I found Itâs OK That Youâre Not OK in the wreckage of a grief so heavy I could barely breathe. It was the kind of loss that made people cross the street to avoid me, the kind that turned well-meaning friends into nervous strangers who tripped over hollow platitudes. Megan Devineâs words didnât just comfort meâthey saw me. Like she was kneeling in the debris beside me, whispering: "Youâre not broken. This is what love looks like when it has nowhere to go."
1. Grief Isnât a Problem to FixâItâs a Landscape to Navigate
Devine, a therapist who became grief-stricken herself after her partner drowned, dismantles our cultureâs obsession with "healing" and "closure." She writes about the suffocating pressure to "get better," the way people flinch when your pain outlasts their comfort. Her radical truth? Some wounds donât close. They become part of you. This wasnât permission to wallowâit was liberation from the tyranny of timelines. I stopped counting the months since my loss, stopped judging my tears. Grief wasnât my enemy anymore; it was just my love, persistent and unspent.
2. The Most Helpful Words Are Often the Quietest
The book ruthlessly exposes the violence of platitudes: "Theyâre in a better place," "Everything happens for a reason," "What doesnât kill youâ" Devine names what the bereaved already know: these arenât comforts, theyâre silencers. Instead, she offers the phrases that actually help: "This sucks. Iâm here. Tell me about them." I started writing these down, handing them to loved ones like a cheat sheet. One friend texted simply "Today must hurt" on the anniversaryâthe first message that didnât make me feel alone.
3. Grief Rewires Time Itself
Devine articulates what I couldnât: that loss doesnât just take a personâit steals your sense of time. The "before" feels like a different lifetime; the "after" moves in cruel fast-forwards and endless loops. She normalizes the disorientation: forgetting what year it is, smelling their perfume on a stranger, laughing before remembering youâre "supposed" to be sad. "Youâre not going crazy," she assures. "Youâre learning to live in a world that now has their absence in it."
4. Love Doesnât EndâIt Changes Form
The most beautiful chapter explores how we keep loving the dead. Devine rejects the pressure to "let go" or "move on." Instead, she offers ways to continue loving: lighting candles, writing letters, keeping their favorite coffee mug in the cabinet. "Grief is just love with no place to land," she writes. I started wearing my grandmotherâs ring every Tuesday, our old lunch date day. It wasnât clingingâit was remembering, and that felt like its own kind of survival.
5. The Only Way Out Is Through
Devine doesnât promise relief. She promises something better: companionship in the pain. Her book became my anchor when waves of sorrow hitânot because it made the waves smaller, but because it assured me I wouldnât drown. "You donât have to believe in âeverything happens for a reasonâ to find meaning," she says. "Sometimes the meaning is simply: this love mattered."
Why This Book is a Lifeline
Most grief books try to rescue you from the dark. Devine hands you a flashlight and sits beside you in it. Her prose is fierce and tender, like a friend who lets you scream into their shoulder but wonât let you isolate.
After reading, I stopped hiding my grief to make others comfortable. I said my brotherâs name out loud without apology. I understood that real healing isnât about feeling lessâitâs about being loved through the feeling.
Read if: Youâre tired of being told to "stay strong," if your loss feels too heavy for hollow optimism, or if you want to love someone in pain without trying to "fix" them. This book wonât take the hurt away. Itâll make it matter.
"Your grief is not a sign of weakness. Itâs proof of your extraordinary capacity to love." âMegan Devine
Stop overthinking, start believing in yourself, and take action. You belong here. 
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