Bittersweet

A True Story of Love and Loss

De: Lotte Bowser

Narrado por: Lotte Bowser

A moving and inspirational memoir about true love, the darkness of grief—and learning how to find your way back into the light.

"A work of staggering grace."—Women's Health

"Raw, relatable, uncensored."—Jeff Brazier

"The ultimate book about what it is to be human."—Stacey Heale

"Raw, brave, deeply moving and powerful."—Angela Scanlon

From the moment Lotte first met Ben, she knew they were meant to be together. And for a few years, their life was truly idyllic: flourishing careers, adored friends, and travel to every corner of the planet.

But when Ben was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer, Lotte was catapulted into the uncharted landscape of cancer medicine, becoming his caregiver overnight. With the world around them in lockdown, they refused to give up the fight for his survival, travelling from London to Mexico in hope of a cure at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.

When Ben lost his life, many miles from home, Lotte found herself asking: how do you see what the future looks like—without the person you love most in it?

Heartfelt and heartbreaking, healing and hopeful, this intimate memoir reminds us that grief and joy can coexist, and that life after loss can still be beautiful.

©2024 by Lotte Bowser. (P)2024 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

Reseñas de la Crítica

“Profound pain melds with profound hope in Bittersweet, Lotte Bowser’s beautiful debut. A work of staggering grace, this book reveals Bowser’s gift for communicating both the hellish enormity of her grief alongside her capacity to reach for shards of meaning in the most agonizing of times. Sure to be a balm for those grasping for an anchor in the raw days of early loss.”—Women’s Health

“Bittersweet is so beautifully visceral; as the reader, you feel as though you are living in the pages, your heart simultaneously bursting and breaking. This is a story tackling all the areas we hate to discuss but so desperately need to—illness, healthcare systems, death, grief—and how love is the soft embrace that will pull us through. The ultimate book about what it is to be human.”—Stacey Heale

A beautiful story of love, loss and hope

Reading Bittersweet was an emotional journey. The honesty and vulnerability in Lotte’s writing pulled me right in, and her gift for describing reality with such accuracy made every moment feel vivid and true. I felt every bit of her love, her heartbreak, and her resilience. This book left me both moved and uplifted—an unforgettable experience.

This book was like a seed that helped me reforest the dessert that’s been my life since he passed.

I’m not the best with words and this unwanted journey hasn’t made it any easier.

It’s been almost 6 months since I last saw him breathe and each day has been a Pandora’s box of unimaginable feelings and emotions and what seems to be unexplainable thoughts most times. This book, the detailed glimpse at who Ben is and was and who he will be in your life have been one of the most beautiful rays of sunshine I’ve experienced in a really long time. It’s given me a sense of being understood and feeling like I belong and like what I’ve felt these past months are a thing, grieving. And it’s also given me hope. Hope to find my home in this world while I’m finding who I will be now that’s it’s just me again. And hope to find my version of a mirror to look not just at my reflection but to what one day will be behind me, the hurt of the loss of not just his life but what my life could’ve been with him.

Thank you for writing this and thank you for being open with the world about yalls story.

It’s a strong book, in many senses. And it’s a book I couldn’t have handled 3 months ago. It came up today on a trip to New York and I finished it in less than 5 hours and timing couldn’t have been any better.

I recommend this to whoever is in need or could help with turning their desserts into a forest once again.