This Is Not A Sad Book is truly not a sad book!
It’s actually a practical, compassionate guide full of strategies and ideas to support yourself or someone else through grief, loss and hard times. In some parts you might even find yourself smiling. Most importantly of all – the stories, tips and advice in these pages are a reminder that even in our darkest hours, there is a way through.
Review
This Is Not a Sad Book is a lovely ‘bag of tricks’ – to use the book’s chosen phrase to describe a mental toolkit of psychological strategies – for young people who are experiencing grief. The book is designed such that you don’t need to read it cover to cover; you can scan the table of contents and flip to the section that you’re most interested in. Each section/chapter is a quick read and focused on practical examples and suggestions, which would appeal to young people who are more interested in knowing what to do than the why something may be useful. There is a wide range of ‘tricks’, which is great because, as the book acknowledges too, there is no right or wrong way to cope with grief or hard times. One strategy may work for one time, and another works for another time.
The author’s voice is warm and friendly, and self-disclosure is used well; it never veers into the territory of trying too hard to be relatable. While I’m not the target audience, there were moments in this book that touched the part of me that still carried my grief and made me think ‘that wasn’t just me then’.
I think this book is best suited to young people who may be experiencing grief and loss for the first time and don’t know where to start to help themselves cope. Those who already have a good insight and range of coping strategies may not find much to learn from the book, unless they would like to have a physical reminder that would prompt them to practice. Parents may find this to be a good resource to draw from to help them support their young people. Mental health professionals are not the target audience for this book, but some may find it useful to have on their shelves – it can be a prompt to start conversations with children and teenagers about practicing different coping skills.
Thank you to Affirm Press for the review copy.
Review by Priscilla
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