Good Grief by Lolly Winston Only Mediocre

Title:Good Grief

Author:Lolly Winston

Rating: 1/2

Who Should Read It?Anyone who knows what it feels like to break up with or lose someone you love

What I Have to Say: I've always wanted for someone to write the story of a really rough break up and the getting over of it. With mega focus on the process of getting over it. This is the closest I've ever come to reading something that seems to really get it. Even though it's not about a breakup, it's about a death.
Still, that's what I liked about this book. No longer being with someone you love, either through a breakup or a death, is HARD, and people don't just "get over it" and "move on." It takes time and a lot of hard work and sometimes drug and usually depression and hilariousness play a role. This book is brutally honest about that, and I loved getting to see the process of building new relationships through her pain that ultimately help her to push the pain further and further away from the front of her mind.
That said, this book was just GOOD, not GREAT. It's one of those books that you read and that you enjoy reading but that, in the end, leaves you without impression. The story is good, the characters are good, the "getting over it is good," and that's it. There was nothing so extra special that made me want to get up and scream "YES! This is the book about breaking up I've been looking for!!!!" Just,. . .mediocre.

Summary(from Publishers Weekly via Amazon):Sophie Stanton feels far too young to be a widow, but after just three years of marriage, her wonderful husband, Ethan, succumbs to cancer. With the world rolling on, unaware of her pain, Sophie does the only sensible thing: she locks herself in her house and lives on what she can buy at the convenience store in furtive midnight shopping sprees. Everything hurts—the telemarketers asking to speak to Ethan, mail with his name on it, his shirts, which still smell like him. At first Sophie is a "good" widow, gracious and melancholy, but after she drives her car through the garage door, something snaps; she starts showing up at work in her bathrobe and hiding under displays in stores. Her boss suggests she take a break, so she sells her house and moves to Ashland, Ore., to live with her best friend, Ruth, and start over. Grief comes along, too—but with a troubled, pyromaniac teen assigned to her by a volunteer agency, a charming actor dogging her and a new job prepping desserts at a local restaurant, Sophie is forced to explore the misery that has consumed her.