Good Grief (Lib)(CD) [Unabridged] [Audio CD]

Lolly Winston (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 2004

Collector's Edition. Editorial Review: 36-year-old Sophie Stanton has just lost her husband to cancer. But instead of the five stages of grief, there are fourteen: Denial, Oreos, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Ashes, Lust, Waitressing, Mentoring, Dating, Baking, Acceptance, Goodwill, and Thanksgiving. Determined to be a good widow, Sophie nonetheless ends up scarfing cartons of ice cream for breakfast, weeping in the produce section, and showing up at work in her robe and bunny slippers. In no time, she finds she's lost not only her husband but her job and waistline as well. Hoping to reinvent her life, she moves to Ashland, Oregon. However, instead of finding a rugged Sam Shepard kind of guy, she finds herself involved in ever more hilariously confused adventures. Will she drop in a pile, or will she recover?

Product Details

• Audio CD: 9 pages
• Publisher: Books on Tape (April 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1415902097
• ISBN-13: 978-1415902097
• Product Dimensions: 7.1 x 6.7 x 1.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (213 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,148,640 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

73 of 77 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Perfectly baked!, May 12, 2004

By 

Dr Cathy Goodwin (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Good Grief (Hardcover)

Good Grief belongs to a sub-sub-genre of women's fiction. Likeable woman faces crisis. Discovers herself through transforming domestic, warm-and-fuzzy talents into a commercial enterprise. And, if single, she gets a romantic interest as a bonus.

As it happens, I rather like this sub-sub genre. And Lolly Winston gives us a heroine who's likeable and intelligent. She adds an edge by giving us a blow-by-blow account of a year in the life of a grieving widow. In this case, the grief seems especially painful because Sophie, the heroine, is young, and because she lost her own mother at a very young age.

Sophie's grief seems like a blanket someone has thrown over her life, stifling her energy. Like most employers, Sophie's company allots a limited time for grieving. After that, Sophie is supposed to be a cheerful PR person, extolling the virtues of some deeply flawed medical product.

Just as she hits bottom in her career, an old friend invites Sophie to move from California's Silicon Valley to Ashland, Oregon. And Sophie's new life begins.

Sophie finds a charming rental cottage and a job in a restaurant, where she gets downgraded from waitress to salad prep and then to pastry, where she finds her true niche. She begins to study baking in earnest and, along the way, finds a new love and a new career.

Of course, it's not quite that easy. Sophie becomes a Big Sister (the reasons are a little value and I'm surprised she was accepted, given her grief-stricken state). Her Little Sister, Crystal, isn't the cuddly eight-year-old she expected, but a tough-talking teen with a ditzy mom and potentially serious problems. Some of Sophie's descents into grief can be hard to read, despite a comedic element. Sophie's opening party pushes the envelope when anything that can go wrong does go wrong.

In the end Sophie emerges as a strong heroine, although some elements of the happy ending owe more to luck than to Sophie's efforts. As a career coach, I wish these authors wouldn't make starting a business seem so effortless. But I have to say that most career transformations happen just this way: putting one foot in front of the other, remaining open to new options, and being willing to follow your passion to see where it leads.

40 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Something new. Chick lit/romance based on grieving, June 19, 2004

By 

Peggy Vincent "author and reader" (Oakland, CA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Good Grief (Hardcover)

What an unusual premise for a sweet little romance to take off from: our heroine is in her thirties, recently widowed after only a few years of marriage. It's difficult to make profound grief funny, but Lolly Winston manages it in spades. There's an especially funny scene in which Winston keeps the point of view and voice and tone that of Sophie, her grieving narrator, while she's coming completely unglued (showing up for work in her bathrobe and slippers, scarfing down carbs and sweets - hot dog buns with honey! - and talking in gibberish). In writerly terms, this is called Your Basic Crazy Unreliable Narrator, but Winston holds it together just long enough for the poor woman to be packed off to a shrink.
Somewhere between quitting her job and being fired, she takes a leave of absence in the interest of mental health, treks off to pretty Ashland, Oregon, and begins, improbably, to try patching herself together by becoming a volunteer Big Sister to a very angry pyromaniac teenage girl - not the most sensible choice, but what the hay: it's a romance novel, after all.
And, right on cue, in comes Mr. Wonderful.
Happy ending, eventually, of course. Lots of improbable stuff along the way, but this book is so well written and handles the vagaries of grief so well that you've gotta love it.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Left me wanting more..., May 21, 2006

By 

C. Douglass (Cary, Illinois United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Good Grief (Paperback)

Well, you know the phrase, "leave them wanting more". Lolly Winston did. (WHEN is that next book available?) I wanted to know how the rest of the character's lives panned out, and wanted another book by the same author the minute I was done with the first. Lolly took a subject that our culture finds difficult to discuss, talks about it openly and honestly, and pokes some fun at it along the way. Her characters are flawed and complex, as is her portrayal of grief. My favorite character was Crystal. As a mom of two teenage girls, I wonder if Lolly has spent the last year doing research in a high school - even the teenage vernacular is right on the money! Couldn't put it down, and I can't wait for the next book. Keep 'em coming!