LITERARY REVIEWS FOR THE BOX MUST BE EMPTY
“This profoundly moving memoir leads with vulnerability, communicates with grace, and delivers the kind of hard-earned wisdom that only comes with time. An intensely personal story of recovery, its lessons apply to any soul with unhealed wounds.”
Daryl Potter, author of “Even the Monsters” and “Bitter for Sweet”
“Marilyn Kriete states her reason for writing this book on its final page: There was none like it. Well, I agree. I know of no one who captures the referred pain of an unmourned relationship like she does. I know of no one who captures the beauty and confusion and love and trauma of an unhealthy church like she does. And she does it with moxie and grace and clarity and wisdom and, above all, realness. It’s a candidness you can feel in your bones. She was right: This is a one-of-a-kind book.”
Ken Guidroz, author of “Letters to My Son in Prison: A Memoir”
“Marilyn is an insightful storyteller who provides language for the most damaged parts of ourselves. She connects with the culturally specific ways that many people in churches experience grief. I recommend this book for anyone working through delayed and complicated grief and/or spiritual trauma.”
Kyle Spears, Mental Health Practitioner, The Attachment and Trauma Center of Nebraska
“Do not make the mistake of thinking that Marilyn Kriete’s book is a straightforward memoir; it is not. Rather, Marilyn mixes autobiography, ethnography, and testimony in a raw and candid manner that both captivates and illuminates. She gifts us the privilege of peering into her often-tortured inner world, unfurling her personal grief before us. Yet this suffering is intermingled with the travails of her controversial faith group. Her grief is constantly overshadowed by the multi-tentacled demands of ministry work and one imagines how she survived to write this book at all. A worthy read for anyone seeking the wisdom to understand how egregious losses emerge from a human soul while in the midst of a tight-knit God fearing community, I can’t recommend this book highly enough.
Sean St. Jean, PhD, MSW, RSW, Director of Field Education at King’s University, Tennessee
“…a compelling and heartfelt memoir that paints a vivid picture of the grieving process and the impact unresolved grief can have on a person’s life and those around them. The raw emotions and moving journey the author showcases will resonate with readers long after the book ends.”
Anthony Alvina, Book blogger and author
“Few writers can escort the reader through the tough stumbling blocks of crises—death of loved one, a flawed marriage, dysfunctional families, depression, and even loss of faith in a ministry—with the skill of this insightful author. The words flow, the emotions surge, and the empathy soars as she closes with the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. Brilliantly written and consummately interesting, this little book is a valuable assist to everyone who faces crises—and isn’t that all of us? Highly recommended.”
Grady Harp, Top 100 Amazon Reviewer
READER REVIEWS FOR THE BOX MUST BE EMPTY
“This is a memoir about resilience and courage, qualities I’ve always admired
in others. The writer experienced not just sadness but overwhelming,
prostrating grief that came close to destroying her. She offers no easy
answers, no platitudes, no one-size-fits-all solutions, just her own account of how she fought her way, tooth and nail, to healing and growth after she was set upon, like a mugger out of a dark alley, by long-buried grief rooted in the early death of someone she loved with all her heart. I’m at an age now where I feel free to abandon books that are for whatever reason not doing it for me, but I downed Marilyn’s book, in two huge gulps, in less than a day.”
—Declan Joyce
“If you or yours has experienced a grief that will not lessen with time, that is affecting you or your family way more than you think it should, here is a memoir you should read. It took years for Mrs. Kriete to undergo some healing, and maybe she can now help you. And may God help you all.”
—Harry S. Morehead, M.D.
“Beautifully written… what a compelling story. I read it in two days … couldn’t put it down, because I felt drawn in by the author’s very real sharing of her deep pain over both her past and more present griefs. You will ache along with her … her descriptions of the depth of her hurt brought me to tears more than once. I had read Ms. Kriete’s fascinating and vulnerable first book, which introduced me to her childhood and the beginnings of her story: it is what drew me to her second memoir. I loved learning how she and God worked together through her pain and great losses; and seeing how much strength she gained from her honest, deep relationship with God, and from her love of the Bible. I came away feeling much hope, and courage, seeing that even deep and complicated grief can be faced, and that there can be true peace on the other side.”
—Beth Westbrook
“I fell in love with Marilyn Kriete’s writing when I read her first book, ‘Paradise Road,’ and this second book does not disappoint. It’s full of the same kind of brutal honesty, passion, humor, colorful narrative, and poetic writing that kept me riveted in the first book. I actually had to stop myself after a few hours of uninterrupted reading, so that I could savour it over a few days instead of devouring it in one sitting. Marilyn’s journey of grief is long and complicated, and it seems at times as if her life is doomed to sorrow, abandonment, loneliness and disillusionment, but she is a fighter. She fights for healing, and she finds it, not in one simple solution, which would not be realistic, because her grief is not simple. The solution comes slowly, wholistically, as she engages body, soul, spirit, and mind. Everyone’s story of grief is slightly different, but there is so much for all of us to learn from Marilyn’s journey that I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it to anyone who is struggling with grief, or anyone who works with those who grieve. Not only is the content valuable, but the writing is beautiful, evocative, and easy to read. Her descriptions of some of the characters who cross her path paint such a vivid picture that you feel as though you know them.”
—Gwen Bodie
“Anyone with unresolved grief, usually hidden down deep in their box of inner memories, will find it arises, as old and new tears, on the pages of this very stirring memoir! I highly recommend this follow-up to Kriete’s first book, ‘Paradise Road.’”
—Laura Fizelle
“There is no question in my mind that I will be purchasing this for one or more gifts. A moving personal story of understanding complex lingering grief of a love suddenly lost (read Marilyn’s first book, ‘Paradise Road’ for more on that), made worse by many hurts from a worldly heavy handed and legalistic church culture driven by the one she calls ‘top leader.’ Marilyn’s experience is intense as she wrestles through her grief to reach a good place. A moving book that led me to read it not once but twice!”
—Carolyn Stanfield
“I read Marilyn Kriete’s first memoir ‘Paradise Road’ and loved it so much that I could not wait for her second memoir. I was not disappointed. Marilyn is a gifted and evocative writer. Though I could not relate to the kind of long delayed and immense grief she suffered over a lost love, her story taught me how faith can sustain us through any trial. Her time with her husband, Henry, the Church of Christ and the heartbreak it led to while they were raising their two children and living all over the world made for a one-of-a-kind story that was hard to put down.”
—Monique Maitre
“Inherently, ministry life is lonely; add repressed grief to the situation and it produces a tale of gut-wrenching isolation and all neuroticism that ensues. If you thought it’s tough to be a leader in a church setting, ‘The Box Must Be Empty’ dispels such silly notions: it is downright brutal. Kriete invites the reader to share in her messy experience of catharsis while she skillfully cradles the shock in humor and wit. This author will not disappoint. It’s not just her authenticity you’ll connect with, her epigrammatic elegance is left on every page.”
—June Forman
“As I traveled with Marilyn through her grief journey, I watched her struggle with overwhelming sadness over her losses and unwelcome changes to her ministry responsibilities, discover the Grief Recovery Method and come to peace with everything. It led me to procure the ‘Grief Recovery Handbook’ for myself to process the things in my life that I wish were ‘different, better, more.’”
—Emily Taylor