The Brink of Being

British Psychological Book Award - Popular Science category, 2021

ebook / ISBN-13: 9780349010755

Price: £18.99

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Winner of the British Medical Association Popular Medicine Book Award

Shortlisted for the British Psychological Society Book Award 2021


‘Illuminating and consoling’ JULIA SAMUEL, author of GRIEF WORKS

Though approximately one in four pregnancies ends in miscarriage, pregnancy loss remains a rarely talked about, under-researched, and largely misunderstood area of women’s health. This award-winning book aims to help break that silence.


With empathy, warmth and honesty, psychotherapist Julia Bueno blends women’s stories (including her own) with research and analysis, exploring the effect of pregnancy loss on women and highlighting the ways in which our society fails to effectively respond to it. The result is a galvanising, urgent and moving exploration of a too-often-hidden human experience, and a crucial resource for anyone struggling with – or seeking to better understand – miscarriage.

‘It’s the sort of book that women have long been searching for’ MEAGHAN O’CONNELL, author of And Now We Have Everything

‘Profound insight, rare courage’ ZOE WILLIAMS


‘Opening the door to more candid conversations’ OBSERVER

‘Intuitive and compassionate’ SATHNAM SANGHERA

Reviews

A much needed book on this difficult and often unspoken loss, that of early pregnancy. Julia Bueno talks powerfully from her personal experience as well as professionally which is both illuminating and consoling
Julia Samuel, author of Grief Works
A thoughtful work that identifies and honours an important passage of life for a great many women
Julia Leigh, author of Avalanche
Beautifully written and thoroughly researched, The Brink of Being is vital reading, both for those who have experienced miscarriage and for the people who want to support them. I think a lot of people are going to be stronger for reading this
Keith Stuart, author of The Boy Made of Blocks
The book is most viscerally a memoir of Bueno's own first pregnancy and miscarriage . . . She argues for institutionally sanctioned rituals of mourning. But more work needs to be done to find language and practices that heal rather than harm . . . Part of Julia Bueno's point, too: there is no right or uniform way of responding to miscarriage
Michele Pridmore-Brown, Times Literary Supplement
This is a book of profound insight, rare courage and calm, searching compassion. It made me reflect, not just on miscarriage, but on the solace of the intellect, and the euphoric rush of a broken silence
Zoe Williams
Bueno's choice of language is considered and thoughtful, unpacking difficult issues that are so often avoided for fear of causing distress. She writes with sensitivity and compassion, filling a muchneeded void in discussion around the subject, and opening the door to more candid conversations
Katy Lindemann, Observer
Julia is one of the most intuitive and compassionate and curious psychotherapists around, and in her approach to miscarriage all of these qualities are shown
Sathnam Sanghera
An intelligent, sensitive, and utterly candid book about miscarriage. Thanks to Bueno's radical empathy and openness, the reader comes away more consoled than heartbroken, and more curious than afraid. It's the sort of book that women have long been searching for, and it feels like real progress. I'm so thankful she wrote it
Meaghan O'Connell, author of And Now We Have Everything
Bueno's choice of language is considered and thoughtful, unpacking difficult issues that are so often avoided for fear of causing distress. She writes with sensitivity and compassion?, filling a much-needed void in discussion around the subject, and opening the door to more candid conversations
Observer
Wise and compassionate, Bueno is the friend (and expert) you want when you or a loved one suffers miscarriage. This is a profound game-changer of a book that can not only support women, but can help reshape a society that often ignores or sweeps women's issues under that proverbial rug
Caroline Leavitt, New York Times bestselling author of Pictures of You and Is this Tomorrow