Losing Young

‘An incredibly useful take on facing grief as a young person’ CARIAD LLOYD'Brilliantly, brilliantly written … Packed with clarity, curiosity and courage' FELIX WHITE‘It turned on so many lights for me … What a profoundly helpful book’ KATHRYN MANNIXGrief does something particular when it hits you young. This book is a moving exploration of that transformative pain, from the founder of The Grief Network.Rachel Wilson’s mother died when Rachel was in her twenties. It felt like the definitive end of childhood, a loss that rewired her perspective on life, death, relationships and who she was as a person.

In this book, Rachel brings together other stories of bereavement with her own, encountering people who have lost parents, siblings, partners and friends at a young age. Losing Young draws on psychological research, interviews with titans like Julia Samuel and explorations of grief in history: what happens in a time of war or pandemic, when the many grieve – or struggle to – together? How do different cultures process the end of a life differently? How can the grief of losing a parent return in strange form when one thinks about having children? What do TV and fiction get disastrously, unhelpfully wrong?

This is a personal and profound book about what happens when youth is reshaped by tragedy, trauma and loss. It’s for anyone who mourns a lost future, who is struggling to find themselves after grief, or hopes to feel less alone.