional distance in her narrative. It felt as if she were writing from a place of detachment, and while that may be a necessary survival mechanism for her, it created a sense of disconnection for me as a reader.

There was something about this memoir that didn’t sit well—not because of the heaviness of the events, but because of how Li processes and conveys them. It seemed like she was trying to approach the story with the same logic and restraint that her son James might have valued. But that clinical, detached tone left me feeling even more unsettled. I walked away from the book not just heartbroken, but almost disturbed, which wasn't what I expected.

I believe books about grief can offer comfort or perspective—tools we carry with us for the hard days ahead. For me, this memoir didn’t offer that. While I recognize the craft and intention behind it, it ultimately wasn’t the reading experience I had hoped for.

reading books on grief often feels like reading someone's diary without them knowing -- like, maybe i should not be reading this. it's a very personal pain li talks about and she does it in a way that many people won't relate to. but i also, like her, think more than feel, and it's heartbreaking that many people don't understand that kind of sorrow and i'm glad i read about someone who experiences grief in a similar way. there are some beautiful insights in here but the book was a means to an end: trying to grapple with the loss of her son; because of this i don't recommend it to everybody, but if you've ever lost someone and feel like reading these kinds of books to cope with it, it's certainly a valid option.

This book is so AMAZING. It was straight from the heart. It made me cry, it made me reflect, it made me pause. This does not offer closures or meaning or 'why' as Yiyun Li warns us early on in the book. I loved it.

*Things in Nature Merely Grow* by Yiyun Li is a profoundly moving memoir that beautifully blends personal grief with a deep reflection on the complexities of human loss. The book recounts the heartbreaking tragedy of losing both of her sons to suicide, but despite the weight of the subject matter, Li’s writing never feels overwhelmingly sorrowful. Instead, it offers a thoughtful exploration of how to approach those grieving, providing a guide to the do's and don'ts for anyone trying to support someone in unimaginable pain. What stands out in Li's memoir is its emphasis on the subtle, often overlooked ways we can connect with and comfort others in their darkest moments. This is not just a story of personal loss, but also a profound lesson in compassion and understanding. It's a book that leaves you with a sense of quiet strength and insight, making it an invaluable read for anyone seeking to better support those affected by tragedy.

One of those incredibly hard reads that also focuses on grief and how it's experienced - and in this particular case, how two instances of the same thing happening (both of your sons commiting suicide) can be similar and different. One of those things you hope you never have to live through, and honestly, I'm impressed that she only spends one chapter calling out Chinese social media users who decided to dogpile on her after her second son passed. Hell of a read.

“There is no good way to say this.” And yet Yiyun Li did.

Li captured into writing both the vitality of her sons and the tragic aftermath of her days after their passing, more specifically James’ in this memoir. Her writing is exceptional and clear. Despite her intellectual approach in tribute and embodying James, it was very moving and introspective and I found myself in tears. There are passages in this memoir that will stick with me for a while, and although Li warns that this book is not for all readers, I’m sure it will resonate soundly with those for whom she intended it.

One of the most astounding, harrowing and beautiful grief memoirs written by a novelist of note. Raw, honest and humane.

This is one of most moving and profound meditations on motherhood, loss and life that I have ever read. Yiyun li brings the full might of her intellectual rigour, clarity and wisdom to the devastating loss of her sons. I read it in one unbroken stretch, unable to free myself from its hypnotic hold. It is a precise, compact and raw account of life and death. Thank you Net Galley and the publishers of the book for an advance copy.

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.