Although Cariad Lloyd is an actress, regularly appears on tv comedy panel shows and is a member of the improvisation troupe 'Austentatious', she has gained a lot of attention in the past couple of years for her podcast interviewing well known personalities about their experiences of grief. I was interested, then, to see that she had released this book explaining more of her thoughts on the subject.  

When Cariad was 15, her dad died and she has felt defined by this early loss all her life. 

In a candid, honest, raw, but nevertheless entertaining book, she shares something of her grief but also her anger. She complains of how people say the wrong thing when someone has died and how society generally expects us to 'get over' our grief.

The five stages of grief which are so often quoted, are wrong and misleading, she says, in what is a very interesting dissection of how they were first suggested and then adopted. 

It's a well constructed book in weaving together the different elements - Cariad's personal story today and as a teenager, excerpts from the podcast Griefcast where 'celebs' share their stories, and details of all that she's learnt about grief through her research and interviews.

Undoubtedly people will respond to this book in different ways depending on their personal experiences but it is certainly an accessible and informative account, which brings humour and light to an important subject for us all.