Speed Grieving

The One

By: Allison Ellis

Narrated by: Allison Ellis

From a suddenly widowed but resourceful young mother comes this darkly funny, poignant, and true exploration of love, loss, and starting over - with a plan.

When Allison Ellis’s husband died of an unexpected heart attack, there was no playbook for a thirty-three-year-old widow with a breastfeeding infant. In her grief, she devised a practical strategy: find a new husband within twelve months. What transpired was a year of mourning, manic dating, and breaking hearts across Seattle on a deadline mission to heal her own.

Allison Ellis’s Speed Grieving is part of The One, a collection of seven singularly true love stories of friendship, companionship, marriage, and moving on. Each piece can be read or listened to in a single sitting, with or without company.

©2019 Allison Ellis (P)2019 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

Touching and honest

The narrator was able to capture the emotions that come with loss, especially unexpected loss, of someone we love. She walks us through the different directions she took to find herself and a new life without her husband.

I REALLY Liked this one!

Great story, well written, enjoyed listening to her as she spun her tale. Sad beginning, wonderful fairy tale happy ending, and oddly humorous all the way through. Yup! I really liked this one a lot!!

excellent storytelling, great pace

Unexpected gem of a story. Not overly sentimental, just a practical description of one young mother thrown into circumstances she didn't want and getting on with things. The author/narrator made me laugh at loud at times and always had my full attention.

Great Story- Painfully Slow Moving

A lovely story of an attempt to grieve at the speed of light. The author lost her husband and in the hope of finding another to help her raise her young infant, schedules out the grieving process. This story enlightens readers that grief isn’t a linear process that can be rapidly experienced, it’s sporadic and takes time to truly heal.

My main complaint with this story is that it is rather short and because of this, the narrator reads at a painfully slow pace. I ended up listening to this audio book on 1.5-2x speed. This story could have been recorded in 30-45 minutes and instead was stretched farther to make it worth recording/downloading.

I recommend this audio book but don’t recommend listening if you expect it to take up approx. 2 hours of time, because unless you like slow, you’ll have it finished in 30.

HEA OR HFN?

HEA OR HFN? No matter - the author is H when she closes the book, not because happiness “found” her, but because she created a life that made it so. And that makes me happy for her, as well as hopeful for a future after the unimaginable has occurred.

Widowed with an infant at 33

Allison's husband Greg passes unexpectedly of a heart attack. She's 33 years old with a breastfeeding infant. Extremely sad she places herself on a timeline to date and remarry. This book makes you aware healing comes with time.

Authors are not good narrators

The readers can make or break an audio book. She is monotone and awkward. Please authors hire a good narrator.

Inforgettable

Massively tragic, but in a snort- inducingly wry kind of way. More, please! This author is one to watch; I'm phoning her in to the weather service because this is tornado watch type stuff.

Choppy Narating

I like her voice, but unfortunately the reading is too choppy, almost robotic, to enjoy.
I actually could tell that I would have enjoyed the story if this wasn’t an issue:(

Somber

I realize this is a difficult subject matter but her reading tone is super depressing and a bit monotone. Detracts a bit from an important story.