Grave Talk - Nick Spalding - ★★★★.¼

AUTHOR: Nick Spalding

NARRATORS: Imogen Church & Steve West

GENRE: Contemporary Drama

PUBLICATION DATE: November 1, 2024

RATING: 4.25 stars.

In a Nutshell: A contemporary drama about a man and a woman who bond with each other over their shared grief. Many heartwarming moments and also many heartbreaking moments. Has some light scenes to round out the intensity of the emotions. Goes a bit over the top at times, but on the whole, a beautiful book. Not a romance!

Plot Preview:

Six months after her husband Joe’s death, Alice is still finding it tough to overcome her grief. As she is sobbing by his graveside on his birthday, the last thing she expects to see is a man dressed up as Kermit the Frog. Kermit turns out to be Ben, whose older brother Harry died three months prior. For some unknown reason, Harry stipulated that Ben visit his grave on this specific day every year, wearing a fancy-dress outfit predecided by Harry.

Both Alice and Ben are struggling to move beyond their loss, so a strong bond forms between them. They decide to meet in the graveyard at the same time every year, helping each other to move on. As the years go by, will they be able to put behind their grief and embrace life anew?

The story comes to us in the alternating first-person POVs of Alice and Ben.

PSA: If you are anything like me, you would read the above and jump straight to the idea that Alice and Ben are “made for each other” and destiny has thrown them together for a new romantic relationship. You are wrong, as was I. Don’t dismiss the book as a typical romance, as I originally did.

Bookish Yays:

🌹 The LACK of romance. I had assumed this book to be a typical second attempt at romance. I took a chance on it only after I saw it get consistently good reviews. I was so happy to be proven wrong! This is a love story, but not of romantic love.

🌹 Another standard trope that is broken is the manner of overcoming grief. While fictional characters are often shown in pain, they are also shown getting over the loss of their loved ones slowly but steadily. This book demonstrates the reality of how complicated grief is, and how the path to go beyond one’s loss isn’t always linear.

🌹 Alice and Ben – what wonderful lead characters! Grieving, angry, helpful, flawed, concerned, lost! I loved how true to life their portrayal was, right from the ups to the downs, the progressions and the regressions.

🌹 As the blurb doesn’t mention the characters’ ages, I too won’t spoil the fun. Suffice it to say: as there is an age gap of a few years between the two, it is nice to see both characters assist each other in navigating through their pain, rather than having the older character showing the truths of life to the younger one.

🌹 The story spans several years, and the corresponding growth of the characters is written really well.

🌹 The portrayal of grief is so striking. Especially in the initial few pages, the heartrending depiction of Alice’s and Ben’s individual pain is just brilliant. I appreciate how the plot doesn’t take the standard five stages of grief and make a story connecting the same. The approach is more honest than theoretical.

🌹 The emotions other than grief also come out strongly. I have rarely seen male authors write emotions so well, and that too, for both the male as well as the female character. (I realise I am again showing my bias against male authors, but anytime they break the norm, I am just stunned.) The story also incorporates several additional themes such as stress, peer pressure and parental trauma in a true-to-life manner.

🌹 Of the two people who play such a dominant role in the story even without being alive, Alice’s late husband Joe seems wonderful. My kind of guy, even if he's a bit too unambitious. His sensible manner won my heart. Ben’s brother Harry was trickier to like. Though I felt sad that he died so young, I found it tough to sympathise with someone who came across as a self-centred young man who couldn’t see the harm of his pranks. (Who says that we have to like the dead just because they are dead, right?) I liked how these two characters added so much to the story without being present it in directly, and also how the characters weren’t deified just because they were dead.

🌹 Ben’s fancy dress costumes. Gotta hand it to Harry: he may have been a selfish prankster, but the bloke had a wacky sense of humour!

🌹 The rugby match scene! 😆 To be honest, when the chapter started, I thought I'd be bored to death because I'm not at all into sports and I don't know anything about rugby. Then came the thrilling revelation: Ben knew as much about rugby as I did. Listening to his first-person commentary on how the match was going is a hilarious experience.

🌹 For the first time ever, I was grinning like an idiot at the impossibly picture-perfect finale. I'm hardly ever happy about overly neat endings, but this time, as I was so invested in the two characters for so many fictional years, it felt really good to see them get what they deserved.

🌹 Loved the clever title and its clever pun! The cover is also fabulous – so apt for the story!

Bookish Mixed Bags:

🥀 The story is a bit repetitive in the third quarter, probably because the characters take longer than assumed to get over their pain. The tempo doesn’t slow down, but as a lot of time has passed by this point, I did feel impatient to see the resolution.

🥀 As the span of the story is quite long, there are many characters who appear and disappear from the narrative. I wanted to learn more about a few of the secondary characters. But as we get the story in first person, their portrayal is limited to what Ben or Alice tell us. I did like Jobbers a lot (read the book to know who he is); I wanted much more of him in the book!

🥀 The “challenges” were a good way of pushing the plot ahead, but they were also a bit too personal and unfair at times. Had I been in that character’s position, I would have protested harder.

Bookish Nays:

⚰️ The whole “Squeezy Alice” segment – I wish it had been culled from the final plot. It turned a great book into a comic caricature for a few pages. (Honestly, had this subplot not been in the book, I might even have gone to 4.5 stars and rounded my rating upwards.)

⚰️ There’s a teeny scene where Alice remarks negatively on a salon client’s weight. She does this only in her head, the scene lasts only briefly, and it just reflects her disturbed state of mind. Regardless, I still wish some other writing choice had been made here, especially when the line wasn’t essential for the plot. Fatshaming isn’t less cruel just because it comes from the grieving.

🎧 The Audiobook Experience:

The audiobook, clocking close to 10 hours, is narrated by Imogen Church and Steve West. I have heard Church’s narration before and she is usually fabulous. In this book, she handles Alice's emotions well (OTT and screechy at times but mostly good), but she can't handle male voices. The voice she used for Ben was quite odd. I have not heard Steve West before, but he certainly surprised me. I liked his performance, and appreciated that he didn’t do the squeaky female voice so many male narrators opt for. Both the narrators’ voices suit the characters well.

Regardless of the few scenes where I felt that Church could have dialled down her emotions, the audiobook is a wonderful option to experience this novel. For a story with two first-person narrative viewpoints and so many emotions, the use of dual narrators helps us feel a greater intimacy with the characters.

All in all, I loved this book even better than I thought I would. It was a great medley of funny as well as touching, and sometimes, even tear-inducing. The no-romance factor was a huge plus for me.

This is my first book by this acclaimed author, and I am definitely interested in reading more of his works.

Definitely recommended to readers who enjoy contemporary fiction with realistic characters and deep emotions. Though there are many light moments in the book, a major chunk is intense in its portrayal of loss and grief. So make sure you are in a strong headspace before you pick this up.

My thanks to Brilliance Audio for providing the ALC of “Grave Talk” via NetGalley. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the audiobook.

The digital version of this book is currently available on Kindle Unlimited.