Synopses & Reviews
A true story about the ways loss can transform us into the people we want to become.
Laurel Braitman spent her childhood learning how to outfish grown men, keep bees, and fix carburetors from her larger-than-life dad. Diagnosed with terminal cancer, he went to spectacular lengths to teach her the skills she'd need to survive without him. But by her mid-thirties she is a ship about to splinter on the rocks, exhausted by running from her own bad feelings. We follow as Laurel changes course, navigating multiple wildernesses — from northern New Mexico and western Alaska to her own Tinder app. She learns the hard way that no achievement, no matter how shiny, can protect her from pain, and works to transform guilt and regret into gold: learning from a badass birder in the Bering Sea, a few dozen grieving kids in a support group, a pile of smoking ashes, and countless online dates. Along the way, she faces a wildfire that threatens everyone and everything she cares about, a grueling test of her own survival skills, and the fact that we often have to say our hardest goodbyes before we're ready. In the end Laurel realizes that being open to love after loss is not only possible, it can set us free.
What Looks Like Bravery is a hero's journey for our times. Laurel teaches us that hope is a form of courage, one that can work as an all- purpose key to the locked doors of your dreams.
Review
"An affecting investigation of loss, sorrow, and the search for meaning." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"Gripping and gorgeous, this memoir is drawn from wisdom that only comes from life-altering loss. With breathtaking candor, Braitman sits us down by the campfire and shares a story that is relatable in its humanity but filled with the unexpected details that make for a riveting, mesmerizing tale. It made me understand my own childhood in a whole new way. What Looks Like Bravery is deeply, surprisingly healing." Kevin Kwan, New York Times bestselling author of Crazy Rich Asians
Review
"Evocative and clear-eyed....Just as Eat Pray Love and Wild inspired millions, this book will send countless readers on a different — yet no less life-changing or profound — pilgrimage, as it did for me." Samin Nosrat, New York Times bestselling author of Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat
Review
"The best kind of breathless, propulsive, rollicking human story — it will surprise you, inspire you, break your heart, and make you laugh out loud. To say this book is impossible to put down is cliché, but true: I tore through it in one sitting. It's a life-changing lesson in healing from loss and trauma and a master class in resilience. It couldn't have come at a better time.” Rebecca Skloot, New York Times bestselling author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
Review
"A gripping, luminous story. Braitman teaches us how to stay open to life and love in a world we can't control, a world in which loss is inevitable but where hope springs eternal. It's a revelatory tale about using your past to create your own beautiful future. A must-read." Lucy Kalanithi, MD, Stanford School of Medicine and widow of Dr. Paul Kalanithi, author of When Breath Becomes Air
Review
"Beautiful. Laurel proves to us that home is something you carry inside of you and, in it, there is room for every feeling — the great, the bad, and the cheeky. This book will tear you apart and then put you back together again — and it will feel so good." BJ Miller, MD, author of A Beginner's Guide to the End
About the Author
Laurel Braitman is the New York Times bestselling author of Animal Madness. She has a PhD from MIT in the history and anthropology of science and is the Director of the Writing and Storytelling Program at the Stanford University School of Medicine. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, Wired, and a variety of other publications. She lives between rural Alaska and her family's citrus and avocado ranch in Southern California. She can be reached at LaurelBraitman.com.