Sometimes Life Sucks: When Someone You Love Dies

I liked this book because, as the title indicates, it's pretty bullshit-free. I haven't read any other teen-specific grief books but a lot of the adult ones are pretty bullshit laden. This is full of little anecdotes about teens/kids and different types of grief, interspersed with little boxes saying it's OK to feel however you feel, and little “it gets better” type mini-anecdotes from kids like “I was super sad when my best friend died and I still am but now I smile when I see pictures of us” or whatever.

When I picked it up I didn't realize it was Australian though, and it's full of weirdo Australian slang. (Sorry if it's not culturally sensitive to call grieving Australians weirdos. But like, one of the anecdotes is about a kid whose friends are in a bad car accident, and his friends are named Toad, Mouth, and Boz. Umm, not in America. And the other 2 die but Toad ends up on life support and is described as being “pretty well cactus.” What?! Does that mean he's full of needles? He doesn't require much water? WHAT) RIP Mouth and Boz.

Anyway, I wish there were an American edition of this. Like I wouldn't have thought the Australian slang would be so pervasively confusing, but CRIKEY it totally was.