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My Year of Rest and Relaxation
Ottessa Moshfegh
Moshfegh’s narrator seems to have the perfect life: she’s beautiful, has a degree from Columbia University, works as a gallery girl in a cool Chelsea art gallery, and owns an apartment in the Upper East Side. Except that the money she used to buy the apartment came from her inheritance, as both of her parents died in quick succession. In an attempt to ignore the demons in her life, she finds a hack psychiatrist who prescribes her enough medication to sleep indefinitely and begins her year of rest and relaxation.
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Still Me
Jojo Moyes
Louisa Clark, the heroine from Me Before You, is back and starting a new job in New York. While part of her will always miss her former employer, Will, she knows he would want her to keep moving forward. As she begins working as an assistant to a rich businessman’s second wife, she thinks things are finally beginning to go her way—until a secret comes out that tears her world apart.
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Women in Sunlight
Frances Mayes
Kat Raine is a writer living in Tuscany and is determined to complete the book she’s been working on about her recently deceased friend. When three American women—all dealing with losses of their own—come to the town where she’s staying, she quickly befriends them and decides to add their stories to the novel she’s writing.
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Lincoln in the Bardo
George Saunders
It’s the beginning of the Civil War, and Abraham Lincoln’s beloved son, Willie, has become terribly ill. He dies unexpectedly and ends up in the bardo, a place which is neither heaven nor hell, but an in-between space where ghosts mingle and discuss the latest gossip and their past transgressions. While most children end up in this transitional space for mere minutes, Willie doesn’t seem to be leaving—causing a struggle over his soul.
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Evvie Drake Starts Over
Linda Holmes
The loss of her husband, Andy, to a car crash has left Evvie’s world shattered. When Andy’s childhood friend, Dean Tenney, takes a break from his Major League pitching career to spend some time in his hometown, he and Evvie start an unlikely friendship and perhaps something more. This charming and quirky story reminds us of the possibilities for joy and love that still exist after loss.
Losing a loved one is never easy, and it’s often difficult to find someone who understands exactly what you’re going through. Having recently lost a close family member, I had a hard time coping, but, as usual, books have been there to help me get by. These books about loss feature characters who are grappling with death in vastly different ways; I hope they remind you that you aren’t alone.
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