I’ve read several good books this year – but it has been some time since I’ve read a book that I would consider a new favorite until this past week.

Ben Reeves Everything Was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt is absolutely breathtaking.

Bear in mind that I am still the death book lady, as I continue along, working on my nonfiction book about how we, as individuals and also collectively, deal with death – it has moved to the top of my project list now – so coming to this amazing work of fiction that explores life and death, meaning and grief, so perfectly has spoken to my heart deeply.

In Everything Was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt, the narrator, Travis, is literally death, personified as a young man walking among us in jeans and a t-shirt. The book tells many stories of those he meets briefly, sharing bits of their lives, and their ends, but it leans in heavily to a relationship he forms with a single mother and her children when he finds himself unable to maintain his usual safe distance from them.

Avoiding all spoilers, this book is both beautifully written and deeply thought provoking. It has stayed with me since I read it, turning it over in my mind – and it will definitely be a book I gift to loved ones.

It’s one of those rare books that make you completely ache as you feel all of the story while it also seems as though you could reach out and touch everyone in it. It’s really wonderful. ❤

Be well, everybody. Take care of yourselves and each other.

Grace and Blessings.