Nautilus Book Awards' Better Books for a Better World

A trusted grief expert shares what Kirkus Reviews praises as "calm, lucid prose... [a] humanizing exploration of coping with the life-changing tides of loss."

In Grief is Love, author Marisa Renee Lee reveals that healing does not mean moving on after losing a loved one--healing means learning to acknowledge and create space for your grief. It is about learning to love the one you lost with the same depth, passion, joy, and commitment you did when they were alive, perhaps even more. She guides you through the pain of grief--whether you've lost the person recently or long ago--and shows you what it looks like to honor your loss on your unique terms, and debunks the idea of a grief stages or timelines. Grief is Love is about making space for the transformation that a significant loss requires.

In beautiful, compassionate prose, Lee elegantly offers wisdom about what it means to authentically and defiantly claim space for grief's complicated feelings and emotions. And Lee is no stranger to grief herself, she shares her journey after losing her mother, a pregnancy, and, most recently, a cousin to the COVID-19 pandemic. These losses transformed her life and led her to question what grief really is and what healing actually looks like. In this book, she also explores the unique impact of grief on Black people and reveals the key factors that proper healing requires: permission, care, feeling, grace and more.

The transformation we each undergo after loss is the indelible imprint of the people we love on our lives, which is the true definition of legacy. At its core, Grief is Love explores what comes after death, and shows us that if we are able to own and honor what we've lost, we can experience a beautiful and joyful life in the midst of grief.
About the Author: Marisa Renee Lee is a called upon expert in coping with grief. In 2008, after a courageous battle, she lost her mother to cancer. This loss transformed her life and led her to question what grief really is and what healing truly requires. She is now a rabble-rouser of social healing: a former appointee in the Obama White House; managing director of My Brother's Keeper Alliance; co-founder of the digital platform Supportal; and founder of The Pink Agenda; a national organization dedicated to raising money for breast cancer care, research, and awareness. She is a regular contributor to Glamour, Vogue, MSNBC, and CNN. She is a graduate of Harvard. She lives with her beloved husband Matt and dog Sadie.