Cleo and Ethan suffered an unimaginable tragedy – the death of their child. With nothing left to make sense, Cleo attempts to head back to work before she is ready, and a workplace incident has her returning home to finish out her planned maternity leave. She receives a lifeline in the form of a job working as an assistant to a funeral director. In the coming months, she grapples with her loss, the concept of death and where we go when we die, and her relationship with both her best friend and her husband.

While this sounds like a difficult book to read, and believe me, there are parts that are brutally raw and honest, the novel itself is rather hopeful. I cannot fathom the difficulty associated with picking yourself up and moving on in the face of soul-crushing grief and depression. Cleo has a unique voice, one that is both deeply cynical and also optimistic at times.

The fact is, the world would be a better place if more people, more specifically men, stepped out of their comfort zone and read more books like CLEO DANG WOULD RATHER BE DEAD. Putting yourself in the shoes of a woman who lost her child through no fault of her own, will hopefully foster greater empathy, and while attention is also paid to Cleo’s husband Ethan, he is of the firm belief that you are to bottle all that fear, anxiety and hopelessness inside to be strong for your partner. Look, of course it’s integral to lean on one another, but it is foolish to deny yourself help if you’re struggling; by doing so, you are denying your partner your full self.

Grief is a complex emotion that does not come with a timetable. You cannot expect to get over it in weeks, months, or years, because it is wildly different for everyone. Author Mai Nguyen, sadly speaking from her own personal experience, affirms this throughout the story. Having gone through the same thing as her main character, I’m sure that the writing of this novel was a form of therapy for herself.

CLEO DANG WOULD RATHER BE DEAD is a heartbreaking albeit moving story about what we do with ourselves after a life-changing event and how our perceptions shape the rest of our lives.