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regnistegra's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
reflective
sad
5.0
I’ve read a handful of books on grieving since the death of my dad. This is the one I recommend to anyone grieving the loss of a parent and searching for someone to put to words all the feelings and experiences. This is the one I would recommend to someone who hasn’t experienced this kind of loss but is supporting someone else who has, and needs help to understand.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Grief and Death of parent
Moderate: Chronic illness and Pandemic/Epidemic
Minor: Medical content and Car accident
love_thy_libra_librarian's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
sad
slow-paced
5.0
teared up several times. adiche captures the unmooring of grief while simultaneously inviting us to witness the love she has for her father and the love her father has for his children.
Grief has, as one of its many egregious components, the onset of doubt. No, I am not imagining it. Yes, my father truly was lovely.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Grief, and Death of parent
Minor: Kidnapping and War
townofherons's review against another edition
0.25
Edit: Author is a massive TERF/transphobe. Maybe this explains why I found her writing so self-important and out-of-touch.
I'm reviewing against the grain here, but hear me out.
I’ve read so many books about grief and bereavement. I've met so many bereaved people through grief support groups - both as a griever myself and as a counselor. I'm by no means an expert, but I have experienced a variety of grief and spoken to people with a wide range of experiences.
While this book is lyrical, sensitive, and beautifully written, it presents a very stable look at grief from an affluent and successful woman surrounded by many loving and living family members to share her pain.
Adichie is writing after the death of her elderly father following a years long diagnosis of kidney disease. Her experience of grief is fairly straight forward - her father was 88 years old and had several health issues - so I did find some of the sweeping statements about the meaning of grief lacked a certain depth and self-awareness.
She claims the death of an elderly man suffering from acute kidney disease was sudden and unexpected; I'm sure to her it was a painful tragedy, compounded by the stress of Covid, but I found these statements irritating. It was a reflection on how much of Adichie's life had been plain sailing up to that point. In her middle age, after a life of happiness and comfort, it was this moment that was the first time she'd experienced something that caused her emotional pain.
I was annoyed that she used this experience to claim her expertise on the subject of grief. And yes, I am self-aware, of course it's a lot of envy on my part. Jealousy on behalf of myself, and the thousands of bereaved people I've counseled who would give anything to have the peaceful, uneventful, experience of grief that Adichie describes as being so utterly horrific. After exploring Adichie's biography (she's very wealthy and so was her father) I think she's just out-of-touch, in a similar vein to most rich people who haven't been faced with much difficulty in life.
So, of course, her elderly father's death of natural causes is the worst thing to ever happen to her. And because it's the worst thing that's happened to her, she imagines all grief must be like this, and now she can write confidently about it.
I don’t think you need to have experienced an especially traumatic death to write a book about grief, and I'm not trying to suggest the peaceful death of an elderly person at the end of a long and fruitful life is a breeze to cope with, many of Adichie’s observations are spot on, but she’s also extremely well-adjusted, financially comfortable, and writes with a detached poetic eloquence that is unrelatable at times. It served more as an abstract obituary for this interesting man, a long-form article about his life, rather than 'Notes on Grief'.
I wouldn’t recommend this book to grievers unless your grief journey involves an elderly relative at the end of their life - and, for most people, this is actually their one and only experience with grief. To those people, I am pleased that the statements in this book are helpful, I wish for everyone's grief journey to be as soothing as possible, and of course you have my envy too. For anyone whose journey strays from this path even remotely Adichie’s experience will frustrate you, she'll come across as a presumptuous guru and omnipotent oracle, dispensing generic wisdom.
I'm reviewing against the grain here, but hear me out.
I’ve read so many books about grief and bereavement. I've met so many bereaved people through grief support groups - both as a griever myself and as a counselor. I'm by no means an expert, but I have experienced a variety of grief and spoken to people with a wide range of experiences.
While this book is lyrical, sensitive, and beautifully written, it presents a very stable look at grief from an affluent and successful woman surrounded by many loving and living family members to share her pain.
Adichie is writing after the death of her elderly father following a years long diagnosis of kidney disease. Her experience of grief is fairly straight forward - her father was 88 years old and had several health issues - so I did find some of the sweeping statements about the meaning of grief lacked a certain depth and self-awareness.
She claims the death of an elderly man suffering from acute kidney disease was sudden and unexpected; I'm sure to her it was a painful tragedy, compounded by the stress of Covid, but I found these statements irritating. It was a reflection on how much of Adichie's life had been plain sailing up to that point. In her middle age, after a life of happiness and comfort, it was this moment that was the first time she'd experienced something that caused her emotional pain.
I was annoyed that she used this experience to claim her expertise on the subject of grief. And yes, I am self-aware, of course it's a lot of envy on my part. Jealousy on behalf of myself, and the thousands of bereaved people I've counseled who would give anything to have the peaceful, uneventful, experience of grief that Adichie describes as being so utterly horrific. After exploring Adichie's biography (she's very wealthy and so was her father) I think she's just out-of-touch, in a similar vein to most rich people who haven't been faced with much difficulty in life.
So, of course, her elderly father's death of natural causes is the worst thing to ever happen to her. And because it's the worst thing that's happened to her, she imagines all grief must be like this, and now she can write confidently about it.
I don’t think you need to have experienced an especially traumatic death to write a book about grief, and I'm not trying to suggest the peaceful death of an elderly person at the end of a long and fruitful life is a breeze to cope with, many of Adichie’s observations are spot on, but she’s also extremely well-adjusted, financially comfortable, and writes with a detached poetic eloquence that is unrelatable at times. It served more as an abstract obituary for this interesting man, a long-form article about his life, rather than 'Notes on Grief'.
I wouldn’t recommend this book to grievers unless your grief journey involves an elderly relative at the end of their life - and, for most people, this is actually their one and only experience with grief. To those people, I am pleased that the statements in this book are helpful, I wish for everyone's grief journey to be as soothing as possible, and of course you have my envy too. For anyone whose journey strays from this path even remotely Adichie’s experience will frustrate you, she'll come across as a presumptuous guru and omnipotent oracle, dispensing generic wisdom.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Grief
Minor: Pandemic/Epidemic
lauren16297's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
sad
fast-paced
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Grief
Moderate: Death of parent
Minor: Death and War
noura's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Grief
lisapparition's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Grief, and Death of parent
Moderate: Kidnapping
colormemolly's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
sad
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Grief and Death of parent
grandmerin's review against another edition
emotional
inspiring
sad
medium-paced
3.5
took a while to connect with the story because i didn’t know her dad, feels like a published journal entry. there are some good lines but nothing spectacular either
Content Warnings
Graphic: Grief and Death of parent
Moderate: Kidnapping, Death of parent, and War
blakeandbooks's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
sad
fast-paced
5.0
Chimamanda writes with such vulnerable emotions on grieving her father that you cannot help but feel her grief yourself. Especially if you’ve ever lost someone you love and cherish, losing them can take such a toll on your overall wellbeing. You feel that through every line of this book. We all lived through COVID and the isolation and loneliness that it brought upon us. She peels back the curtain on what it was like for her family to all have to video chat weekly, only to be told one day her father passed away in their home in Nigeria and having to delay the funeral due to airports being shut down and no flights going in or out of countries. I had 4 family members pass during COVID (2 from COVID), and it was awful to experience being unable to properly gather for our loved ones and grieve together during that time.
It’s a short read, but it packs a punch to the gut. Reading her words on loss and grief made me sit with her words and my own feelings on those I’ve lost. It can be difficult to evoke emotions from others, and Chimamanda always does such an incredible job of peeling back layers and making the reader feel and empathize.
If you are grieving or have grieved or just want to read a beautifully written book, I recommend reading these notes. She did not have to be vulnerable and lay out these words to us, but I am grateful that she did.
It’s a short read, but it packs a punch to the gut. Reading her words on loss and grief made me sit with her words and my own feelings on those I’ve lost. It can be difficult to evoke emotions from others, and Chimamanda always does such an incredible job of peeling back layers and making the reader feel and empathize.
If you are grieving or have grieved or just want to read a beautifully written book, I recommend reading these notes. She did not have to be vulnerable and lay out these words to us, but I am grateful that she did.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Grief and Death of parent
Moderate: Death
justagirlwithbooks's review against another edition
4.0
“A friend sends me a line from my novel: 'Grief was the celebration of love, those who could feel real grief were lucky to have loved.' How odd to find it so exquisitely painful to read my own words.”
This was a short memoir about grief, and it would have hit harder if I read this two years ago, but overall, it was a good read. I really enjoy reading books that explore complex emotions, grief being one of them.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Grief and Death of parent