Grief does something particular when it hits you young. This book is a moving exploration of that transformative pain, from the founder of The Grief Network. Rachel Wilson’s mother died when Rachel was in her twenties. It felt like the definitive end of childhood, a loss that rewired her perspective on life, death, relationships and who she was as a person. In this book, Rachel brings together other stories of bereavement with her own, encountering people who have lost parents, siblings, partners and friends at a young age. This book draws on psychological research, interviews with titans like Julia Samuel and explorations of grief in history: what happens in a time of war or pandemic, when the many grieve – or struggle to – together? How can the grief of losing a parent return in strange form when one thinks about having children? What do TV and fiction get disastrously, unhelpfully wrong?