Review of The Widow's Guide to Dead Bastards

I like to go into books knowing as little as possible about them. All I knew about this one was that it was a memoir with a catchy title. Therefore I was so surprised to discover most of the book takes place where I live and therefore many of the locations are familiar to me. Jess learns her 47 year old husband suddenly passes away on a work trip. That in itself is shocking but the more Jess digs into personal aspects such as banking info, website views etc she is stunned to find he was living a secret life. It turns out Sean had a massive porn addiction and had been having affairs. She had suspected one affair but all of the rest of this was nothing that she anticipated. Sean also was bipolar but was on no medication which definitely contributed to some of his erratic behaviour. Jess was grieving while dealing with all of these different sides of Sean and trying to help their young son with his grief. The first half of the book is uncovering everything around Sean’s life and the second half is Jess trying to find ways to move past the grief and hurt. Many of the grief therapies she seeks out are unconventional but everyone deals with grief and coping in their own way. I admired Jess for trying to move forward with respect and love for Sean with everything she now knew. This was definitely a compelling memoir.