I'm glad this wasn't the first book I read on grief
I had trouble getting in to this book. It wasn't very easy to read and didn't do me much good. I was luck to have read other books that helped me before I opened this one.

Helpful and comforting
I lost my husband suddenly due to a drunk driver shortly after we were married (I was 22). It was my first close experience with death - he died before my grandparents, or anyone else close to me, and I was completely overwhelmed to say the least.

This book was given to me by a friend of the family and it really was a lifesaver. It was comforting to read something that focused on feelings, emotions, and expectations without being fluffy or sappy.

This book is so well written and offers healing words and advice that have stayed with me for years. As another reviewer mentioned, I give this book as a sympathy gift instead of flowers or another card.

Understanding Grief, your own and others'
This book was, for me, invaluable. It helped to understand the intense turmoil (physical, pschological, familial, social) that the death of a loved one can unleash. I first read it when my beloved grandmother died sooner than expected, and I was in a whirlwind of grief from it. It was an essential resource for me, then, when my father died suddenly, just weeks after my grandfather did, who had had a long-term illness. Part of what I found so incredible about this book, is that it humanizes this experience that feels so intense: it does an excellent job of talking through different waves of grief -- which is not just progressive, alas -- and the different kinds of death of a loved one, which may generate responses in very different inflections, and times.
It really is a companion as well as a resource, helping to understand one's own experiences, and other people's. In that it offers advice and solace, for sometimes the trauma of grief can wreak crisis across families, and communities, as folks experience parallel but very distinctive losses, depending on who they are, culturally and individually. She does an excellent job of helping folks feel less isolated, and scared, by helping to understand grief in context, and as a profoundly human experience.
This is one of the few books I have shared with others often---for I feel it can make an incredible positive difference to a person's life. It did in mine.
Maya Roth

How To Go On Living When Someone You Love Dies
My favorite choice of books on dealing with the death of a loved one. Educates you on things to expect from grief, suggestions to make it through, and then ways to reinvest in life without your loved one.

Understand your grief.
After learning of this book through the Boulder,CO hospice organization, I have recommended it to three close friends. They all gave it in turn to other family members. Explanations of the grief process reassure the reader that they need not worry if they do not 'grieve' in the same way
others do. Much wisdom to be found here.