Good Grief

Again, I never do these reviews justice and for that I feel inadequate. But like most books I manage to chose when I travel randomly down the library stacks, this one was powerful and uplifting. Sophie Stanton is a widow. Her husband, Ethan, just died from cancer. She tries to return to a normal

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life, to her boring job, to being a friend and daughter. Her story is heartbreaking and hilarious. She heals and helps others heal and opens her heart while building a new family and new life. Fantastic novel!

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Well written, both entertaining and insightful. Excellent read and I was sorry this book ended, I fell in love with the characters!

An average book, or maybe it's just me that lately can't find a book that really grabs me... at least almost everybody seemed to enjoy this one more than me.
I thought it would be funnier, of course Sophie isn't happy because her husband died but I was expecting other kind of reactions. The best (or

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worse??) parts were the ones about her cooking, that made me hungry and wishing to try some of that ;) And the end, I know authors aren't obliged to "close up" all the story, but it just seemed too opened to me. Sophie is feeling better, reunites all her friends and family, but nothing feels resolved, I just had the feeling that the next day everything would be the same and the stroy would go on in exactly the same way.
A light read but not a terrific story.

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While depressing in the beginning the book has a strong conclusion.

I read this a while ago, so I don't remember all of the details, except that I thought her writing style was similar to Jennifer Weiner's (another favorite of mine). Also, I liked it obviously. I can't wait to read her latest book.

A woman goes through the phases of grief as she recovers from her husband’s death. She hits rock bottom showing up to work in her bathrobe then slowly picks herself up, eventually becoming a big sister, starting a bakery business and becoming someone that others depend upon.

I needed a break from some of this serious stuff I was reading, and "Good Grief" was a nice reprieve. It is hard to believe that a book about grief could be so funny, but it was laugh-out-loud in places.

I enjoyed this book, as it kind of hits close to home. I think the author combined a light touch with a very difficult subject. It was a very easy read and I zipped right through it.

A woman attempts to get over the death of her husband and find a life for herself. Although she wants to grive in a dignified manner, her sadness overwhelms her and she abandons her old life for a new one. She finds solace in a new career and purpose is caring for a troubled young girl.

This book hit a little too close to home for me. I almost put it down after 50 pages. It was very depressing but eventually has a happier ending than I had anticipated.

I enjoyed the book. Winston is able to get inside her characters' heads very well, which makes the reader want to know more about their lives. She does a good job of describing a young woman who becomes a bit unhinged by the unexpected illness and death of her husband, who swan-dives into an

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entirely new life. Good read.

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Woman's husband dies in their 30s. How she copes. Gets fired, moves, but also about how the marriage wasn't perfect. But that she still grieves for i, and what could have been. How she finds a new career, ends up being a big sister, and carin for her mother in law who has alzheimers. When she was

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the one originally with all the problems, and ends up saving people.
5/7/05

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This is not the kind of book I usually read but after having just read 'Obasan' I needed a light read so I picked this up. Surprisingly, I really enjoyed this book! The character is funny and her thoughts seem realistic. I like all the characters in this book, even the girl who had problems was an

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interesting person that I grew to appreciate. I think this book is much more substantial than it appears to be and I would expecially recommend it to a woman who has lost her husband as it seems theraputic in nature.

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Nice, light reading, which I managed to race through pretty quickly because it kept my interest. Nothing really profound, but it was indeed a nice mixture of the serious side of widowhood, with just the right amount of humor thrown in to keep a good balance. I thought the ending was a little weak,

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but overall not a bad read.

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This book was an up and down read. A read that was very real, and hard to look at with some of the issues it addresses, but it has its happy moments to. This book is very real. You can see the emotions, feel them, think that it could happen to you. A very good read, a fast read despite the feelings

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it evokes. Because you want to flip to the next page and see what happens next. I really did over all enjoy this book.I think its probably the best one I have read so far this year. Emotional, Funny, Sad, but most of all a heart warming tale of life. And how to live after loss.

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This is a story of loss and change, something everyone of us will experience at least once. I laughed out loud at some of the images in this novel, yes its about the death of her husband and the confusion and disconnectedness that arises from this, however it is a warm and witty story about a very

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real character that does her best to put one foot in front of the other in order to make the journey out of darkness and depression and forward to growth.
I have read it when absolutely at a lowest ebb and it has given me a glimmer of humour and wryness.
highly recommend this read

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Because I listened to the audio version, there was a special piece at the end---an interview with the author where you learn that she was working through her own grief---the death of her father, then her mother, and then her brother. The book is auto-biographical in part. You can feel Sophie

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struggle and because grief is something everyone works through at their own pace, it's Sophie's grief -- the ups and downs of all of it amid her efforts to go on with living.

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well-written, believable story of a woman grieving over the death of her husband, trying to come back to life.

At the start, thirty-six-year-old Sophie Stanton has been widowed for three months, and her life is falling apart. She can barely make herself walk out of the door to go to work--and at one point does so in robe and bunny slippers because it's the only way she can make herself. She takes up her

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friend's Ruth invitation to relocate to small town Ashland, Oregon and slowly starts to rebuild her life. Part of that comes of reaching out to s troubled thirteen-year-old, Crystal Lowman, and a budding romance with an actor, Drew Ellis. Sophie's voice in the first person novel is engaging. The novel nails what it's like to be depressed, the heaviness of grief, and yet the novel manages to be filled with humor and wit and affection for its characters. A very fast and light, enjoyable read.

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I read this book in what basically turned out to be a sick day, lolling on my couch. Normally, books about widowhood make me very nervous, because it is one of my biggest fears to think about life without javaczuk. I often tell him if he dies before me, I'll kill him. I just don't want to

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contemplate it at all. But at Rebekkila's urging, I read this, and found it to be in the upper end of chick lit, with some believable characters, touching not only on grief, but issues of trust, and some other societal ills, with grace and sensitivity -- an humor. Thank goodness it didn't have the gay best friend, though it did have the life saving bakery come into the story.

All in all, it was a good companion on a rainy spring day.

Gentlemen, start your hairdryers...

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Finished reading. Loved the first half so much because she was insane, but I guess it had to get less ridiculous as she was healing....:(

Sophie Stanton is 36, a competent public relations person for a successful company, and recently widowed. Cancer. She wants to be a classy, elegant widow like Jackie Kennedy, but her grief takes over her life until, having reached rock bottom in the coping department, she moves to Ashland, Oregon

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to restart her life. I've read several books along these lines, and it seems to be a theme of every other Hallmark movie that gets aired. But this is a well-written story, with some interesting and compelling characters, chief among them Sophie herself. She finds that she has strength she didn't know of, enough to spare to take care of one or two other people who come into her life. And I'm glad the author resisted the inclination to make her new man in her life a savior. The food fight was perhaps a little over the top, though.

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I enjoyed this book and it read quickly for me. The beginning was depressing and a bit hard to get through, but really enjoyed the other two thirds. I think the characters were well developed and I especially liked Sophie's interaction with Crystal, the troubled teen with a penchant for starting

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fires and "cutting."

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I had a hard time really getting into this book at first; I
sort of got off on the wrong foot with it and it seemed amateurish and,
I don't know, untouchable is
a word that came to mind. I definitely felt like I was on the
outside of the book looking in. I can't put my finger on the
point at which that

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changed, but it did, and I enjoyed the second half
of the book much more than the first. This is Winston's first
novel, and her handling of the loss of a husband seems so skillful
(from my position of inexperience, at least) that I found myself
wanting to look her up and find out if she's a widow herself. As
far as style, that was where my main problem was with the book early
on; it seemed like something I could have written. Then I started
to notice some phrases that sang out at me in an almost
Elizabeth-Bergish sort of way, and then there were more and more of
them, and before I knew it, whether it had been my mood at the
beginning of the book causing the problem, or whether the style really
improved so much for the second half, I found myself fully enthralled
by the end, rooting for Sophie like she were my best friend.

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