Good Grief

On Loving Pets, Here and Hereafter

By: E.B. Bartels

Narrated by: Eileen Stevens

An unexpected, poignant, and personal account of loving and losing pets, exploring the singular bonds we have with our companion animals, and how to grieve them once they’ve passed.

E.B. Bartels has had a lot of pets—dogs, birds, fish, tortoises. As varied a bunch as they are, they’ve taught her one universal truth: to own a pet is to love a pet, and to own a pet is also—with rare exception—to lose that pet in time.

But while we have codified traditions to mark the passing of our fellow humans, most cultures don’t have the same for pets. Bartels takes us from Massachusetts to Japan, from ancient Egypt to the modern era, in search of the good pet death. We meet veterinarians, archaeologists, ministers, and more, offering an idiosyncratic, inspiring array of rituals—from the traditional (scattering ashes, commissioning a portrait), to the grand (funereal processions, mausoleums), to the unexpected (taxidermy, cloning). The central lesson: there is no best practice when it comes to mourning your pet, except to care for them in death as you did in life, and find the space to participate in their end as fully as you can.

Punctuated by wry, bighearted accounts of Bartels’s own pets and their deaths, Good Grief is a cathartic companion through loving and losing our animal family.

Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2022 E.B. Bartels (P)2022 HarperCollins Publishers

Much needed reflections.

I bought this book a few years ago…not knowing when I’d find the space to read it. I recently lost both of my fur children only 17 days apart from one another. I needed this reflection. This book was so helpful and so inspiring for my own life/death journey. Thank you E.B. 🖤

Best book I’ve ever listened to

This book honestly changed my life. I was holding on to so much grief without knowing what to do with it and this book helped me start to heal those wounds. I cried so much.

Thank Heavens!

Such a delightful personal and heartfelt sharing of how we grieve out pets. Thank you EB

Great Topic, Poor Execution

Purchased this book after pet loss left me absolutely devastated. What I appreciated is the author’s dedication to validate grief for pet loss and the beginning of the book which conveyed this very meaningfully was great. However, as the book went on, it became more of a dirge that culminated in the author’s swift retelling of the passing of her parents’ dogs after having spent a ton of time on fish and birds. I nodded off at a few parts and wasn’t interested enough to go back and relisten to what I’d missed. Overall, a strong beginning that just unraveled the more it went on. The more the author revealed about herself, the less likeable she was and the credibility of the original assertions suffered for it. It ultimately became part research paper, part silver-spoon woman lamenting.

Performance wise, it was lackluster. Not horrible, but there wasn’t much polish you could put on this one.