Review: A Grief Observed

It has been a goal of mine to read the entire works of C.S. Lewis. I read 2 of his works last year and A Grief Observed seemed like an appropriate choice this year as some of my friends and acquaintances are in mourning. It is a very short book​;​ took only about an hour to read. I read it twice today and am sure I will be re-reading and referencing it many times over my lifetime as I and those around me experience grief. This book is Lewis's personal diary after the death of his wife published under a pseudonym. It is raw, thought-provoking, and comforting in the sense that, "I am not alone." He poignantly captures the fear, anger, questions, doubts, and emptiness that follows loss. Although it describes his own individual experience losing his wife, it can be gleaned for insight into all sorts of relational loss whether it be through death or any of the many things that break relationships in this broken world. I marked so many passages, but I hesitate to share them here as they could be misunderstood out-of-context. His diary is a flow of thought, a process, a stream of consciousness that makes it hard to pick random lines out of it. As it is so short, I'd recommend reading the whole thing through.