Since 2018, Kelly Cervantes has candidly chronicled her own grief journey parenting her medically complex daughter, Adelaide, who passed away from epilepsy just days before her 4th birthday. Weeks later, the Cervantes family was uprooted when Kelly’s husband Miguel was cast as Hamilton on Broadway, moving them from their closest community and support system in Chicago to what would soon be the isolated and lonely epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S. Normal Broken was born out of those writings—her blog, Inchstones.

Approachable, narrative, and personal, reading Normal Broken feels like a sacred conversation with a friend who knows exactly how you feel, a companion in the dark. Much like grief itself, the book also isn’t linear: it doesn’t need to be read in order. It’s there to meet you where you are: from when your grief becomes destructive to when you feel emotionally hungover to when you’re ready to be okay (even happy).