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This book, which has eight chapters, an introduction, and a conclusion, explores issues of crying, grief, forgiveness, acceptance, rejection, and hate. Brubaker, a doctor of osteopathic medicine, bases this thought-provoking work on patients who grieve, his own grief work with personal and health issues, and some professional documentation. Included is the past work of Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross on the five stages of grief, which, admittedly, is outdated. Regarding Kübler-Ross, he notes the above and adds two stages. These include shock as a first stage and moving on as a last stage. The book offers a deep dive into crying, grieving, and forgiveness, while also covering fear, stress, anxiety, the fight-or-flight response, and the autonomic nervous system. It examines other ideas such as mindfulness, social rejection, moral relativism, hate speech, and hate crimes.
Chock-full of information, this book goes beyond what most books on grief promise. It is expansive in its variety of ideas and sets a number of scenarios, especially in the chapter on grief. The definitions of concepts are valuable, as is the information on neurobiology. The book is based on philosophical, psychological, sociological, biological, and even biblical premises, which makes it interesting. However, one can argue that the work attempts to do too much and, at times, comes across as overwhelming, with information that does not always fit the topic. Yet it is still likely that many will find all the knowledge and the sub-information that goes beyond grief to be timely in a world facing numerous problematic issues.