Is it wrong to say that a memoir about loss and grieving is fun to read? If so, I’m in trouble, because I enjoyed every word of this book. I also ached and suffered along with Crosley: Her portrait of mourning after the suicide of her best friend is gutting and deeply engaging.
—Susan Orlean
Potent and propulsive, a lyrical meditation on loss and what comes after. Grief Is for People is heartbreaking and wholly original.
—Tara Westover
Grief Is for People captures the feeling of watching a beloved, inappropriate and wild person fit less and less with the times we live in. Like Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking or Defoe's Journal of A Plague Year, Grief Is for People takes us through the ordinary, awful and never-quite-ending experience of loss. It also made me laugh very hard, many times. I can't stop thinking about it.
—John Mulaney
I have come to rely on Sloane Crosley for her oyster knife humor, bourbon hot observation, and indelible portraits of how we live with each other in this constantly shifting world. Grief Is For People is about how we live without the ones we love. Crosley brings her whole self to this memoir—her gifts, her flaws, her intellect, and emotion. She loves hard, grieves hard, and writes with the beauty and urgency of a white hot star. I wish I didn’t “get” this book as much as I do. What a gift that she kept her wit intact through all-consuming loss. Grief Is for People is the book I didn’t know I needed to read.
—Tayari Jones
I can't imagine a better companion to guide us through the pain of losing a friend. Crosley's prose is honest, lucid, and always surprising. Grief Is for People is vivid and bitingly funny and yet delicately unfurls the magical thinking and murk that follow a friend's suicide. A necessary book; I will be keeping it close for years to come.
—Meghan O’Rourke
An indelible portrait of a singular friendship, Grief Is for People is a beautifully written and sharply observed memoir about grief, yes, but also: secrets, betrayal, rage, work, community, and most of all, love. It's both a provocation and a balm to the soul.
—Dani Shapiro
Grief can feel like falling off a tall cliff in slow motion. Sloane Crosley maps her descent through grief’s anguish and disbelief with such intelligence, humor, and unvarnished honesty that we never want to hit the ground. It’s a testament to Crosley’s enormous talent that she could transform such a terrible loss into a story that becomes more satisfying with each page: a celebration of our deepest connections, a manifestation of real love.
—Heather Havrilesky