“The year of magical thinking” was launched in 2005 and rapidly became a reference for someone in a grieving process. The North American writer Joan Didion saw her life turn upside down suddenly. Her husband passed away overnight at home while seeing his only daughter fight against a complicated disease. In her narrative Joan shows her strength but also her vulnerability. ‘How to live without him? How to go on in this unknown world? – are some of the questions the author comes up with.

There are no simple answers and the book is not a fairy tale. Maybe exactly because of this it is not a Reading for someone who is not going through a grieving process, and many people consider it a very sad book. However I believe that the ones who have gone through a loss and are trying to reorganize their lives, may value more the effort that this lady, almost at the age of 70, hade to make in the absence of her husband/great life partner to deal with the new challenges of life. And, who knows also want to write… because by what it seems, it was writing that helped Joan Didion to organize her new life.