I typically don’t read sad stories on vacation. I usually save them for quiet moments at home, often when it’s gloomy outside and my mood is melancholy. But it has been on my TBR for quite some time and at the forefront of my mind as of late, so I started and finished it in a single sitting. 

Here After is, as you may have surmised, a love story that ends as all of them eventually do: death. Amy Lin is 31 when her 32 year-old husband collapses at a half-marathon and never wakes up again. It is the gut-wrenching story of drowning in grief mixed into the memories she holds so dearly to; a hard and soft reminder that we—you, me, our partners, our parents, our friends—are not guaranteed life. 

This book reminded me, as I too often forget, that we must love fiercely. Despite it all—the light and the dark in our world—we must strive to love hard. We’re only human after all.