The Local Authors Book Club, hosted by The Inner Loop, will meet on Thursday, June 27th, at 7 pm. We will be reading The Requirement of Grief by Danielle Ariano.

About the book:

Danielle Ariano spends much of her childhood in suburban Philadelphia, trying to mimic her older sister Alexis: the way she dresses, speaks, even the way she stands when she smokes. But at 12, Ariano gets the first clue that all might not be well in Alexis's inner world, when her sister locks herself in a bathroom and swallows a handful of aspirin. This is the first of 13 suicide attempts that will span 30 years.

The Requirement of Grief lays bare the relationship between two sisters and the bond that remains in the wake of a suicide. In startlingly honest prose, Ariano tracks her grief journey chronologically through days, months, and years; all the way through the birth of her first son. But will the unparalleled new joy of motherhood be powerful enough to drive out her grief?

Equal parts shatteringly sad and infinitely hopeful, The Requirement of Grief, tells the story of one person learning to bear the unbearable.