Here After

Starred review from February 15, 2024
Consider this fair warning: Lin's debut memoir might make readers cry throughout. At the very least, it will make them think about grief--their own and that of others--in profound and possibly altogether new ways. During the 2020 COVID-19 lockdowns, Lin's 32-year-old husband, Kurtis, participated in a virtual half marathon and was found unconscious by a stranger. He died soon thereafter, but an autopsy revealed no definitive cause. Navigating this loss, Lin received a serious medical diagnosis of her own, leaving her--already overwhelmed with grief--to simultaneously deal with the horror of planning a funeral and scheduling her own appointments (and ultimately surgery), all the while wondering if it's even worth it. Because what was the point without Kurtis? Lin weaves her and Kurtis' love story throughout, sharing major and mundane moments of joy and laughter, always wondering how Kurtis could have chosen her, with her insecurities and seriousness. Both the before and after are told in short, poetic vignettes that stun in their depth, love, and pain. It's all heartbreaking, beautiful, and above all, honest, with little resolution, but maybe a small light of hope. Highly recommended.

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Starred review from February 15, 2024

Educator and debut author Lin's memoir dazzles. Each chapter breathes with urgency, especially in the opening pages, where she captures the way she met her husband, Kurtis. She shares intimate details that bring him viscerally to life; her book showcases how Kurtis saw her and helped her see herself. She also tugs at her readers' hearts with interjections of the loss to come. From the beginning, readers know Kurtis will die. The tension between immediacy and memory lends the book an etherealness despite its raw, human vulnerability. When the book comes to the moment of her husband's death, Lin struggles to retain the shards of herself she'd found with him in his absence. The aftershocks of it engender the remainder of the book, which she has written in poetic, fragmented chapters that convey how deeply people want to find words for what's wordless, to discover meaning in the meaningless. It offers few moments of relief or respite from the author's profound sadness, but it's well worth the read. VERDICT A poignant book. The author explores grief in its unshakable, impossibly enduring rawness.--Emily Bowles

Copyright 2024 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 15, 2023
A debut memoir about all-consuming grief. During the Covid-19 pandemic, Lin's husband, Kurtis, died suddenly while participating in a virtual half-marathon, with no identifiable cause of death. In this powerful exploration, the author poignantly translates the depths of her grief, its steady beat of pain, and its ever attendant tears. While navigating her husband's cremation and memorial, Lin also learned that she was facing her own threatening health condition. Thus, during the early days of her widowhood, she had to deal with her own treatments and recovery. She recounts this time period in short, deceptively simple sections, laying bare the searing emotion and absurd logistics that filled the days, months, and years that followed her husband's death. The author masterfully intertwines these sections with vignettes depicting her life and relationship with Kurtis, from their first dates through mundane meal prep during marriage. These scenes also are open and stripped down, arguably as tender as the passages about grief, exposing an abiding, all-absorbing love. "Everyone is so afraid of grief," writes Lin, "and this fear is dangerous to the grieving." While this text does not remove that fear--indeed, it may compound readers' discomfort by making the blistering agony of another person's loss so unavoidable--it does reveal the danger of not holding space for the bereaved. In allowing herself to sit in both the sadness and the beauty of her love story, and inviting readers into her isolation, Lin stakes a claim on empathy that is not about regaining strength and moving on, but rather about merely surviving by opening a window that prevents acute grief from exploding. As the author navigates the wake of her inexplicable loss, readers will be both humbled by and grateful for the way she brings us into her world. A beautifully visceral and emotionally intimate depiction of young widowhood.

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